Opinions will vary quite a bit. My take:
With Ashbory, the more sterile the better. My big amp setup has a Mesa preamp and a Yorkville 400BH head. Yorkville makes a lot of PA equipment and their solid state amps are sterile. For Bass Guitar I use the Mesa in front (it's got a couple preamp tubes) but for the Ashbory I prefer to run right into the Yorkville. The Large Sound Commerce test amp is a Yorkville XM200, and my personal living room amp is also an XM200. I prefer something warmer for bass guitars but for Ashbory, sterile is better. That's why I have Yorkville everywhere (that and they're well made and not crazy expensive).
The Ashbory records really well direct. If you've got enough tone controls to dial in the sound you want between the bass itself and the board, I'd keep that option in mind. I haven't tried recording with a line out from an XM200 but it probably would work pretty well, but that's overkill in your instance. You don't need a 200 Watt combo amp for what you want to do.
The Large Sound sound clip (
http://www.largesound.com/ashborytour/sound/ ) was recorded in a hurry and it was done that way because that was the amp I had in my living room at the time and Bob had fiddled around with it and dialed everything in like he wanted, and THEN I said "Hey, can I record that?". Recording was an afterthought. When I've recorded me playing Ashbory, it's been direct.
That's my take.
-Brock
