What sonic differences do you hear between the Aguilar and Sadowsky onboard preamp ?

[MAJOR METAL]

What sonic differences do you hear between the Aguilar and Sadowsky onboard preamp ? Thanks

[gimmeagig]

I have both and to my ears they are very close.Maybe the Sadowsky is a little more punchy with the high end not quite as smooth sounding as the Aguilar.That could also be the bass it is in.Whatever the difference is, it is very subtle.
I have a Noll preamp in my main bass and it just failed so I'm going to replace it with a Sadowsky, mainly because it runs on one 9 V.

[Rano Bass]

There is a very subtle difference, almost impossible to detect.
BTW i have only tried the outboard versions.

[ddnidd1]

The Aguilar (OBP-1) and the Sadowsky both are 2 band, boost only with the same bass and treble corner frquencies, and as I recall were designed by the same person.

[Marcus Willett]

Originally Posted by gimmeagig

I'm going to replace it with a Sadowsky, mainly because it runs on one 9 V.

They will tell you it cannot run on less than 18V, but I've had 2 basses with the OBP-1 and in both cases they ran on one 9V. 18V will give you more headroom, but I know for a fact you can run them on one 9V battery.

[20db pad]

I hear the same sweet, musically voiced high-end "zing" in both preamps. I love 'em both, but prefer the Sadowsky because I've been using one for over 15 years - I seem to get my sound with it, and a bass with a Sadowsky preamp seems to sit in the mix a little better, IMO.

The similar high-end response makes sense since both are voiced at 4KHz. It's easy to go too far in terms of EQ with both, since a little goes a long way with boost-only preamps. The Aggie seems too have more low end boost, which also makes sense because it has a few more dB boost that the Sadowsky.

I've only used them with J-Bass style instruments. I'll second the point that you can use the OBP-1 with only one 9v with no problems.