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Double Bass Future of amplifiers designed for both piezo and microphone

Which of these features are must-haves for your acoustic amplification needs?

  • input impedance optimized for piezo

    Votes: 37 86.0%
  • HPF- tunable

    Votes: 34 79.1%
  • notch filter

    Votes: 13 30.2%
  • XLR or combo input

    Votes: 30 69.8%
  • phantom power

    Votes: 29 67.4%
  • phase/polarity reverse

    Votes: 23 53.5%
  • semi-parametric eq band

    Votes: 20 46.5%
  • combo amp preferred

    Votes: 12 27.9%
  • 2-channels for doubling

    Votes: 31 72.1%
  • I only need a bass amp, nothing fancy!

    Votes: 2 4.7%

  • Total voters
    43

BassinCT

…still tuning…
Jun 17, 2006
2,663
2,626
Connecticut, USA
With the sun setting on the Acoustic Image line (RIP Rick) I have been thinking about demand for such amplifiers and if manufacturers are going to consider investing resources into producing anything like the Acoustic Image offerings or the EA Doubler amp. Genzler is the only one I’m aware of and they are exclusively selling through Gollihur, as far as I know. Alternatives include pairing a Grace Design, Headway, Radial or other preamp with a combo or powered speaker.

What do you think of the available options, and do you think that there is a demand for more acoustic-specific amps? I’m creating a poll out of curiosity- thanks for your input!
 
My personal take is that for those of us who frequently double (I do occasionally, but not often) dual channel preamps like the Grace Felix and the Headway EDB-2 H.E.are the solution to those of us who double. As time moves ahead, there is really no incentive for amp manufactures to build two channel units, dedicated to
Double Bas,s when the largest market share is electric guitars followed by electric basses. We are and will continue to be a small portion of the overall sales for bass amps. I would also predict ( I don’t have a crystal ball) that used Acoustic Image, Euphonic Audio, Walter Woods, and other similar dual channel amplifiers will become become more valuable provided they can be repaired. They may actually increase in value to some degree. Dual channel amplifiers are something that carried over from the 1960’s and 70’s before FOH P.A.’s and monitors were non existent. At that time two channel Ampeg B-15N’s along with the Fender Bassmen and Dual Showman amplifiers often served double duty as P.A.’s running the vocals through the auxiliary channel. Acoustic Image, Euphonic Audio and Walter Woods and others copied that design, so it was continued into the early 2,000’s but once Gallien Krueger, SWR and Eden became popular dual channel amps for bass became rarer. The majority of Bass amps did not include a second channel. All the new boutique bass amps from Quilter, Trickfish, Genz Benz, and Mesa are for the most part single channel amps. I don’t anticipate that changing anytime in the near future. Just my take

P.S.

I’d love to be proven wrong, and if someone comes up with a great, lightweight, full feature DB/EB amplifier in the U.S. I’ll be first in line to try it out. :)
 
there is really no incentive for amp manufactures to build two channel units, dedicated to
Double Bas,s

The beauty of the Grace Felix, though, (and really, most or all of the other preamps), is that they are not optimised for double bass. They work for a wide variety of acoustic instruments - guitar, mandolin, violin, viola, cello, banjo, kora, etc... any acoustic instrument where a good result is achieved through blending mic and piezo pick-up. And all those acoustic instruments have the same problems when combining mic and piezo. Sometimes at different frequencies, but often you don't know which frequencies, often it changes with the room, so you need the flexibility that means the preamps are as effective for bass as for violin.

I'm fully committed to the preamp and separate powered speaker approach. It might be nice to have more powered speakers voiced to optimise for double bass, but a Felix and a transparent/uncoloured powered PA speaker really does everything I need. And doesn't require specialist gear for a tiny customer base.
 
There’s also the Lundgaard amplifier. Marc Johnson uses one of these.
lundgaardamps.com

I had seen these and they look to be a very nice amp. I believe they are built in Denmark. For me a potential problem would be that getting it serviced will entail overseas shipping and customs which can be tricky. Since Marc travels extensively in Europe getting the Lungaard serviced would be something he could easily do.
 
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GR bass has a 2 channel 800 watt combo optimized for acoustic instruments but it ain't cheap.
AT Cube Acoustic – GRBass

If they would release this in a head only version, it could be a very nice amp for doublers indeed. GR bass has a U.S. distribution setup, so we'll wait and see. It costs $1,429.00 that does
include the speaker cabinet so in some ways it's a better deal than buying a separate preamp and powered speaker.
 
One other thing to note here and I'll listen to what others have to say for several cycles. A Walter Woods Electroacoustic and the Acoustic Image Clarius 4+ amplifiers are in some ways"polar opposites" of each other
IME. You can get an approximation of a Woods with the Clarus EQ and vice versa (sorry for the intentional pun), but most players IME gravitate to one or the other. I'm a died in the wool Woods EQ guy, many players are Acoustic Image
EQ converts. There's nothing wrong with either setup but they are "horses of a different" color. Just my take
 
It costs $1,429.00 that does
include the speaker cabinet so in some ways it's a better deal than buying a separate preamp and powered speaker.

