TLDR version: the B100C sounds better than the Rumble. Read on if you want the details.
Backstory (skippable)
A few months ago I upgraded from a Rumble25 (passable cheap starter amp) to a Rumble 100, and I've been kind of lukewarm on it. The larger driver and the extra power are great, but at the same time it just didn't do much for me. I got some unexpected discretionary money recently and decided I'd try an alternative, and one in the same price range, since lots of us are really just playing at home right now and aren't in the market for big stage rigs.
Now, the Fender Rumble Club is pretty large and active, so the Rumble 100 is a really popular choice around here in this price range. However, recently there's been a thread that's quite down on the Rumbles, the 100 in particular. Of course, this being TalkBass most of the suggestions for alternatives were 2-5x more expensive, so maybe not as much help for the budget-conscious bassist.
So, I picked up the B100C and thought people might want a bit of a comparison.
Common Features
The two combos are similar in a lot of ways in terms of features:
The Rumble 100 lists for $300, the Acoustic B100C for $280.
Feature differences
Here they are side-by-side:
In my opinion, the other big feature difference between the two is exterior design. While the Fender looks cleaner from the front (though I prefer the Acoustic's black to the Fender's silver), well, it's obvious Fender has never even spoken to a human factors specialist. (This is my day job so I'm picky about this.)
From the front of it, you can't see what any of the knobs are set to. Not a deal-breaker, but mildly grating. (To be fair, the knobs on the Acoustic suck from a readability perspective even when you can see them.) The real stupid on the Rumble, though, is the location of the headphone and aux in jacks. They are on the back. Yeah, that's it, I want to have to either turn the unit around or fumble around trying to plug into them without being able to see them. I would like to bring the genius who came up with this into my lab and have them do this for me a few times and then explain themselves. Clearly, they think nobody ever uses this. Now, they might be right for some people; if you never use the headphone jack or the aux in, no big deal. If you're just gigging or practicing with others, this will never come up. So you might not care about this, and that's fine.
But I'm at home pretty much all the time these days and so is everyone else in the family, and they don't always want to hear me. Sure, I could use like a Vox headphone amp (and that's what I have been doing), but then no pedals. It's just a really poorly thought-out design, at least for the case where you might actually use the headphones or aux in. (Frankly, I should have thought of this before I bought the Fender. Oops.) Anyway (in case you couldn't tell), I hate this about the Rumble. This is what actually first caused me to start thinking about getting something else.
Oh, and Sweetwater doesn't carry the B100C, whereas everybody and their brother sells the Rumble.
Sound Quality
Screw all that stuff, we're musicians—what do they sound like? That's probably what a lot of you came here for.
The knock on the Rumbles from the anti-Rumble crowd is that they sound "boxy." Sometimes described as boomy or muddy, too. I don't think it's that bad, given the price, but that's what I figured I was stuck with without spending more—I am still relatively new to this whole bass thing. I know what to expect from music/HT subwoofers (I have a Rythmik L22 in my home theater), and compared to something like that, yes, I'd certainly characterize the Rumble 100 as being on the boxy side. Not as bad as the worst complaints (set the EQ, it really helps—see the testing notes) but definitely a thing.
So, how about the Acoustic? Well, turns out I was wrong (happens a lot)—the vagueness of the Rumble is not what you're stuck with for $300. The biggest fundamental difference between the two is clarity. Hard to lay out more specifically, but when you play a note through the Rumble, you get a bass note. When you play a note through the Acoustic, you clearly get the sound of a string vibrating, if that difference makes any sense. There's a crispness to the sound that's just not there with the Rumble. More definition, sharper attack, quicker decay. Not night-and-day different, but certainly a sizable improvement. When I would switch back and forth, playing through the Rumble kind of sounded like someone threw a blanket over the B100C. (I almost did this just for grins but I spent enough time on this as it is.)
Pretty much no matter which bass I used or what I played, I liked the sound of the B100C better. Now, with some effects turned on the difference was smaller. In particular, with heavier distortion, where things are kind of smeared anyway, the difference was not that big. Modulation effects (phaser and chorus) also made the difference smaller, but not as much as distortion.
