Tried a BBE Maximizer
 

My bass rig is actually a mix of my stuff, and the stuff owned by the bassist in my band. One of the things in his racks is a Sonic Maximizer. So I put it in the signal chain, powered it up....

What did people ever like about these things? I couldn't find a setting that sounded good. Yet you see 'em regularly.

they are subtle, it kind of depends what you want out of them. a lot of people like them as an eq adjustment.

I think they work better for guitar and PAs than for bass. I have one in my rack, Its just filling the space at this point.

Funny. I see this come up from time to time and and always wonder what people are looking for out of their sonic maximizer. If it's an "effect" that you're after, then you're using it wrong. I get the feeling that too often people are plugging them into their rigs thinking they will work like an aural enhancer and being sorely dissapointed when things don't work out. The sonic maximzer is a tool to correct the phase and distortion problems inherent in any amp/speaker system, and that's pretty much it. When used with that approach, I've found it to be brilliantly useful go to for every instrument I've tried it on. That's why it's the one piece of gear that is SURE to make it to every mixing gig I get. Ironically, that's also why I can't seem to keep the thing in my bass rig, which is one of my favorite places to use it.

Yeah they work pretty well for guitars.

I like it in some rigs, hate it in others. It did wonders for my old Ampeg rig, but it totally gutted the mids from my Markbass. I'm still a little torn with my Shuttle 6.0, it seems I can get a close enough approximation of what the BBE does with a slight cut in the semi-parametric mid, without all the extra treble the Maximizer adds (this rig has plenty of that already!).