OK, I bought one, the 800 Watt version.
Quick & Dirty Impressions:
- It sounds amazing right out of the box with no effort at all.
- The owners manual in my box is clearly not a "final" version, and the descriptions of each knob's feature are pretty unsatisfying. I've been playing bass since dinosaurs walked the earth, and there are quite a few head scratchers in these descriptions. Hopefully they will update this. They could take a huge lesson from Mesa Boogie in this area.
- Along these lines, it is going to take me some time to figure out how all of the features work and interact with each other.
- The plastic knobs feel a little cheap to me. The "push" engage feature of the controls, gives a more flexible (almost wiggly) feel to the knob. I don't know the mechanics behind this, but no one wants to feel a wiggly anything on their amp. We will see how they hold up.
- I tried some of the presets from the demo version, and although they sounded different in my house (different bass, recording interface), they sounded similar and quite good. I used an active, passive and piezo bass, and was happy with the sound using all of them.
- When using headphones, there were a couple items that I didn't love. 1) The Standby Switch doesn't work through the headphone send. So even though the light changes from blue to white when you engage it, the audio still comes through the cans. This was an unpleasant discovery when I turned my amp off while wearing my phones and received a squeal/squelch into my earbone. 2) no matter how I set the Trim, Normal and Master volumes for a clean sound, I could hear a low level distortion in the signal. Maybe it was my phones, I will check it out through the speakers and other headphones, and see if I can still hear it.
- The Overdrive Channel: It has its own foot-switch and cable which is nice and works well. The thing with the overdrive channel is it is not programmable, so even though I can preset the Overdrive Level, Edge/Cut, and Level/Body settings, I have to use whatever other settings are currently on the rest of the amp. So there is not much opportunity to use the switching to get a very different sound and EQ, just the same sound you are currently using with overdrive added. I honestly am not too crazy about the sounds I am getting from this section, but I am still in a learning curve. But for example, the Level/Body features are on the same clickable knob. So if I want to set my overall output level, I cannot effectively use the "Body" feature because that will also raise or lower the output. So if you like the body level high, your output will be too loud. Yes, I can adjust the master or send volume, but then when I click off the overdrive channel back to the Normal channel, my volume will be too low. I can imagine that I will not get much use out of this overdrive channel, unless I have a eureka moment.
- Small item: The Standby light is ALWAYS on when the amp is plugged in to power. It goes off when you go out of standby mode, but when I am done playing and pack up, that damn white light is still shining like a beacon to those lost at sea! I wish I could turn it off.
So, still early, still exploring, but I can confidently say that the amp sounds really, really good, is light and portable, looks amazing. It sounds like a GK, has balls, edge and power, and I like it a lot.
Quick & Dirty Impressions:
- It sounds amazing right out of the box with no effort at all.
- The owners manual in my box is clearly not a "final" version, and the descriptions of each knob's feature are pretty unsatisfying. I've been playing bass since dinosaurs walked the earth, and there are quite a few head scratchers in these descriptions. Hopefully they will update this. They could take a huge lesson from Mesa Boogie in this area.
- Along these lines, it is going to take me some time to figure out how all of the features work and interact with each other.
- The plastic knobs feel a little cheap to me. The "push" engage feature of the controls, gives a more flexible (almost wiggly) feel to the knob. I don't know the mechanics behind this, but no one wants to feel a wiggly anything on their amp. We will see how they hold up.
- I tried some of the presets from the demo version, and although they sounded different in my house (different bass, recording interface), they sounded similar and quite good. I used an active, passive and piezo bass, and was happy with the sound using all of them.
- When using headphones, there were a couple items that I didn't love. 1) The Standby Switch doesn't work through the headphone send. So even though the light changes from blue to white when you engage it, the audio still comes through the cans. This was an unpleasant discovery when I turned my amp off while wearing my phones and received a squeal/squelch into my earbone. 2) no matter how I set the Trim, Normal and Master volumes for a clean sound, I could hear a low level distortion in the signal. Maybe it was my phones, I will check it out through the speakers and other headphones, and see if I can still hear it.
- The Overdrive Channel: It has its own foot-switch and cable which is nice and works well. The thing with the overdrive channel is it is not programmable, so even though I can preset the Overdrive Level, Edge/Cut, and Level/Body settings, I have to use whatever other settings are currently on the rest of the amp. So there is not much opportunity to use the switching to get a very different sound and EQ, just the same sound you are currently using with overdrive added. I honestly am not too crazy about the sounds I am getting from this section, but I am still in a learning curve. But for example, the Level/Body features are on the same clickable knob. So if I want to set my overall output level, I cannot effectively use the "Body" feature because that will also raise or lower the output. So if you like the body level high, your output will be too loud. Yes, I can adjust the master or send volume, but then when I click off the overdrive channel back to the Normal channel, my volume will be too low. I can imagine that I will not get much use out of this overdrive channel, unless I have a eureka moment.
- Small item: The Standby light is ALWAYS on when the amp is plugged in to power. It goes off when you go out of standby mode, but when I am done playing and pack up, that damn white light is still shining like a beacon to those lost at sea! I wish I could turn it off.
So, still early, still exploring, but I can confidently say that the amp sounds really, really good, is light and portable, looks amazing. It sounds like a GK, has balls, edge and power, and I like it a lot.
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