I got my Carvin B2000 tonight for use with my LDS 15/6/1 (tall form factor that's VERY close to the fEarful design. Eminence Kappalite 3015LF, 18Sound 6ND410, selenium tweeter, Ralf's 800hz crossover). Here are my initial thoughts based on living room testing with a Warmoth G4 with a Status carbon fiber neck and Darkstar pickups.
First-off, the amp is very well made. All of the components seem quite high quality and the build is very nice. The knobs/pots all turn with a very even, positive resistance. The subdued blue of the huge power, mute, active input and effects loop LED's is absolutely sexy. It can't all be good though. The amp isn't silent from a noise perspective. I can hear a fair amount of hiss coming from the midrange/tweeter. About the same amount as with my Markbass LMTube. The fan is incredibly loud. I used to own an Aguilar DB750, which most consider to have a very loud fan. The fan in the B2000 is at least as loud, possibly louder. There are some interesting EQ issues while I'll explain in greater detail later. The amp makes a "clunk" noise after you hit the power switch to the off position. It happens about a second after the switch is thrown. You can also hear the fan "whining" as it slows down. Sounds high pitched, not unlike a large turbo diesel engine as you step on the gas. The tube bypass doesn't do a whole lot. With the tube engaged (a single 12AX7) the amp is a little more mid-present and slightly hotter. Not a night and day difference. More noticeable than the tube blend on the Markbass LMTube, but something I think they could have easily done without and potentially used to bring the cost down a bit. Although it is already priced stupid low at $700.
On to the heart of the matter. How does the B2000 pair with the 15/6/1? The amp has PLENTY of power for this cab. I was able to drive the cab to the point of absolutely painful volume. Way louder than would be usable on any stage with PA support. If this didn't cover your volume needs... Well... Frankly I can't even imagine a realistic situation where it wouldn't.
The tone was quite balanced.... Once I made use of some creative EQ'ing. At least with this cab and my bass, the flat tone (all EQ controls at noon and the tube bypass disengaged) was very midrange heavy, bottom shy and generally awful sounding. Very thin, very ganky upper mids. Bleh... No good at all. Time to start tweaking some knobs. The amp does take to EQ'ing quite well, but there were some unexpected things about it. Keep in mind that 0 is off, 5 is noon and 10 is fill on the EQ controls. I bumped the sub-bass and bass controls up to 6. Took the Lo Mid down to 4. The Mid and the Hi Mid down to 3. The Treble stayed at 5. That's way more EQ than I'm used to adjusting when using my Markbass LMTube and this cab. That EQ got me roughly to what I'm used to with the LMTube, but with a noticeably wider frequency response from top to bottom. The tone was absolutely delicious through the 15/6/1. Bright and present without being abrasive, while at the same time being warm and thick down low. Everything was nice and balanced. The amount of EQ required to get there is troubling though. In a tough room, this amp might have problems EQ'ing itself out of a bad spot. My living room is pretty forgiving tone-wise, but I could see where the amp's "noon" setting might make it challenging in other rooms. One thing to note: The treble control of this amp is either centered fairly low (couldn't find the center on the Carvin website) or it has a VERY wide Q (I suspect the latter... Read on). Despite having a dedicated Hi Mid control, the treble control brings a lot to the table in both the upper mid areas and the upper treble areas. It simultaneously adds gank and sparkle. Honk and glass. This was my least favorite part of the EQ. I really wish the Hi Mid control would have done more of the heavy lifting in that area and let the Treble control do more of the Epifani/Tecamp thing and just add sparkle up top.
All in all I would give this combination a big thumbs up. When you consider that you could buy one of these and a 15/6/1 from LDS and have an absolutely world-class rig capable of handling practically any stage and still come in at about $1,300... Well... That's just awesome! I haven't decided if I'm going to keep this amp or send it back to Carvin as I have a Tecamp Puma1000 on the way. Tough decision. Hopefully someone found that helpful.
