OK, NAD. Bergantino forté HP

At the moment, I don't have a burning need for a 1,200-watt amp but, hey, it's new and shiny. In my yacht rock band, we all go direct to the PA and my blues band evaporated into the aether, so I feel somewhat obligated to find another band.

Anyway, I've had a chance to play through it a bit in my practice room, (AKA "the swamp") and I can say unequivocally it fully lives up to its hype(r power). It still has the clean, accurate sound of the B|Amp and forté, but with a lot more "punch." I'm playing it through an HDN212 and I'm anxious to hear it through the HG410 which I will do when I feel like digging it out of my gear warehouse.

Even at low volume the extra girth is noticeable and it does it without introducing any extraneous voicing. It's easy to add some grit to all-out distortion with the Drive control (if you're into that sort of thing). The controls give options between those of the forté and the B|Amp and even some absent from both, like the low-pass filter and Punch controls.

It'll be a while before I gig this monster, but I'm thinking of letting a friend of mine (a real bass player) use it on a gig so I can hear it cut loose.