So I'm a college student and I have my main rig where I live nowadays, but I needed an amp for when I go "back home" for maybe a month out of the year. I was looking around for a ~$300 setup that would satisfy my practice and jamming needs, and something that could hopefully squeak by if I ever run across a gig here.
There aren't a lot of good options in this price range, but I narrowed it down to a few rigs. Like many of you, I obsess over gear and I researched thoroughly via musiciansfriend, talkbass, harmonycentral, and etc. I had my eye on the N15 for a long time, but it was difficult to find many reviews -- it seemed not a lot of people own this amp. Well, when the price dropped from $400 to 279, I saw this as an opportunity to try it out myself and let people know about it.
Specs from here the eden site,
Power 200 Watts RMS @4Ω
Speakers 15"
Tweeter Mechanical
Power Handling 200W RMS
Freq. Response 38hz - 10khz ±2dB
Impedance 4Ω
Dimensions 25"H x 18.5"W x 17.25"D
Weight 45 LBS
It also has an aux input, DI out, and headphone out.
3 Band active EQ, built-in auto compression.
A pic from the website:
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
I opened the box in the garage and carried it down the stairs. Having owned an ampeg BA115 before, which weighed about 60 lbs, weight was one of my crucial specs in buying. At ~45 lbs the N15 is not too heavy, but not light either. This is about the maximum haul I want to deal with, but yeah, I can deal with it. Put the amp down a few feet from the wall, the kickback feature is pretty cool.
I read the manual. Not a lot of details, it's short and simple but good enough I suppose. I'm always interested in reading specs like which frequencies the EQ is changing and etc, but I don't think I saw that in there. Plugged in the amp, set EQ flat. Instantly, my very first impression: sterile. This has got to be what people mean when they say something sounds sterile. I have heard GK called sterile before, but owning a GK700RB-II, that is definitely not true especially after hearing this amp.
So I wanted to see what the EQ would do. I noticed a LOT of finger noise, string noise, fret noise and whatnot. I turned down the treble all the way, and I still had this problem. I'm not saying I have flawless technique, but wow, even with the treble cut all the way you could still hear a lot of that noise. I was pretty disappointed with this, but kept working with the EQ. This is why I like details about EQ bands, the mids and bass definitely sounded different than what I'm used to. I will give an update the more I play this through the weeks, but I didn't find the EQ to be very powerful in changing the tone. Moving on to the "enhance" knob, the manual says: "designed to boost the low frequencies and upper midrange while reducing the lower mids." So I played around with that, and while it surely does change the tone, I am not considering this a "versatile" amp. I was pretty sure that there is no way I'm getting anything resembling a vintage tone out of this amp. This is hi-fi.
Next test was the loudness test. My old ampeg BA-115 was 100w and I have read a bunch that doubling the wattage is adding 3db of volume. Yeah I know it depends on a lot of other things, but I was interested in comparing the general rule. OK umm neat. Well this is definitely louder than the ampeg I had, but I considered that ampeg underpowered. Well, there was a noticeable increase in volume with this amp. Not a lot, but I honestly didn't know what to expect. However... the most important thing I found is that no matter how hard I pushed the amp, it seemed to hold together. Any distortion when pushed was slightly pleasant, definitely not bad sounding. Relief. It does get pretty loud. I'm really not sure at this point if it could handle a gig, but maybe it could pass.
Alright, fine, I had a slight distaste with the sound. I started practicing though and it's not too bad. Then I plugged in my laptop and put on some standards and started playing along. It sounded better with other stuff going on, like it would fit in a mix pretty well. Put on some rock tunes, played along, same story. I am definitely looking forward to playing this with a few friends on drums and guitar. When I do that, and if I end up gigging at all, I will update this.
Overall, I'd say it's a decent buy for the ~300 I paid. If you're looking for something similar for practice, jams, and smaller gigs -- although not a wonderful piece of equipment, this seems like one of the better options out there. I probably wouldn't pay the 400 bucks that it was originally priced at, though. At that point I would look for a cheaper used cab and head deal. I will play this more for the next few weeks and report back, also, will get some pics.
update1: I really like the aux input and headphone out. I'm running my laptop into the amp and I can play along with any music I have, or online radio, and mix the sound well. And sometimes plugging in my headphones for that.
P.S. I am using an Ibanez GSR200, my first/beater bass. It is a passive bass, strung with ernie ball super slinkies. Both pups full. The tone knob is also stuck broken all the way up, it would probably help a little if that was adjustable, but I'm still skeptical of the amp's treble response. At one point I got a tone that reminded me of chris squire (I don't remember the name of the song I started playing, I think it's on tormato or drama or 90125 to get an idea). I have never heard this bass sound like that before.