But here's the thing: when I played along to music (not through the amp, but music coming from separate speakers), I knew the difference was there and I still felt the Acoustic was better, but I'm not sure anyone just casually listening would actually notice. Especially with distortion turned on.
There is one other thing, though, that made the difference larger: standing up. I have always thought the Rumble doesn't sound as good when I stand up, which isn't surprising since it's basically aimed at my shins. First, the 100C is just better about this in general, but being able to put the B100C into the "wedge" orientation just made this so much better. Minor detail but it does make a real difference.
Recommendation
So, if I could keep only one, what would I keep? Well, right now, the Acoustic B100C for sure. I'm not playing out, often playing alone (though sometimes with my son on guitar), and the improvements in sound quality and convenience make this a no-brainer. The B100C is a really awesome practice amp for the money. Plus, you save $20 vs. the Fender, enough for a pizza and a couple beers.* Win!
But if I were regularly playing out I'd probably keep the Rumble. Yes, I'd be sacrificing sound quality but if I'm mostly going into FOH I'm not sure how much difference it'd make to the audience. The Rumble is just so much smaller and lighter that consideration kind of takes over. It might depend a little on what was being played, too: if I'm playing distorted punk or metal in a loud bar with FOH, there's no way anyone would hear the difference; Rumble for sure. If it's a jazz trio in a coffee shop and there's no FOH, well, then it might be worth lugging the Acoustic. Maybe, if there aren't a lot of stairs.
Hope this was helpful for someone!
Testing Notes (skippable)
First, there's the problem of EQ. If you have all the knobs at 12:00 on the Fender, well, it's mid-scooped, and pretty substantially so. (Comedy tip: turn on the "contour" button on the Rumble and listen to the mids completely vanish!) Within two days of first getting it I backed off the bass to about 10:00 because it was just boomy. Within two weeks I was looking on TB for other advice, which I found: to get it to be close to flat, you need to turn down the bass and treble to about 10:00, the lower mids to about 1:00, and the upper mids to about 2:00. One of the best pieces of advice I've gotten here on TB, made the Rumble sound a lot better. This is what I'd been used to.
So, what to set the B100C to? This I mostly did by ear. The Fender I left at its usual settings. Out of the box with everything at noon, the Acoustic has a much more even response than the Fender. Touch trebly, so I dialed that back to around 10:00 and it sounded pretty even. I did a real-time spectrograph to make sure they both had similar-looking responses. Not a perfect procedure but I think they were pretty close.
The next challenge was level-matching. The Fender is a lot louder at the same gain and volume levels. Either they are not really both 100w or the Fender is more efficient; the latter seems more likely. I tried to level-match by ear but that's not very accurate. Tried with a sound level meter but it's hard to guarantee you play at the same volume and even with that, the Fender always seemed louder. Solution? Played pink noise through them both (not the aux jack, the actual instrument in) with level meter to get it even. That seemed to work well.
Played three different basses: Yamaha BB734a, SBMM Ray34, Sire M2. For the Yamaha and the Sire, played both active and passive, neck pickup only, bridge pickup only, and 50/50. Left EQ flat for all of it. Also played with multiple pedals: compression (Darkglass Hyper Luminal), synth octave (DOD Meatbox), distortion (DOD Boneshaker), phaser (MXR Phase 90), chorus (EHX Bass Clone) and delay (Boss DD-3T). Didn't bother with the fuzzes. I don't think I played every pedal on every setting of each bass (or if I did, I forgot to take notes on some), but I tried to make sure I got a pretty good sampling.
One thing I realized I didn't do was play with the overdrive on the amps. I never use amp-based overdrive so I just forgot. Oops. Sorry if that's a feature you care about.
*Or enough to hire Geddy Lee to sing on your "hit single," twice. Don't worry if you don't get this, but gold star if you do.
Backstory (skippable)
A few months ago I upgraded from a Rumble25 (passable cheap starter amp) to a Rumble 100, and I've been kind of lukewarm on it. The larger driver and the extra power are great, but at the same time it just didn't do much for me. I got some unexpected discretionary money recently and decided I'd try an alternative, and one in the same price range, since lots of us are really just playing at home right now and aren't in the market for big stage rigs.
