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Anybody tried a BBE BMax pre-amp

#62
just out of curiosity, since the amplifier is the last gain stage, why would turning up your power amp distort your speakers as opposed to turning up the preamp?

i assume the power amp is simply amplifying whatever signal the preamp is providing. garbage in-garbage out.

no big thing, just curious.

thanks.
 
#63
djnylonpants said:
i always felt BBE was misunderstood, the VP of sales and mktg and i really tried hard to engage the players and make stuff they would love.

during my time there i attempted to make products that offered higher than expected value for the dough.

i have an NAD preamplifier in my home stereo, i bought it in the early 80's (maybe 1980) and my philosophy has always mirrored their's; their slogan in those days was, "champagne and caviar performance at beer and pretzels prices"

love that!
Click to expand...

Me Too...

I never understood why the BBE pres it was not as popular as a Ampeg or GK, ext...( incert popular amp name here).

Its sound so good live and in the studio (to my ears) every place I have used it the Soundpeople (to be politically correct) love it.

Its not expensive and so much better then pre's twice the cost (if not more) :rolleyes:
 
#65
djnylonpants said:
absolutely true! but not just the bass band, all the bands interact with one another.
Click to expand...

Can you elaborate on this please? If adjusting any of the three EQ knobs interacts or affects the other EQ bands, then how should one understand the controls while trying to adjust? I read in the manual that flat was 2 10 2 but I kept forgetting that when I got in front of it and ended up with a way more scooped mid tone than I wanted. I finally got a starting point after reading it again from a TB'er and felt I had much more control of my tone at the gig.

So in your mind what should be the mindset when adjusting the controls if they all affect each other?

Thanks for your input djnylonpants, I have read each of your posts with great interest.

Rick
 
#66
basswave said:
Me Too...

I never understood why the BBE pres it was not as popular as a Ampeg or GK, ext...( incert popular amp name here).

Its sound so good live and in the studio (to my ears) every place I have used it the Soundpeople (to be politically correct) love it.

Its not expensive and so much better then pre's twice the cost (if not more) :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I can't speak to the worthiness of the BBE Pre...but I CAN and WILL stand up all day and all night for the BBE Sonic Maximizer! I absolutely LOVE both of mine - I use the BBE 362 in my Rack along with the Ampeg 4 Pro and it sounds like a million!

We also use the 882i on our PA and it is a GREAT addition!! As a matter of fact, I don't think I (or our band) would be confortable NOT using one after being introduced to them....
 
#67
My BMax came yesterday, and I raced home to try it out. I'm totally floored by how great it is. The first thing I found was that the notes from the D & G strings were coming through as loud as the E & A strings. I never played up there on those strings, because with the rig I was using, they just had no power to them. I would be pounding away on those low strings, and then if I reached up for a run on the high strings, the sound would just disappear. Secondly, there is an astonishing range of tones this thing puts out, and I love what I'm getting. This is way better than the amps I tried out in stores which combined the pre-amp with the amplifier. I'm really glad I found this piece of gear. I almost missed it, while shopping. I called up a local BBE dealer here in the Bay Area, and asked if he had anything in the way of a pre-amp for bass, since I already had a QSC amplifier. He said sure if you want to spend $1500. He told me it was "inappropriate" for my needs, and proceeded to show me GK's, SWR's, Ampegs, etc. Luckily, I came across the BMax on Google, and posted my question on this forum. So I'm a happy camper.
 
#68
Mr. Chuffey said:
My BMax came yesterday, and I raced home to try it out. I'm totally floored by how great it is.
Click to expand...


this is why i get out of bed each morning.

thanks. enjoy that thing!

please use the Sonic Maximizer judiciously (deliciously?) and keep the knobs on the lee side of the 12 o'clock position. but a little of that 50Hz and 5kHz bump from the "low contour" and the "process" knobs will add some tasty sparkle.
 
#69
RSalvador said:
Can you elaborate on this please? If adjusting any of the three EQ knobs interacts or affects the other EQ bands, then how should one understand the controls while trying to adjust? I read in the manual that flat was 2 10 2 but I kept forgetting that when I got in front of it and ended up with a way more scooped mid tone than I wanted. I finally got a starting point after reading it again from a TB'er and felt I had much more control of my tone at the gig.

So in your mind what should be the mindset when adjusting the controls if they all affect each other?

Thanks for your input djnylonpants, I have read each of your posts with great interest.

Rick
Click to expand...

I'm a long time user of the RCA classic tone stack. I've used it with with the Fender Showman, Alembic F2B, the BMax and BMaxT. I've used a bunch of other stuff over the yeard. Demeter, Ampeg, Eden, GK ... The sound in my head still radiates from the Showman Amp... Still have the BMax - or will when I grab it back from a local bud ... here's my take on it ...

I am primarily a passive 4 string guy. J's & P's. I have a couple of active 5's but these see a lot less playing time. Kinda specialty instruments for me. Meat & Potatos is a J with great pickups, a stout neck and flats... I also dig a slightly scooped tone as my native sound.

My take on it is that I start with 2-10-2 or approximate flat. Then add Bass & treble to suit. Maybe I end at 4 - 10 - 3 or 5 -10 -3 - something like that. Now I've got the basic thing dialed. When I get out into a new room - the genius of the Max design comes into play - I use the semi-parametric to adjust for screwy acoustics - As it comes after the tone stack - my basic tone isn't messed with. I almost always want additional cut around 250. If I need to cut below the range of the semi-parametric, then the only choice is to reduce the bass a bit and make up for it by increasing gain.

Recognizing that in this classic tone stack, the tone controls are actually part of the over all gain structure is key IMO.