There aren't a lot of good options in this price range, but I narrowed it down to a few rigs. Like many of you, I obsess over gear and I researched thoroughly via musiciansfriend, talkbass, harmonycentral, and etc. I had my eye on the N15 for a long time, but it was difficult to find many reviews -- it seemed not a lot of people own this amp. Well, when the price dropped from $400 to 279, I saw this as an opportunity to try it out myself and let people know about it.
Specs from here the eden site,
Power 200 Watts RMS @4Ω
Speakers 15"
Tweeter Mechanical
Power Handling 200W RMS
Freq. Response 38hz - 10khz ±2dB
Impedance 4Ω
Dimensions 25"H x 18.5"W x 17.25"D
Weight 45 LBS
It also has an aux input, DI out, and headphone out.
3 Band active EQ, built-in auto compression.
A pic from the website:
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
I opened the box in the garage and carried it down the stairs. Having owned an ampeg BA115 before, which weighed about 60 lbs, weight was one of my crucial specs in buying. At ~45 lbs the N15 is not too heavy, but not light either. This is about the maximum haul I want to deal with, but yeah, I can deal with it. Put the amp down a few feet from the wall, the kickback feature is pretty cool.
I read the manual. Not a lot of details, it's short and simple but good enough I suppose. I'm always interested in reading specs like which frequencies the EQ is changing and etc, but I don't think I saw that in there. Plugged in the amp, set EQ flat. Instantly, my very first impression: sterile. This has got to be what people mean when they say something sounds sterile. I have heard GK called sterile before, but owning a GK700RB-II, that is definitely not true especially after hearing this amp.
So I wanted to see what the EQ would do. I noticed a LOT of finger noise, string noise, fret noise and whatnot. I turned down the treble all the way, and I still had this problem. I'm not saying I have flawless technique, but wow, even with the treble cut all the way you could still hear a lot of that noise. I was pretty disappointed with this, but kept working with the EQ. This is why I like details about EQ bands, the mids and bass definitely sounded different than what I'm used to. I will give an update the more I play this through the weeks, but I didn't find the EQ to be very powerful in changing the tone. Moving on to the "enhance" knob, the manual says: "designed to boost the low frequencies and upper midrange while reducing the lower mids." So I played around with that, and while it surely does change the tone, I am not considering this a "versatile" amp. I was pretty sure that there is no way I'm getting anything resembling a vintage tone out of this amp. This is hi-fi.
Next test was the loudness test. My old ampeg BA-115 was 100w and I have read a bunch that doubling the wattage is adding 3db of volume. Yeah I know it depends on a lot of other things, but I was interested in comparing the general rule. OK umm neat. Well this is definitely louder than the ampeg I had, but I considered that ampeg underpowered. Well, there was a noticeable increase in volume with this amp. Not a lot, but I honestly didn't know what to expect. However... the most important thing I found is that no matter how hard I pushed the amp, it seemed to hold together. Any distortion when pushed was slightly pleasant, definitely not bad sounding. Relief. It does get pretty loud. I'm really not sure at this point if it could handle a gig, but maybe it could pass.
Alright, fine, I had a slight distaste with the sound. I started practicing though and it's not too bad. Then I plugged in my laptop and put on some standards and started playing along. It sounded better with other stuff going on, like it would fit in a mix pretty well. Put on some rock tunes, played along, same story. I am definitely looking forward to playing this with a few friends on drums and guitar. When I do that, and if I end up gigging at all, I will update this.
Overall, I'd say it's a decent buy for the ~300 I paid. If you're looking for something similar for practice, jams, and smaller gigs -- although not a wonderful piece of equipment, this seems like one of the better options out there. I probably wouldn't pay the 400 bucks that it was originally priced at, though. At that point I would look for a cheaper used cab and head deal. I will play this more for the next few weeks and report back, also, will get some pics.
update1: I really like the aux input and headphone out. I'm running my laptop into the amp and I can play along with any music I have, or online radio, and mix the sound well. And sometimes plugging in my headphones for that.
P.S. I am using an Ibanez GSR200, my first/beater bass. It is a passive bass, strung with ernie ball super slinkies. Both pups full. The tone knob is also stuck broken all the way up, it would probably help a little if that was adjustable, but I'm still skeptical of the amp's treble response. At one point I got a tone that reminded me of chris squire (I don't remember the name of the song I started playing, I think it's on tormato or drama or 90125 to get an idea). I have never heard this bass sound like that before.