Now, the Fender Rumble Club is pretty large and active, so the Rumble 100 is a really popular choice around here in this price range. However, recently there's been a thread that's quite down on the Rumbles, the 100 in particular. Of course, this being TalkBass most of the suggestions for alternatives were 2-5x more expensive, so maybe not as much help for the budget-conscious bassist.
So, I picked up the B100C and thought people might want a bit of a comparison.
Common Features
The two combos are similar in a lot of ways in terms of features:
- 1 x 12"
- Listed at 100w
- 4-band EQ
- Separate gain and volume
- Overdrive
- XLR out w/ground lift
- Aux in
- Headphone jack
- Effects loop
The Rumble 100 lists for $300, the Acoustic B100C for $280.
Feature differences
- Weight is for sure the biggest one. Rumble is 22 lbs, B100C is 37.5 lbs. That's 1.7x. It's a substantial difference in terms of luggability.
- The B100C can be set up in a "wedge" configuration.
- The DI out on the B100C has a level control, and can be set to post-EQ or pre-EQ. Could be a big deal for some FOH applications.
- The B100C has a -10dB pad for active or hot basses.
- The B100C has a clipping indicator on the preamp.
- The EQs are different. The B100C has a settable notch filter while the Rumble has essentially three canned EQ-curve settings ("bright," "contour," and "vintage.")
- Besides being heavier, overall the B100C is also definitely bigger—it's taller and a bit wider. Depth is about the same.
Here they are side-by-side:
In my opinion, the other big feature difference between the two is exterior design. While the Fender looks cleaner from the front (though I prefer the Acoustic's black to the Fender's silver), well, it's obvious Fender has never even spoken to a human factors specialist. (This is my day job so I'm picky about this.)
From the front of it, you can't see what any of the knobs are set to. Not a deal-breaker, but mildly grating. (To be fair, the knobs on the Acoustic suck from a readability perspective even when you can see them.) The real stupid on the Rumble, though, is the location of the headphone and aux in jacks. They are on the back. Yeah, that's it, I want to have to either turn the unit around or fumble around trying to plug into them without being able to see them. I would like to bring the genius who came up with this into my lab and have them do this for me a few times and then explain themselves. Clearly, they think nobody ever uses this. Now, they might be right for some people; if you never use the headphone jack or the aux in, no big deal. If you're just gigging or practicing with others, this will never come up. So you might not care about this, and that's fine.
But I'm at home pretty much all the time these days and so is everyone else in the family, and they don't always want to hear me. Sure, I could use like a Vox headphone amp (and that's what I have been doing), but then no pedals. It's just a really poorly thought-out design, at least for the case where you might actually use the headphones or aux in. (Frankly, I should have thought of this before I bought the Fender. Oops.) Anyway (in case you couldn't tell), I hate this about the Rumble. This is what actually first caused me to start thinking about getting something else.
Oh, and Sweetwater doesn't carry the B100C, whereas everybody and their brother sells the Rumble.
Sound Quality
Screw all that stuff, we're musicians—what do they sound like? That's probably what a lot of you came here for.
The knock on the Rumbles from the anti-Rumble crowd is that they sound "boxy." Sometimes described as boomy or muddy, too. I don't think it's that bad, given the price, but that's what I figured I was stuck with without spending more—I am still relatively new to this whole bass thing. I know what to expect from music/HT subwoofers (I have a Rythmik L22 in my home theater), and compared to something like that, yes, I'd certainly characterize the Rumble 100 as being on the boxy side. Not as bad as the worst complaints (set the EQ, it really helps—see the testing notes) but definitely a thing.
So, how about the Acoustic? Well, turns out I was wrong (happens a lot)—the vagueness of the Rumble is not what you're stuck with for $300. The biggest fundamental difference between the two is clarity. Hard to lay out more specifically, but when you play a note through the Rumble, you get a bass note. When you play a note through the Acoustic, you clearly get the sound of a string vibrating, if that difference makes any sense. There's a crispness to the sound that's just not there with the Rumble. More definition, sharper attack, quicker decay. Not night-and-day different, but certainly a sizable improvement. When I would switch back and forth, playing through the Rumble kind of sounded like someone threw a blanket over the B100C. (I almost did this just for grins but I spent enough time on this as it is.)
