TC Electronic BQ500 Review

[Bass Jones]

These are great shots. It would be great to see them posted on the Amp Guts thread
Amp Guts Photos - Official Thread - Lets see those pics

How did I not know about that thread??? I'll post them there. I probably have gory internal photos of other amps as well...

 

[Bass Jones]

when you plug something into the aux in on the bq500 does it mute the speaker?
or does the speaker only mute when headphones are plugged in?

The Aux in is played through the speaker or through the headphones if they are plugged in (headphones mute the speaker).

 

[Stephen Pretti]

These are great shots. It would be great to see them posted on the Amp Guts thread
Amp Guts Photos - Official Thread - Lets see those pics

TC did some good work here. And this is one of their lower technology heads. Looking good.

For others:
I'm curious why people bothered by the reversed switch on the early models don't contact the Music Tribe support and have them fixed? It would be a warranty repair.

I did, actually the dealer sent me a new one, it did the same thing. A repair shop isn't going to be able to do anything if TC does not acknowledge the issue, but TC did send me a list of repair shops, none are in my state.

 

[TysonBeile]

Hi all, can someone explain what the passive/active switch is supposed do? I have a early 2000’s Amdlux pbass that’s active and a Mid 90’s Korean squier pbass that’s passive. When I plug in and play through head phones, it seems like when I’m in passive mode, everything is louder. My active bass sounds the same ether position, in passive it’s just louder. The passive bass sounds a little brighter and louder in passive mode. I am just playing through head phones though (waiting for cabs to show up in mail)

I guess my question is: if a active bass is already a little louder, why would there be setting to make it louder? Why wouldn’t the Passive setting be there to boost the passive bass volume a little.

Sorry to ramble. I’m in no way a pro when it come to this stuff, I’m just curious to know how it’s supposed to work.

Thanks

 

[Stephen Pretti]

I believe it is labeled incorrectly, but TC Electronics does not admit that.

 

[seamonkey]

Looks like TC has wired all of the models incorrectly from the get-go



Wonder what else is wired wrong?

 

[LennyJ]

Hey - did not see it here - Does th3 BQ500 have a fan?????

tks

 

[Bass Jones]

Hey - did not see it here - Does th3 BQ500 have a fan?????
tks

It does have a fan but it's pretty quiet.

 

[LennyJ]

It does have a fan but it's pretty quiet.

Thanks

 

[Ronnie Thunders]

Maybe the bq stands for baquards?

 

[monkeyxx]

Just got one yesterday! So far, suitably impressed. It's built well. It's a new one so the Active/Passive switch is the right way round. Tone is "full" it's not vintagey or bitey on the top, it's kind of smoothed over in a way, so I boost the hi mids and highs a bit. Low end is nice and strong and can get over the top with the bass knob turned up. Tested with a 1x15 haven't tried my 2x10 yet. I ordered, skeptical, but now that I have it I'm kind of impressed. Really good price on these. It will definitely get louder than I need at home. DI sounds pretty decent too. I needed something smaller than the LH1000 it's sitting on for moving around more easily, this is it, for now.

 

[Stephen Pretti]

If they fixed it you would think there would be a recall on earlier models. Anyone notified? I have not been notified.

 

[Redbrangus]

I bought one a few months ago; the Active/Passive switch works the right way round, and the clip light also works the way one would expect--contrary to earlier reports--so I guess they did make an update. It's not a car and it's not a safety issue--do you really imagine they would do a recall on a $250 amp? It would probably cost them more than the original manufacturing cost per unit to just to track them down and correct them. Profit-wise, it's a no-brainer to just ignore the prior problems. BTW, I like my BQ500 just fine...it's probably all the head I'll ever need at this point in my life. Let me rephrase that: it's probably all the amplifier I'll ever need. And I'm still keeping my 800RB.

 

[monkeyxx]

I don't want to insult anyone's intelligence but what I would do with an old one is come up with my own little labels that paste over the Active and Passive text, to reverse it. I'm a total wild man and I do stuff like this when I have to, don't really care if it doesn't look "perfect." If you are real precision oriented you could "make it look good."

 

[Stephen Pretti]

I bought one a few months ago; the Active/Passive switch works the right way round, and the clip light also works the way one would expect--contrary to earlier reports--so I guess they did make an update. It's not a car and it's not a safety issue--do you really imagine they would do a recall on a $250 amp? It would probably cost them more than the original manufacturing cost per unit to just to track them down and correct them. Profit-wise, it's a no-brainer to just ignore the prior problems. BTW, I like my BQ500 just fine...it's probably all the head I'll ever need at this point in my life. Let me rephrase that: it's probably all the amplifier I'll ever need. And I'm still keeping my 800RB.

They denied it was a problem over and over, so yes, I expect a company to be honest.

 

[Redbrangus]

They denied it was a problem over and over, so yes, I expect a company to be honest.

I hadn't heard about them denying they had a bug, so I guess they do deserve a ding for not being honest about it. I'm actually somewhat surprised they corrected the problems without a new model designation, or at least an "A" version or something like that; neither the dealers nor the purchasers seem to have any real way to discern whether an individual unit is an updated one.

AFAIC, the active/passive switch thing isn't really an issue--just an odd quirk--but the clip-light thing was an actual problem. It should have been useful for setting the input gain, but as originally issued, did not serve that purpose. As I said, my new one works just as one would expect: the clipping indicator begins to illuminate more as you advance the input gain.

 

[seamonkey]

If they fixed it you would think there would be a recall on earlier models. Anyone notified? I have not been notified.

They probably won't notify. All manufacturers have a clause in the warranty that they can release changes at will and not upgrade existing units.

But - contact them. They might here. It seems embarrassing enough that they would want to fix it under warranty.

 

[Stephen Pretti]

I got it replaced once, the new had the same issue, so I returned it. I love the tone and the power, as stated in my initial review.

 

[Bass Jones]

AFAIC, the active/passive switch thing isn't really an issue--just an odd quirk--but the clip-light thing was an actual problem. It should have been useful for setting the input gain, but as originally issued, did not serve that purpose. As I said, my new one works just as one would expect: the clipping indicator begins to illuminate more as you advance the input gain.

So, is the input switch on your new one labelled with "passive" up and "active" down? It never bothered me but now I'm curious how they dealt with it, if they changed something internally or just relabelled it.

 

[monkeyxx]

You can see my picture of a new one a few posts back. All the functions are working on this one, including the passive / active switch.