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Baer Amplification Megathread!
- Thread starter KJung
- Start date
Just got an ML112 today! Can't wait to give it a proper trial with an Ashdown LB550 at my next practice.
Hey Mr. B, have you made any progress on the Dclass front? Like marrying your V front end with one of the 1000watt modules. I don't follow this thread all the time but I remember you mentioning last year you had been looking at it. Hence my curiosity as to whether it's stil being developed in your skunk works R&D division.
Roger, now that you're embracing the homophone with the logo, the logical next step would be a little coffeeshop 1x10 called the Cub, right???
Honestly, we are still in the concept design process. Here's my dilemma. In doing market research and talking with our overseas distributors that there appears to be little interest in full sized amps anymore. The bulk of the bass market is buying small class D amp and that's still not something I truly have a passion for building. I'd still rather lug a GK800RB around to a gig than any class D I've tried. But, we obviously have to go in that direction, so what can we do amp-wise that isn't already being done by a dozen other companies? What features can we add that will make the amp stand out? Where is the market going to be in a few years?
All questions I struggle with, as putting an amp out there means a seriously huge financial commitment. With the advent of class D OEM modules, the market has just been flooded with class D amps that all perform quite well. I guess I always feel like if we can't do something different and unique, then what's the point and I just don't know what that is in the amp market anymore. I am WAY open to suggestions here, so please feel free to let me know what it is that you would want in an amp that you can't already get in another product.
That is such a cool setup! Welcome to the club and I hope you love your new cab!
Yes, you should be able to drive a power amp with this. I expect price to be in the same range as the REDDI and similar products.
Right now we a running at about 5MΩ.
Roger, if you can use the front end/eq section of your previous amp you'd have a winner. Aren't that many amps with that flexibility.
RB, thank you for your in depth comments. And I understand fairly well the commitment required the enter the field in a serious way.
It seems a number of early adopters are enthusiastic enough about your designs and might drive interest in a dedicated preamp.
Frankly I think it's silly ALL the amps made in the last several years are made without a built in tuner, (with a couple of exceptions, it should be standard) HPF should be onboard, I want a USB port in the back. Everybody is switching to using their pads and large format phones onstage, sometimes I forget to charge something.
While the Sonic Farm amp has more features than the majority would use, it's sure better to have tools onboard. The Bamp is moving this along as well. Of course you have to learn to use the tools.
I think my tone and overall sound is WAY better than it was years ago. Sure I love a good tube amp in the right setting but I quit hauling them to gigs three decades ago. A veil was lifted from my ears when I bought a Glockenklang. I think we have different tone goals but I'd like to start with a studio clean balanced sound before I add my dirt sounds and effects.
So how about building us your full featured dream preamp. Everyone's going to be hauling an 800 watt head with them anyway.
Edit. No way I want to play that old RB. I had to use one recently and couldn't be done with it soon enough.
Edit my initials are RB too.
It seems a number of early adopters are enthusiastic enough about your designs and might drive interest in a dedicated preamp.
Frankly I think it's silly ALL the amps made in the last several years are made without a built in tuner, (with a couple of exceptions, it should be standard) HPF should be onboard, I want a USB port in the back. Everybody is switching to using their pads and large format phones onstage, sometimes I forget to charge something.
While the Sonic Farm amp has more features than the majority would use, it's sure better to have tools onboard. The Bamp is moving this along as well. Of course you have to learn to use the tools.
I think my tone and overall sound is WAY better than it was years ago. Sure I love a good tube amp in the right setting but I quit hauling them to gigs three decades ago. A veil was lifted from my ears when I bought a Glockenklang. I think we have different tone goals but I'd like to start with a studio clean balanced sound before I add my dirt sounds and effects.
So how about building us your full featured dream preamp. Everyone's going to be hauling an 800 watt head with them anyway.
Edit. No way I want to play that old RB. I had to use one recently and couldn't be done with it soon enough.
Edit my initials are RB too.