That's in line with AI combo prices.

I didn't mind paying a premium for a two channel amp that's DB friendly. With my fdeck I could use a lot of different amps, but they don't fix my doubling problem. A Felix would (at about ten times the price of an fdeck).
 
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Thanks to everyone for sharing your experiences! As I am getting closer to retirement from my music teaching job, I am playing more jazz combo and theater gigs now and would like a lighter rig with a simple setup.

I am leaning toward the Felix2, as it has everything I need or could want. Lately, I’m either using my son’s Yamaha powered speaker with a dynamic mic or using an impedance transformer into a Mesa amp (with a variable HPF) Time to start saving…
 
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With the loss of Rick and AI, plus the retirement of the entire EA crew... the Chicken Little portion of my brain has already started looking at options for the future. Of course this is completely ridiculous because I currently own 3 EA heads (Doubler I, Doubler II, and Classic - Gary made me a great deal on the latter two right before he retired to clear out some stock) and the AI TEN2 (bought that one from a guitar player friend who was strapped for cash). So I see no reason to need anything in the near future... but I find myself thinking about this from time to time. The TEN2 was serviced earlier this year and the EA Classic sits in a rack case in a safe space and isn't used that much but I use those Doublers all the time. One is at at rehearsal space and the other always seems to end up in the gig bag for doubling stuff.

Honestly I feel like the future for us is going to lean towards powered speakers and stand alone preamps like the Felix and Headway. Or just the preamps and a line out to FOH when possible. Which would be cool with me.
 
All of these features are helpful IMHO. As others have said, I don't think there is a lot of demand, and there are already viable options on the market.

One comment...IMHO more notch filters would really be helpful. In my experience you don't hit the point of diminishing returns until you have notched out 4-6 problematic frequencies. Notching only one frequency is often barely an improvement.

My solution was to use a Ashley MX508 rack mixer. For context I switched between three instruments, so two channels was not sufficient. This option was a good choice for local gigs as it was housed in a 16-sp rolling rack with a power amp, rack drawer, tuner, and Furman rack power module with lights. Way to big and heavy for one person to load in and out of a POV. It worked great for touring, where all band gear was transported in a cargo truck.

This mixer does not have instrument level inputs, so I used Shure A95U line matching transformers to convert the signal to mic level. I am pretty sure the resulting input impedance was way too low for the typical piezo, but I didn't really notice any degradation to the sound of my Realist (original version).

The channels strips on the Ashley only had Bass, Treble, and one variable frequency Mid control. Not quite enough processing power IMHO but it worked fairly well. If I were still using this rig I would add an Empress MkII ParaEQ Deluxe for the upright. This would increase the load on the piezo to 1Meg and provide a variable HPF and additional EQ that can be configured as a couple of notch filters.

A current mixer I would research is the Behringer Flow 8. Digital mixers tend to have way more processing power than analog. Input impedance for the high Z/instrument level inputs is 2 meg. Hook the Flow 8 up to your iPhone and a powered speaker and you might have a really good doubling rig. This is a suggestion to put this on your research list, rather than a recommendation to buy. I have not use it and I have not fully explored it's capabilities or suitability to the task.

upload_2023-6-20_11-57-38.jpeg
 
Hasty,
:)Just remember that since the AI and EA amps use IcE Power modules, they are significantly easier to repair than the Walter Woods Ultra I have as my backup. My guess is that you’ll never need another amplifier for a long time because of their design. Just my take.

For sure... from a power perspective. The only thing I've ever had serviced on the AI was the effects channel- it had a bad pot and switch so you always had 100% reverb even when switched off. Which they fixed easily.

On the Doubler II, the only issue I ever had was the Intelligent Switching button that swapped between channel 1 and 2. It wouldn't stay on channel 2 and kept flipping bad to channel 1. Gary said it was a faulty logic switch or something like that.

So no problems with the power section, but I'm hoping if anything like the above happens in the future it can be serviced.
 
For sure... from a power perspective. The only thing I've ever had serviced on the AI was the effects channel- it had a bad pot and switch so you always had 100% reverb even when switched off. Which they fixed easily.

On the Doubler II, the only issue I ever had was the Intelligent Switching button that swapped between channel 1 and 2. It wouldn't stay on channel 2 and kept flipping bad to channel 1. Gary said it was a faulty logic switch or something like that.

So no problems with the power section, but I'm hoping if anything like the above happens in the future it can be serviced.

I don't anticipate you having any Hasty. Acoustic Image amps were built to be repaired, as were the Euphonic Audio Doublers. Unlike those, Walter "protected his pattens" by removing the manufacturing no. of larger components, like large capacitors.

It makes them a PITA to repair
 
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