Personally - as a guitar player - I HATE the sound of my looping rig direct to monitors.
I much prefer to go through stereo ((4x10) x2) bass cabs and 1000 watts of amplification feeding them.
Smaller gigs - a JC 120 AND a Fender Bandmaster head into a 15 inch bass speaker.
Really small locations, just the JC120.
And trust me I am hitting some crazy lows and hi's with my set-up.
Having 2 layers of compression helps though! :-)
David