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Hello and Happy New Year, Roger. The following may be business 101. I apologize if I will state the well-known. I found your post to be compelling, and this is what occurred to me.
First the appeal:
Do it your way. Do it the Roger Baer way. Make a bass amp that is uniquely and undeniably a creation of the same mind that conceived and made the Baer Amplification Valkyrie. Let that be the vision and character of the final product, so much so that the fact that its power section is Class D is relegated to a technical truth, rather than elevated to a defining feature. I believe that's what Glockenklang did in its path of morphing its Heartrock amps into its Blue Rock amp: same minds, vision, and process applied to a different technical architecture.
Make another of the most raw- and fine-sounding, tactile, elemental, useful, and distinctive bass amps ever contrived, just as you did the first time with the Valkyrie. Only this time name it something else. Indeed on direct comparison in use, the only important difference between the two amps should be their model names.
Second, the investigation:
In my considered opinion there are only three ways to differentiate a product in a crowded market:
- pure innovation (proprietary technology, materials, or process)
- flavor, personality, essence, vibe, etc.
- superior quality
We see this in your products and those of your contemporaries who also struggle with the questions you raise, while holding yourselves to a very high standard. @Kirk Bryant mentioned Glockenklang. Of bass amp makers of recent years, in my limited experience as an owner of your products and recent bass amps of any make, I count you, them, Mesa Boogie, and Acoustic Image among those who strive for excellence always, and who achieve it. Though I have yet to play Bergantino bass amps (sorry folks... I don't get out much), based on consistent comments from owners and makers, I assume that he and his amps are like this, too.
Each of you does this with distinctly different sonic objectives, and with varying functional specs and price points, and with a different size of company (I assume that Mesa Boogie is meaningfully larger). Yet you all have in common the hard evidence of the real world usefulness and subjective sonic beauty of your products, including build quality and suitability to task. Also, each makes products that are differentiated in their market by the three characteristics to some degree.
But now we come to the hard part. Excellence or differentiation is no guarantee of commercial success. Indeed not even of success sufficient to sustain the company. You reveal this to us in your post here. I see it in many music making product types.
In addition to reading the comments of notable makers, you included, who generously openly discuss with us their design thinking and business realities here in the forums or in interviews online, I have had the privilege of talking or corresponding directly with several distinguished makers in recent years. They spoke very frankly to me. Each I talked with was operating and producing at the top of his craft (or was key to a company doing so), yet none except one managed to establish a business able to sustain more than a one- or two-person shop (offsite fabrication aside).
Long a believer that "the cream rises to the top", also I know that the forces governing product markets are not bound by either the laws of physics or the laws of milk. Reason, empirical investigation, and objectivity are almost never prime motivators for purchase decisions or perception of music making equipment; or when they are, they are swayed by emotional or cultural factors. Marketers capitalize on this, making their own level playing field, even when they are promoting inferior products.
In the current case, you are right: now in the internet age, when players initially reckon bass amps as mere feature sets and spec sheets, how can an exceptionally good amp differentiate itself in a crowded market of integrators?
And this brings me back to the start, to my appeal. I don't know the answer, so I have only my aspiration and support to give. Good luck, Roger. I know you can do it... your way.
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When I plug into the Valkyrie it feels like I'm plugged into a huge, pristine analog console, the EQ feels like EQ on said console, and switching on the tube drive makes it feel like I'm listening to it from the playback head of a tape machine. It's the only thing I've ever played or owned that brings that out, and that magic is there in the DI output so it's not dependent on the iron in the power section. If you could smush a substantial amount of that vibe and the EQ flexibility into a class D head it'd be worth buying. The tube drive section was the reason I was interested in the Valkyrie and would be a definite market differentiator in a class D head, even though I imagine it'd be quite hard to shrink down.
As for where else the market is going, one thing I think more and more manufacturers will start offering is IR cab sims on the DI output, but I have no idea how you pull that off (and the supporting software) as a tiny indie company. Lots of pedal preamp / DI boxes coming out as well - maybe if you can shrink an offshoot of the Valkyrie preamp down far enough you could use it for a small amp and a pedal.
