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New Head: Valkyrie from Baer Amps... Thoughts?

Hollow Man

Hollow Man

Supporting Member
Apr 28, 2003
4,062
111
Springfield, VA
#1
I first noticed Roger Baer's work while looking at pictures of Nordstrand basses from NAMM '10 (Roger and Carey shared a booth), and since then, I've been eagerly awaiting the completion of Roger's website to get more info. Well, the website is up, and his new amp looks pretty cool!

http://www.baeramps.com/amps.html

400/700/900W into 8/4/2 ohms, two-band parametric mids, solid-state preamp with a blendable tube... nice specs on paper at least. I love my TF750, and the Valkyrie seems to be in the same vein in terms of size and performance.

Did any of you who were at NAMM get a chance to hear it? Thoughts? Bowlus, where are you? I've emailed Roger for pricing and timeline to availability (quoted on the website as Summer '10).

Additionally, Roger's got an 8-ohm 112 and a 4-ohm 212 in the works too; although I'm more interested in the Valkyrie, if anyone's got opinions on those, I'd welcome that as well.
 
#2
bowlus gave one of baer's products bgm's "new product of the year" award. i have not seen them, but R is a guy i've had many pleasant conversations on here with, he's extremely knowledgeable, and i'm really looking forward to trying some of his stuff out.
 
#5
That looks beautiful, and Roger is a top notch cat. I look forward to trying out one of these. That thing oozes 'top of the line' and 'handmade'.

I like the 'variable deep' control a lot (like on the Glock and Carvin 'B' amps)... well though out EQ and great features.

I hope I get to try one of these. I'm a micro amp guy, but I still have an old SKB two space rack here waiting for something that is worth the larger size and weight!
 
#9
This head sounded great at the NAMM Show, as did Roger's cabs. The EQ is very well thought out, and extremely useful. The control over the low end is amazing, and you can really fine tune the high end detail as well. I also like the way he blends in a cascading tube circuit, which really does as good of a job as I think a single knob control can do of literally "dialing in" some nice tube tone.

Power-wise, it seemed very stout, and the case is very attractive. The weight is not unreasonable at all. I was mentioning on the way out to NAMM that we have these two trends in bass amps right now. One, is the "smaller/lighter" race, and the other is the resurgence of all-tube heads. One interesting side to this is how those two movements are almost entirely opposite of each other. But the other side of the coin is that people seem to be forgetting about the meat of the market, which is still made up of class-AB heads using conventional power supplies. Roger took this format and really tweaked the heck out of it.

Obviously (based upon our award), we really like the NAMM prototype. I can't wait to get my hands on a production model! I've already warned Roger that if he sends us one for review, he should pretty much just plan on me buying it when we are all done. :D
 
#10
Matt Dean said:
Wow... I'm liking the looks of the Valkyrie. Any idea of it's price point?
Click to expand...

Nope (at least, not me). It's not on the website, and I've emailed Roger about that (among other things) and have not heard back. I only emailed last night, and I'm confident he'll reply in due course.

tombowlus said:
This head sounded great at the NAMM Show, as did Roger's cabs. The EQ is very well thought out, and extremely useful. The control over the low end is amazing, and you can really fine tune the high end detail as well. I also like the way he blends in a cascading tube circuit, which really does as good of a job as I think a single knob control can do of literally "dialing in" some nice tube tone.
Click to expand...

This sounds great! Certainly an attractive description.

Power-wise, it seemed very stout, and the case is very attractive. The weight is not unreasonable at all. I was mentioning on the way out to NAMM that we have these two trends in bass amps right now. One, is the "smaller/lighter" race, and the other is the resurgence of all-tube heads. One interesting side to this is how those two movements are almost entirely opposite of each other. But the other side of the coin is that people seem to be forgetting about the meat of the market, which is still made up of class-AB heads using conventional power supplies. Roger took this format and really tweaked the heck out of it.
Click to expand...

I agree that the Class A/B, medium-weight heads seem to be a forgotten market. The micro heads are quite nice (MarkBass, TecAmp, etc) and the lust for vintage designs will be around forever, but I think the Thunderfunk/Valkyrie style of amp is still very viable while not falling under the all-tube-vintage or micro monikers.

I've already warned Roger that if he sends us one for review, he should pretty much just plan on me buying it when we are all done. :D
Click to expand...
Y'know Tom, from anyone else, this might be a compliment, but for you, it's almost par for the course!
 
#11
The Baer looks like a nice amp, wish I'd checked it out at NAMM. Two over-lapping mid bands really helps sculpt whatever tones float your boat. What's the likely target price for this amp? Is the variable deep at all like the variable loudness control on some hi-fi gear? I'm interested to hear their reasoning behind using a class A/B output section. Do they think it sounds better or is more reliable/more field serviceable than other amp topologies? If the price is reasonable, I'd like to see them build a preamp-only version of this amp.
 
#16
When I played the prototype head, Roger was tweaking a few
eq points using lots of player input. The thing that impressed
me wasn't how well the eq worked as much as how good the
amp sounded flat. I think this head will make a lot of players
happy. Roger may have nailed the eq points.
The 1x12 boxes sounded very nice too, and are covered in
5 inch plated armour. (sort of) BUT!!!!!!

The thing that got me was the distortion. WONDERFUL!!!!!
I'm not big on using distortion, but I'd find some way to use
Roger's distortion. Very well thought out.
 
#18
koobie said:
... I'm interested to hear their reasoning behind using a class A/B output section. Do they think it sounds better or is more reliable/more field serviceable than other amp topologies? If the price is reasonable, I'd like to see them build a preamp-only version of this amp.
Click to expand...

There were quite a few reasons behind our choice of power section. Above all, we realize that our first amplifier is going to forever establish the sonic signature of what a Baer amplifier sounds like and we agreed early on not to put a weight restriction on that. We also planned from day one that the Valkyrie would be 2ohm capable. After trying numerous amp topologies with our preamp, our engineers came up with a class A/B that gave us exactly what we were looking for. This isn't to say that we feel class A/B is superior to the other topologies out there. We simply felt that it was the best choice for this project. We have every intention of offering a more diverse product line up as soon as we are able to do so.
 

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