View attachment 4850155 My Digbeth preamp arrived today and after playing through it for a few hours, this thing is a winner in my book, I absolutely love it.
It is definitely its own animal and it probably wouldn't be my go to for a super clean tone, but it’s pretty versatile and would definitely be at home anywhere you’d want to use an SVT or an Orange. The fet side has a really cool light breakup when it’s pushed hard. There’s definitely a lot of warmth there, but it retains a great clarity.
The overdrive side is very surprising. I haven’t had good luck with preamp pedals that have a drive channel. Got some really fun KISS/Thin Lizzy overdrive and some gnarly doom tones at the upper levels. I’m sure I could get a decent “Snakes for the Divine” type tone.
The Digbeths eq seems user friendly enough. I really appreciate it having separate low mid and high mid controls as opposed to a single sweepable mid. The low mid toggle switch is a nice touch. I’m not sure about the tilt feature, but it could be useful if you gig with multiple basses.
As King Harvest pointed out, there are no tubes and I won’t say this thing sounds like it has them. It does seem to respond to your playing in much the same way as a tube preamp does in that harder you play the more you drive the preamp. But it’s old school solid state, just a really good example of it.
I think that the clean channel could do with a master volume, again it has a KILLER 70’s style SS grind. Other than that the only regret I have is that now I seriously have to consider buying the actual 500w head too!