Pretty much no matter which bass I used or what I played, I liked the sound of the B100C better. Now, with some effects turned on the difference was smaller. In particular, with heavier distortion, where things are kind of smeared anyway, the difference was not that big. Modulation effects (phaser and chorus) also made the difference smaller, but not as much as distortion.
But here's the thing: when I played along to music (not through the amp, but music coming from separate speakers), I knew the difference was there and I still felt the Acoustic was better, but I'm not sure anyone just casually listening would actually notice. Especially with distortion turned on.
There is one other thing, though, that made the difference larger: standing up. I have always thought the Rumble doesn't sound as good when I stand up, which isn't surprising since it's basically aimed at my shins. First, the 100C is just better about this in general, but being able to put the B100C into the "wedge" orientation just made this so much better. Minor detail but it does make a real difference.
Recommendation
So, if I could keep only one, what would I keep? Well, right now, the Acoustic B100C for sure. I'm not playing out, often playing alone (though sometimes with my son on guitar), and the improvements in sound quality and convenience make this a no-brainer. The B100C is a really awesome practice amp for the money. Plus, you save $20 vs. the Fender, enough for a pizza and a couple beers.* Win!
But if I were regularly playing out I'd probably keep the Rumble. Yes, I'd be sacrificing sound quality but if I'm mostly going into FOH I'm not sure how much difference it'd make to the audience. The Rumble is just so much smaller and lighter that consideration kind of takes over. It might depend a little on what was being played, too: if I'm playing distorted punk or metal in a loud bar with FOH, there's no way anyone would hear the difference; Rumble for sure. If it's a jazz trio in a coffee shop and there's no FOH, well, then it might be worth lugging the Acoustic. Maybe, if there aren't a lot of stairs.
Hope this was helpful for someone!
Testing Notes (skippable)
First, there's the problem of EQ. If you have all the knobs at 12:00 on the Fender, well, it's mid-scooped, and pretty substantially so. (Comedy tip: turn on the "contour" button on the Rumble and listen to the mids completely vanish!) Within two days of first getting it I backed off the bass to about 10:00 because it was just boomy. Within two weeks I was looking on TB for other advice, which I found: to get it to be close to flat, you need to turn down the bass and treble to about 10:00, the lower mids to about 1:00, and the upper mids to about 2:00. One of the best pieces of advice I've gotten here on TB, made the Rumble sound a lot better. This is what I'd been used to.
So, what to set the B100C to? This I mostly did by ear. The Fender I left at its usual settings. Out of the box with everything at noon, the Acoustic has a much more even response than the Fender. Touch trebly, so I dialed that back to around 10:00 and it sounded pretty even. I did a real-time spectrograph to make sure they both had similar-looking responses. Not a perfect procedure but I think they were pretty close.
The next challenge was level-matching. The Fender is a lot louder at the same gain and volume levels. Either they are not really both 100w or the Fender is more efficient; the latter seems more likely. I tried to level-match by ear but that's not very accurate. Tried with a sound level meter but it's hard to guarantee you play at the same volume and even with that, the Fender always seemed louder. Solution? Played pink noise through them both (not the aux jack, the actual instrument in) with level meter to get it even. That seemed to work well.
Played three different basses: Yamaha BB734a, SBMM Ray34, Sire M2. For the Yamaha and the Sire, played both active and passive, neck pickup only, bridge pickup only, and 50/50. Left EQ flat for all of it. Also played with multiple pedals: compression (Darkglass Hyper Luminal), synth octave (DOD Meatbox), distortion (DOD Boneshaker), phaser (MXR Phase 90), chorus (EHX Bass Clone) and delay (Boss DD-3T). Didn't bother with the fuzzes. I don't think I played every pedal on every setting of each bass (or if I did, I forgot to take notes on some), but I tried to make sure I got a pretty good sampling.
One thing I realized I didn't do was play with the overdrive on the amps. I never use amp-based overdrive so I just forgot. Oops. Sorry if that's a feature you care about.
*Or enough to hire Geddy Lee to sing on your "hit single," twice. Don't worry if you don't get this, but gold star if you do.
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