Also - on the total other side from the world of reason, don't discount the dorky desire to have matching gear. Seems like there are plenty of fans of your cabs out there and I think many would buy a head just because it's from you, even if it's just your take on a common formula.
Why not something extremely stripped down as a starting point? Like a DI transformer, HPF and power amp, along with a DSP. The DSP could then connect to a phone/tablet, where all the preamp interface stuff would be, for EQ, compression, overdrive, whatever. Put all that in an app, allow for however many presets. And for those who don't need all that, they've got a stripped down, bare bones DI/amp ready to plug and play.
The amp you have now is nice looking. Could you scale that design back a little and fit it to a smaller chassis? Your products have a very clean, professional look.
BTW, your woofer / midrange speaker design, was it in any way in the same vein as a Fearful/Fearless concept? I always liked that concept-- a midrange instead of a tweeter, but the Fearfuls were bigger than I wanted to deal with. Your cabs seem to be a nice balance of size, weight, and performance.
BTW, your woofer / midrange speaker design, was it in any way in the same vein as a Fearful/Fearless concept? I always liked that concept-- a midrange instead of a tweeter, but the Fearfuls were bigger than I wanted to deal with. Your cabs seem to be a nice balance of size, weight, and performance.
This fun listening to this. And Snaxter, interesting comments, you obviously are looking at this from a more elevated business perspective than I. I'm just a bass player that would like to use both stellar sounding gear and have some cutting edge tech onboard.
Sadly much of the tech has been around for many years yet little has been adopted industry wide with few exceptions. Sheesh how long has the HPF been around, 6-8 decades or more and it's just now finding its way into our amps. TC brought out an amp with tons of features that, had they not shot themselves in the foot and lied about about the power, may have driven the industry faster to adopt more of the available tech. And the list is long.
I assume many builders must think us bassplayers rather dense and incapable of learning how to use a "new" tool.
That said I see lots of great looking products for bass these days so I understand putting your product into an already crowded field with something that sets it apart and makes it desireable is no simple task. Best of luck to all these (you) talented builders.
Obviously you're doing something right (Rodger) having successfully (I hope!) brought products to us that are generally regarded as being In the upper escheleon of bass gear.
Rodger is there a reason you are not still building your Valkeyre amp? I probably missed it. I thought it would sell even though it's a SS amp, from all the rave reviews.
I'm also curious as to if you've done blind auditions of your pre into various Dclass amps, to avoid your current bias and still find them totally lacking. Id love to hear your testing procedure.
My guess is that the majority of players may not mind the small change in tone/feel for the trade off of weight. And might very well appreciate as well as purchase an amp with your vision and flavor.
To me the newer 800-1000 watt amps kick/punch/heft whatever you call it more like a big tube amp than previous generations. I'll never haul a large tube amp again. And I know I'm not alone.
I'm wondering if relaxing slightly, your high standards might not be a good thing and at the same time not denigrate or dilute the quality of your products.
Sadly much of the tech has been around for many years yet little has been adopted industry wide with few exceptions. Sheesh how long has the HPF been around, 6-8 decades or more and it's just now finding its way into our amps. TC brought out an amp with tons of features that, had they not shot themselves in the foot and lied about about the power, may have driven the industry faster to adopt more of the available tech. And the list is long.
I assume many builders must think us bassplayers rather dense and incapable of learning how to use a "new" tool.
That said I see lots of great looking products for bass these days so I understand putting your product into an already crowded field with something that sets it apart and makes it desireable is no simple task. Best of luck to all these (you) talented builders.
Obviously you're doing something right (Rodger) having successfully (I hope!) brought products to us that are generally regarded as being In the upper escheleon of bass gear.
Rodger is there a reason you are not still building your Valkeyre amp? I probably missed it. I thought it would sell even though it's a SS amp, from all the rave reviews.
I'm also curious as to if you've done blind auditions of your pre into various Dclass amps, to avoid your current bias and still find them totally lacking. Id love to hear your testing procedure.
