AER makes extraordinarily high-quality products. Their acoustic guitar amps are legendary, superb sound, ridiculously small, and very expensive. I used their Bassic Performer for over a year and absolutely loved it (had to sell it to finance my larger stereo system). That amp had delicious high-end sizzle for days, and a juicy big-bottom sound that never got boomy in the most difficult of rooms. It sounded quite harsh by itself, but in a band setting, even a loud one, it cut like a knife. My friend and former student David Marion bought it off me; he is a slap monster, and absolutely loves it with his vintage Fender Jazz and Marcus Miller 5.
The Amp One by AER is a totally different animal. The Bassic Performer got its sizzle from 4 - 8" speakers with wizzer cones that extended its frequency range to well over 15K. The Amp One has no tweeter, just a single 10" Neo speaker, 200 real watts, and a fabulous and flexible preamp made from the finest components. As such, the frequency range does not extend much, I would estimate not even to 8K or so, or at least it is seriously down in dB by that point. What it has in spades is tons of thick, rich deep bass and punch, absolutely extraordinary in an amp this small (think 30 watt Roland Bass Cube kind of size).
It comes in a bag that looks like a beer cooler for 2 six-packs. I could easily walk several blocks with this thing and take the bus to gigs (mine weighs 28 pounds - the literature says 29.5). It is stupidly small; you would never dream of the sound that eminates from this thing. If you like warm, rich deep bass, kind of like what Ampeg used to do, this thing will just kill you. I don't like it so much for fretted bass, being so used to tweeters now, but I have never been terribly happy with tweeters and fretless bass, prefering an old school tweeterless kind of sound. This thing kills for fretless - thick, rich, deep, midrange for days, and avoids all the harsh upper-mid string clank that tweeters seem to do to a fretless. But I'm sure old school fretted players will just love it.
A very fine preamp is included, with mute switch, 15dB pad, one input, bass midrange treble controls with sweep mids and a selectable bandwidth, a colour button (mid-scoop & high-end boost), a very fine compressor, and two more subtle but effective mid scoop controls. Tons of patching in and outs on the back, effects loop, pre and post DI, line outs, tuner, and a sub out which leads me to believe they may be working on a dedicated powered sub for this little monster of an amp, although it hardly needs it.
I went to a Sunday jam session at a club I frequent, the Sunday Evening Soul Service with a legendary New Orleans-style pianist here in Vancouver named Jack Velker (extremely fun and very much a blast - if you're in Vancouver you MUST go - Cottage Bistro, 30th & Main St., every Sunday night 8 - 12). The regular rig is an old Ampeg combo with a single 15", and the bass player on the gig uses either a Music Man Stingray or a Warwick Fretless. I took my MTD 635 Fretless, we plugged the rig in for the second set, and everybody was simply floored by the sound. Again, the best way to describe it is thick, rich, very deep, LOUD, and punchy as hell. Both of the fretless' sounded absolutely luscious through this teeny little rig (my Bergantino HT 112's look BIG beside this thing, and it weighs 12-15 pounds less than the Berg cab). It absolutely laid waste to the Ampeg in every respect, and carrying it out to the car was a bass players dream.
At home, soloed, I was not initially too enamoured with the sound, just like the Bassic Performer; kind of Neo-typical, but with some added midrange stuff I really liked. In a band setting, however, it shined big time, provided exactly what was needed, made the bass sound like a bass, and is more than capable of keeping up with a moderately loud drummer on medium-loud gigs. For jazz and stuff, superb. My Taylor AB1 sounds really great through it, as well; it eliminates a lot of that scratchy piezo nastiness that is hard to EQ out. AER must do extensive real-world testing, because all of their stuff that I have tried just sits in a mix so well, giving the right balance between cut and blend that is very difficult to achieve.
All in all, I love this little thing. I currently have it on loan from a store, as the owner and I are both friends of the Canadian Distributor for AER products. I've got to find a way to buy this thing. Amazing for rehearsals and small gigs, take it on the bus, subway, Sky-train, strap in on the back of your bike (no kidding!), this is the way bass amps will all be a few years from now, I'm sure, but if you want to be first on your block to own the Porsche Turbo of bass amps, AER has them now. Actually, I guess it would be more like a Lotus Elise - teeny, light, fuel miser, but ridiculously fast.
In a nutshell, this is a very high-tech amp with great old-school sounds. It will knock your socks off. A calf-bruising little monster of an amp.
I have two rehearsals today, a world music project, and tonight, the Douglas College Night Band (stage band), and one on Wednesday, another world music project with Zimbabwean master-marimbist Kurai Blessings. I'll report back on how this little thing does; I can't think it will be anything but outstanding.
It does, however, have one little itsy-bitsy drawback - $$$$$$$$$!!!!!!
Yikes!
But I think my back is worth it.
I'm really anxious to see what the great Mr. Bowlus thinks of his.
Cheers,
Cameron
$1,700.00 USD 
