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Poll: Active players: 9v or 18v?
- Thread starter lavmonga
- Start date
9V for me but I also own a passive bass which kills just the same. I prefer 9V over 18V as I really don't need that much overhead and I also had an 18V bass once that felt like it was shocking me whenever I rested my arm on the strings. Weighing having to buy 2 batteries vs. 1 was also a factor.
I have a passive jazz, an 18v 5 string and a 9v sixer. I prefer my actives unless something about the gig requires a classic Fender Jazz tone, like a picky engineer. I like having the extra headroom in the 18v but not enough to turn around for the difference. My 9v actually seems to get louder than my 18v which is not all that unusual. Onboard preamps aren't always set to output at the maximum possible gain.
I always go 18v on both my Guitars and Basses unless there is a circuit in the preamp that use twice as much power from one battery.
More headroom is never a bad thing imo.
More headroom is never a bad thing imo.
My actives are a mixture of 18V (Kubicki) and 9V (Spectors).
I recently saw a Jonas Hellborg signature status with 36V electronics.....
I recently saw a Jonas Hellborg signature status with 36V electronics.....
According to EMG, the headroom increase from 18v to 27v+ is no where near as helpful as the 9v to 18v increase.
That is unless this Status preamp is ridiculously powerful and it needs 36v just to function.
All my active basses are 18v pre's. 2 Carvin's, a LB75AP Anniversary and an Icon IC5 and a Ibby BTB405QM.
Rickett Customs
Commercial User
After running 18v for awhile, I've noticed a much longer battery life, compared to just one 9v (year and 1/2 on one, gigging at least, if not more than 3x per month. Well additionally there are uncounted recording times too). Whether or not that theory holds true,
I believe you can run the pre, clear down from 18v to somewhat below 9v, even with both batteries. Unless somehow I'm wrong......
I believe you can run the pre, clear down from 18v to somewhat below 9v, even with both batteries. Unless somehow I'm wrong......
Neither.
Once i get my Jazz bass back from my luthier, (rear routing job) I'm putting in an OBP-1 at 27V
9V is not enough, i would not play a bass that is running on 9V.
I don't understand why 9V would be preferable to 18V?
Do you guys not like headroom or something?
Once i get my Jazz bass back from my luthier, (rear routing job) I'm putting in an OBP-1 at 27V
9V is not enough, i would not play a bass that is running on 9V.
I don't understand why 9V would be preferable to 18V?
Do you guys not like headroom or something?
It all depends on how the batteries are wired.
You can wire one 9v to use the power of two 9v's (one battery runs at twice the power), or you can wire two 9v's to use the power of one 9v (two batteries run at half-power).
All of the above. One all-passive bass, one active 18v, one active 9v. I have had some 9v basses that were substantially louder than any 18v i've ever heard. But I think that is a function of the pickup height and EQing as much as the voltage of the preamp. I think the loud 9v basses were EQed for lots of mids.
I run 18 on my EMG loaded custom Jazz-style. I can hear the difference in note response from 9v. It's not louder, but it has a much crisper attack.
In my case, I'm running an 800w amp. I have all the headroom/volume I need and my 9V actives already have high output which cause me to have to turn 'down' my gain so I don't clip! I had to pad even further when I had the 18V bass! The signal was way too hot!
Kinda depends on the pre-amp. I believe Audere's pre-amp doesn't gain any additional headroom with the 18v configuration, but it simply allows the pre-amp to draw from both batteries and last longer. I have a few Bartolini equipped basses with a 9v pre-amp and they have plenty of volume and range. My Rob Allen basses are 9v and louder than anything else I own!
That makes sense. The Audere in my Valenti is my first experience with a 18 volt system and I couldn't hear any sonic advantage over any of my 9 volt basses.