My guess is that the majority of players may not mind the small change in tone/feel for the trade off of weight. And might very well appreciate as well as purchase an amp with your vision and flavor.
To me the newer 800-1000 watt amps kick/punch/heft whatever you call it more like a big tube amp than previous generations. I'll never haul a large tube amp again. And I know I'm not alone.
I'm wondering if relaxing slightly, your high standards might not be a good thing and at the same time not denigrate or dilute the quality of your products.
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"My guess is that the majority of players may not mind the small change in tone/feel for the trade off of weight. And might very well appreciate as well as purchase an amp with your vision and flavor."
This....this all day. With the features of the Valkeyre, and the weight of the new (and impressive) class D amps, that should really be enough.
I love the idea of the USB port to power a phone/laptop/iPad.
I would personally say stay away from the technology that Jim Bergantino is using to program the amps with USB and a computer program. That is very specific, and for the most part, unnecessary. It seems you're after something completely different anyhow.
This....this all day. With the features of the Valkeyre, and the weight of the new (and impressive) class D amps, that should really be enough.
I love the idea of the USB port to power a phone/laptop/iPad.
I would personally say stay away from the technology that Jim Bergantino is using to program the amps with USB and a computer program. That is very specific, and for the most part, unnecessary. It seems you're after something completely different anyhow.
I don't view the features on Jims amp "for the most part unnecessary" at all. Far from it. I'm sure there is a learning curve to tap it's potential. I'm not all that computer savey. And I still want to learn and grow in my knowledge of sound and audio tech and my ability to use it. Perhaps slightly more so than most players my age.(65) However from my discussions with many other bass players, I do believe many guys my age get interested after trying a bit and a slightly younger player might be even more inclined to use more of the bells and whistles simply from being surrounded by tech since birth. Which also means it will be more in demand as awareness increases. As an aside I think Jim B will sell a whole bunch of the Forte's to those Berg fans with the disinterest in features or fear of knobs.
I love the "busy" front panel on my Shuttlemax because of all the tone shaping tools there. And while perhaps the majority want plug and play, we'll never move adoption of tech along to get to what might be some (perhaps the knob fearfull) peoples version of ideal. Walk in set gear. Press one master controller button which auto corrects every setting on the amp to a perfect "my personal tone" setting and pink noise auto sets EQ points and levels for a perfect mix.
Would that be ok with ya'all "too many knobs guys? Push button dial in. Ad copy can read
ONE PUSH BUTTON TO THE PERFECT "SOUND IN YOUR HEAD"!!!!!!!!!!
I love the "busy" front panel on my Shuttlemax because of all the tone shaping tools there. And while perhaps the majority want plug and play, we'll never move adoption of tech along to get to what might be some (perhaps the knob fearfull) peoples version of ideal. Walk in set gear. Press one master controller button which auto corrects every setting on the amp to a perfect "my personal tone" setting and pink noise auto sets EQ points and levels for a perfect mix.
Would that be ok with ya'all "too many knobs guys? Push button dial in. Ad copy can read
ONE PUSH BUTTON TO THE PERFECT "SOUND IN YOUR HEAD"!!!!!!!!!!
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Sorry for the derail to get BOT. What I'd like is for the "sound in Rodger Baers head" to be available to me as a player. I hear he's got a great sound in his head! And the The current V SS amp heavy and all seems to meet with much approval.
I'm simply not a customer at the weight unless I go back to touring with roadies. I don't like taking ibuprofen or waking up sore everyday. The reality for me is I'm now also unlikely to carry seperates (pre/pwr) when I can get a world class all in one. So while the RB pre will no doubt have my attention, if it were in Dclass box I could more likely be a buyer.
I'm simply not a customer at the weight unless I go back to touring with roadies. I don't like taking ibuprofen or waking up sore everyday. The reality for me is I'm now also unlikely to carry seperates (pre/pwr) when I can get a world class all in one. So while the RB pre will no doubt have my attention, if it were in Dclass box I could more likely be a buyer.
