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Bass Rig buying rambling

K

KamaK

Guest
May 29, 2015
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#1
I have a 66' B-15 that's going back into the family vault after its next maintenance and will be looking for a new bass rig.

I want something relatively light/small, reliable, and portable that I could use for practice, rehearsal, recording, and gig'ing. Budget is ~$1000. I had been considering a Rumble 500v3 combo + the 2x10 extension.

I went to my local GC armed with a screwdriver, and found that most 350@8/500@4 Class D amps have almost exactly the same ICEPOWER amp with a custom pre and some custom protection bits. For example, the Bassman 500 and the Rumble 500 look electronically identical with the exception of the preamp.. I was confused as to how Fender can justify charging $400 for a 2x12AX7 Mexican-made preamp.

I viewed some of the GC/MF RMA statistics from 2014 that were floating on freenet. This ruled out Hartke, Ashdown, GK, and Ampeg as candidates. Nothing was available on the v3 Fenders though.

Currently I'm left mulling over the Markbass CMD102P (which I was not allowed to take apart) and the Rumble 500. Are there any other amps/brands/etc I should be looking at? Is there anywhere else that I can (legally) view reliability and RMA statistics? Is there somewhere that I can obtain schematics and see whether an amp is half/full bridge and what mosfets are used for switching? Are circuit modeling amps available for bass?

It's hard to shop when reviews simply describe amps as "loud, warm, smooth" and other pseudoscientific nonsense words without diving into the tech and measuring actual performance.


Suggestions? Or should I just STFU and buy the Rumble like our corporate overlords seem to want me to do?
 
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#9
B-string said:
I don't quite understand, does the OP have a beef with B&O ICE modules.
Click to expand...
No. I rather like their OEM boards. I simply like to know what I'm buying. I also like to know in advance if I'm buying a lemon that will break in 2 years. When you look at the back of a music store, you can see the outbound repairs and know almost exactly which amp not to buy at a glance.

j5pypqn.jpg


Gonna go take a peek at Genz Benz. Thank you or the recommendation
Edit: Did GB change their name or go out of business or something? Having trouble finding resellers with stock.
 
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#10
Genz Benz was closed up by Fender when they owned Kaman Music. KMC is now owned by someone else that may start it up again, but the founder Jeff Genzler is starting up a new product this year.

The return for repair would need to be balanced by units sold or it is meaningless, I spent too many years in warranty repair stations to think any different.
 
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#11
KamaK said:
Currently I'm left mulling over the Markbass CMD102P (which I was not allowed to take apart) and the Rumble 500. Are there any other amps/brands/etc I should be looking at? Is there anywhere else that I can (legally) view reliability and RMA statistics? Is there somewhere that I can obtain schematics and see whether an amp is half/full bridge and what mosfets are used for switching? Are circuit modeling amps available for bass?
Click to expand...
I have the Markbass CMD102P great amp nice and light.
 
#13
Genz Benz is very much out of business :bawl: but Jeff Genzler is hard at work on a new company :hyper: and Andy is still doing repair work on the old GB stuff:hyper:

I am WAY out of my comfort zone, but I think that all the ICEPower heads use full bridged mode.
I think.:bag:
 
#15
KamaK said:
No. I rather like their OEM boards. I simply like to know what I'm buying. I also like to know in advance if I'm buying a lemon that will break in 2 years. When you look at the back of a music store, you can see the outbound repairs and know almost exactly which amp not to buy at a glance.
Click to expand...

With all due respect, that's tenuous at best. If you applied that test in my old shop you would have seen essentially nothing but Peavey. That merely reflected 10:1 sales over any other brand, not inherent reliability.

ICE have worked extremely hard to keep their amps in black box mode, and that is how they are shown on Fender schematics. I've only seen one or two shaky attempts at reverse engineering them, done the old fashioned way: buy one and have a go. Link Removed
 
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#19
KamaK said:
I have a 66' B-15 that's going back into the family vault after its next maintenance and will be looking for a new bass rig.

I want something relatively light/small, reliable, and portable that I could use for practice, rehearsal, recording, and gig'ing. Budget is ~$1000. I had been considering a Rumble 500v3 combo + the 2x10 extension.

I went to my local GC armed with a screwdriver, and found that most 350@8/500@4 Class D amps have almost exactly the same ICEPOWER amp with a custom pre and some custom protection bits. For example, the Bassman 500 and the Rumble 500 look electronically identical with the exception of the preamp.. I was confused as to how Fender can justify charging $400 for a 2x12AX7 Mexican-made preamp.

I viewed some of the GC/MF RMA statistics from 2014 that were floating on freenet. This ruled out Hartke, Ashdown, GK, and Ampeg as candidates. Nothing was available on the v3 Fenders though.

Currently I'm left mulling over the Markbass CMD102P (which I was not allowed to take apart) and the Rumble 500. Are there any other amps/brands/etc I should be looking at? Is there anywhere else that I can (legally) view reliability and RMA statistics? Is there somewhere that I can obtain schematics and see whether an amp is half/full bridge and what mosfets are used for switching? Are circuit modeling amps available for bass?

It's hard to shop when reviews simply describe amps as "loud, warm, smooth" and other pseudoscientific nonsense words without diving into the tech and measuring actual performance.


Suggestions? Or should I just STFU and buy the Rumble like our corporate overlords seem to want me to do?
Click to expand...
I just picked up my CMD 21P yesterday and it's awe inspiring. It's everything a bass amp should sound like. If one 12" speaker sounds this good, I can only imagine what the bigger models must sound like.
 

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