This ACG preamp came with my used F Bass BN5 when I bought it before Christmas. I just recently had a stock F Bass preamp installed and I'm now selling the ACG. It's a fantastic sounding and extremely versatile preamp, but I decided I prefer a more standard approach to EQ shaping, especially since I rarely touch the EQ at all.
This is the older 01 discontinued version of the ACG preamp, meaning it has TWO bass filter stacks (one for each pickup in a 2 pickup bass) plus the treble filter stack. This preamp is setup in 4 stack knob configuration (volume/blend, bass filter, bass filter, treble filter). In addition, it has pre-wired a master kill switch and what I think is a series/parallel switch for the neck pickup only (at least that's what it seemed to do on my F Bass).
I honestly have no idea how one would go wiring it into a bass, but if you are electronically minded, it shouldn't be too difficult as the entire preamp harness is intact and connected. George Furlanetto from F Bass just clipped the pickup and output jack leads. A few months ago, Alan (from ACG guitars) was super helpful with my questions about this preamp, so he might be a good resource for wiring questions.
The ONLY issue with the preamp is that one of the halves on the tip of a bass filter pot's split shaft has broken. The knob still fits on fine and the set screw holds everything together, so functionally, there's no difference. And sonically, this preamp is great. I found the sound at the flattest setting to be very natural and even - it was hard to imagine preamp circuitry being active until I started tweaking the EQ (which is ridiculously powerful).
Price? Tough call... This preamp is discontinued and I don't know what it sold for. The closest current version is the EQ-02 (only 1 bass filter) which goes for $340 (chrome, 4 knob version) at Bestbassgear.com. I will tentatively say my asking price is:
$200 shipped in Canada/US
No trades please as I need to recover the repair costs from getting the work done on my F Bass.
Thanks, Talkbass!
