Behringer V-Amp Rack - Worth It?

[Frettage]

Is the Behringer V-Amp rack mount unit worth the price? It's gotten lots of rave reviews on Musician's Friend. If not, is the VT Bass the best comparable unit? I like the ability in the Behringer to simply switch to a preset as opposed to having to remember where all the knobs should go.

EDIT: Corrected to read V-Amp, which is what I meant.

[phatbass]

Haven't seen the V-Bass. Do you mean the Bass V-Amp Pro?

[René_Julien]

I think Frettage means the Bass V-Amp. (unless Behringer has something I don't know about)


First of all, it is nothing like the Tech 21 VT Bass, aside from being amp emulators these products are VERY VERY different. You can't compare.


The V-Amp is a cheap low quality copy of Line 6 PODs.
And the Line 6 PODs barely qualifies as quality products. (And I say this as a POD user and fan.)

So either spend more on Line 6. (Maybe a used Bass POD XT?)

Or go the Tech 21 route, which again is completely different... but very awesome in its own way.


Not ragging on Behringer. I have no hatred toward Behringer.
But aside from some 30€ (or 30$) pedals for experimentation I would not expect to get lasting decent gear from Behringer.
You get what you pay for.

[phatbass]

Originally Posted by Frettage

Is the Behringer V-Amp rack mount unit worth the price? It's gotten lots of rave reviews on Musician's Friend. If not, is the VT Bass the best comparable unit? I like the ability in the Behringer to simply switch to a preset as opposed to having to remember where all the knobs should go.

EDIT: Corrected to read V-Amp, which is what I meant.

It all depends on what you want out of it, as they're very different.

I have a V-Amp Pro (the rack-mount one) which I used to use when I had to get a cheap pre-amp in a hurry. It actually sounds fine, once you get past the presets and program your own sounds and is very usable live.

This doesn't mean I recommend it outright; if you need/want effects on-board and can afford a Pod XT or X3 I'd say go for that.

If what you want is a pre-amp with some programmable tones and you particularly like the VT, I'd wait for the programmable VT to come out in a few months. Or if you like the Programmable Bass Driver DI, I can certainly say that's a good unit as I have one I use occasionally.

Incidentally I still have the V-Amp as a headphone practice unit. One drawback is that, for some reason (possibly a low internal battery - yes it has one just like a computer motherboard, to retain settings) every few months the settings seem to change and drift on their own and the sound gets muddy/weird. This is easily fixed in a few seconds by doing a global reset to factory defaults.