The BB800 is a nice concept for small gigs, although at that level, 500W should be sufficient.
The issues I'm having with it is:
1- no high frequency control. Markbass VLE is very good at that. And it really doesn't cost much at all to get a good hpf working.
4uF cap in parallel on the preamp input signal, via a volume pot in series with the cap costs a dollar to implement, or so, but gives decent hf tone control.
I personally prefer a cap for tone control, than a 3 band EQ, that dials out the highs evenly, as a cap functions more like a variable frequency rolloff, than what many modern basses use as a volume control on the highs.
A cap sounds much warmer.
The BB depends on your bass' eq or preamp, or tone pedal.
2- the second major issue with this type of bass amp, is that it assumes perfect audible settings.
Live playing rarely is a perfect setting.
You're standing less than a foot off of a wall, with your amp on the floor, the stage is tight, is going to reflect a whole lot of 300-400Hz right in your face!
Move the cab 3 ft off the wall, perhaps a foot off the floor, and now it sounds more boomy.
For those reasons, Behringer used to implement a semi parametric notch filter.
Dial in the offending frequency you hear, and dial in how much you want it gone, or boosted.
The BB is not a PA power amp. It has tone control, and is aimed towards the bassist for live play. Therefore it should have all the control the bassist needs, not to sound like a sore on stage.
All I can see is low and mid control.
And while one can boost low and mid, to have less highs, it's impractical, and dialing out the highs completely is not possible.
Eg: taking care of unwanted hiss, or just wanting to sound vintage.
If I play through this with a piezo bass, it will sound like crap, unless the piezo bass has a tone control.
So it's severely limited in functions that a live bassist NEEDS!
Piezo basses are also more and more hitting sales floors. Piezo pickups need audio signal correction, much like an LP needs. A small button saying 'piezo' on the amp, could drive a circuitry that could deal better with the different Dynamics and tonal outputs of a piezo pickup, and would be some interesting innovation, to see implemented on a bass amp.
Piezo pickups are cheap, thus found on cheap basses, often lacking tonal control.
A lot of electric uprights and stick basses have a piezo pickup. Some Yamaha basses came with a humbucker and a piezo pickup.
As far as DI out on the back, I would agree that it should send a preamp signal out, not post.
I like the minimalistic idea, yet minimalistic also often means limiting. Especially when you know their amp will be used mostly with cabs of another brand (since their cabs are unusually expensive, and from the specs are really not that good at projecting sound below 50Hz or so), in setting that are less than perfect.
If you like a more tube sound, give Huges and kettler a try. Their bass amps sound glassy, clear, and tubey!
) most transparent, strongest, and most true tone I've ever felt from an amp.
)
