Digital Clef

  It seems that every year, around the end of July, I end up making a ridiculous purchase. This year is no exception. It all started by trying out a used bass cab at Long & McQuade on an all-tube amp head, which left me with more questions than answers. That little experience sent me on a quest to find the ideal amp and cab combo for my use-case: playing in front of a large audience (the cat) in a gigantic venue (my office). For the inquiring minds, the manatee on top of the stack is named Manny the Manatee and no, the delay was not part of the deal (I already owned it).  The requirements There are few requirements the setup must fulfill: Not take that much real-estate Be more powerful than my practice amp Have lots of headroom Be easy to tone-shape Have a tube preamp Must be able to get vintage and modern sounds Nice-to-have: Have an effects loop Have a post-preamp DI out Finding the cab was the easiest part. The amp required a lot more effort to figure out. The speaker c...