Only thing that could make the BMax / MaxT design really better would have been to retain the x-over built into the 383 (yep - had one of those too - wish I stilll had it around some days), to make the semi-parametic, fully parametric by including a Q and to have added a range button for it or dropped the lower freq to 80 ...

Oddly enough - for live use I get real similar result froim a GK RB II series head. The BBE and GK 'tonal characters' are more alike than un-alike. The User Interface is of course completely different. For drag it down to the bars use - the integrated amp has it's attractions for me - mainly as I'm often providing PA and simplicity counts for something.

Now if we could get djnylonpants to visit Traynor and straighten out the pre in the YBA head! When I get the BMax back, I'm going to try that through the Traynor power section. That might be interesting ...
 
#70
RSalvador said:
Can you elaborate on this please? If adjusting any of the three EQ knobs interacts or affects the other EQ bands, then how should one understand the controls while trying to adjust? I read in the manual that flat was 2 10 2 but I kept forgetting that when I got in front of it and ended up with a way more scooped mid tone than I wanted. I finally got a starting point after reading it again from a TB'er and felt I had much more control of my tone at the gig.

So in your mind what should be the mindset when adjusting the controls if they all affect each other?
Rick
Click to expand...


i went online and tried to find a technical definition for passive reactive and inductive EQ circuits, which i believe is what this "tone stack" circuit technically is called.

it's simply the nature of these types of designs that when you turn a knob and change the value of that passive element it affects the whole circuit and affects the way changing the value of another passive element will affect the circuit output.

that's the best i can offer...

:)please forgive me, as i said, i'm not an electronic designer. i can take the building blocks and specify the sonic criteria but guys like Paul at BBE and Bob Lee are the true alchemists!


as far as a philosophy of Eq'ing for this (or really any passive tone stack like it) is simply to start with the stated "flat" and make subtle adjustments from there.

i'm looking for a template we made when the thing was released with some recommended settings i.e., R&B, Reggae, Fusion...stuff like that. If i can find it, i'll post it...if you guys are interested.
 
#71
4Mal said:
Only thing that could make the BMax / MaxT design really better would have been to retain the x-over built into the 383 (yep - had one of those too - wish I stilll had it around some days), to make the semi-parametic, fully parametric by including a Q and to have added a range button for it or dropped the lower freq to 80 ...
Click to expand...

LOL! if you could have changed the nature of earth's elements and made 19 inches actually 4 inches longer, you would have had a fully parametric eq!:cool:

you're right on regarding the eq settings too....that was the idea of the para-mids, to make adjustments for different spaces without changing your regular sound.
 
#73
BassmanPaul said:
I believe that I was over driving the input stages. Sounded like a crackly fart out of the mid and high drivers of my Acmes using an active bass. It soured me really quickly.

Paul
Click to expand...

hmmm...

interesting. as you know from being an amp designer yourself, the "volume" controls on an amplifier are actually just input attenuators.

if the signal coming from the gain stage prior is clean, then the amplified signal should also be clean.

of course, the output of the preamp might have been set too high thus overdriving the input to the amp, which would make the rig sound distorted at any level.

it's just interesting that decreasing your amp's input attenuation would cause your clean preamp signal to become distorted.

anyway, sounds like you have a beautiful tube based rig now. good on ya', mate.:cool:
 
#74
BassmanPaul said:
I believe that I was over driving the input stages. Sounded like a crackly fart out of the mid and high drivers of my Acmes using an active bass. It soured me really quickly.
Click to expand...

Overdriving the input stage is unrelated to using the amp gain controls for controlling volume. Instead, it's an issue of putting too hot a signal into the amp input.
 
#75
djnylonpants said:
hmmm...

interesting. as you know from being an amp designer yourself, the "volume" controls on an amplifier are actually just input attenuators.

if the signal coming from the gain stage prior is clean, then the amplified signal should also be clean.

of course, the output of the preamp might have been set too high thus overdriving the input to the amp, which would make the rig sound distorted at any level.

it's just interesting that decreasing your amp's input attenuation would cause your clean preamp signal to become distorted.

anyway, sounds like you have a beautiful tube based rig now. good on ya', mate.:cool:
Click to expand...

Actually, Judd, the "volume" controls on an amp are gain controls, and almost always not input attenuators, at least on amps with balanced inputs. It would be rather expensive to make a suitable input attenuator on a balanced input because it would require a dual pot with very precisely matched resistive elements. Instead, the usual configuration is that the gain control lies after the amp's input section and before its output section.
 
#77
djnylonpants said:
LOL! if you could have changed the nature of earth's elements and made 19 inches actually 4 inches longer, you would have had a fully parametric eq!:cool:

you're right on regarding the eq settings too....that was the idea of the para-mids, to make adjustments for different spaces without changing your regular sound.
Click to expand...

Having been frustrated more than once by my F2B - The semi-parametric seemed a stroke of brilliance. It kept me in an all in one RU signal path which makes a lot of sense to me. When running either of my old Demeter's or the F2B, each could sound really special on it's own. Running the output of the pre through even a fairly high quality EQ (dbx or Rane in my case) seemed to reduce that someting special to something less than magical...

I still run those EQ's in my PA rack and there - they sound fine... weird ...

It wouldn't be the first time I've wanted to diostort the law's of physics ... you know lighter, smaller, deeper, cheaper. These days I'm holding out for self-cleaning glasses ;~)
 
#78
djnylonpants said:
...transformer in it's power supply and Jensen's top DI transformer in it's direct out on the back (the same transformer used in Record Plant's, Radial's and BBE's Jensen transformer DI's).
Click to expand...

I noticed that the newer BMax's say "Jensen Equipped" on the front. I bought mine in Dec '06 and it does not have that printed in the front. Is it the same DI?
 

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