Al Krow

Dang, that's a particular fantasy unceremoniously ended.

BB 735A vs BB 1025 (first impressions review) I've had the 735A for just a few days now, but managed to give it a bit of a spin including at band rehearsal on Thursday night and I'll also gig it tonight. Thought I'd share first impressions on this vs my BB 1025, which I'm very fond of. The 735A has newer strings and this would account for the 735A sounding a little brighter overall. Solo P setting - treble dialled off (passive) This is a classic 1025 "subby" / vintage tone and a much loved sound from this bass. It's not really something I've found any other basses I've played so far have done as well (other than, I guess other members of the BB passive family of basses, be interested if others agree?). The 735A in passive (but not so much in active) mode comes pretty close - it sounded a little brighter, less muddy, but that could be just down to the newer strings. With the treble back up for both basses, the 735A continued to feel a little brighter. 735A Passive vs Active With the 3 band EQ at neutral there was almost no difference between active and passive for 735A, which is a good sign. In terms of the EQ, bass cut worked to tighten the sound. Bass boost was less effective in increasing the low end thump (in the way that the Ibby SR EQ and, in especially, the BB NE2 delivers in spades). Mid cut to give a scooped tone or mid boost to cut through the mix both work well and the treble provides a decent range from very (too!) bright to nicely dialled down. As noted above for the most 'subby' tone I needed to switch to passive mode. The combination of passive and active modes delivers a significantly wider tonal palette than available with my BB 1025. Overall impressions so far This bass is growing on me very quickly. I love the fact that I can get pretty close to the vintage sound of the BB 1025 in passive mode and then, at the flick of a switch, get a much more modern punchy (or indeed scooped if I ever want it!) tone. I found myself making use of the both passive and active modes a fair bit at band rehearsal. This is not the case with my Ibby SRs where I have the bass just in active mode; the passive mode is just a nice emergency back-up should the battery ever fade mid set. The overall tone was a little sweeter than the BB 1025, but I'm not sure how much of that is simply down to the older strings on the 1025. I can see that the ease of ability to access such a broad tonal palette on one bass is going to totally appeal to the convenience junky in me, and that the BB 735A is going to become a 'goto' bass for me. It's been an itch that I first had back in March 2017 when I wandered into the London Yammy store and first started to seriously consider getting a Yammy bass. I'm very glad that I've finally got round to scratching that particular itch

Welcome to the FI club! Looking forward to hearing from you how you get on with it.

"it just plays like an absolute dream and I couldn’t be happier." => or maybe in this case just leave the thing as it is 😊

You make some very fair points, dear chap. Why did I choose these particular two amps for comparison? Well first off, I'm not assuming that they are the best D-class amps - hence the question-mark in the thread title. But to answer your Q: IMO they look great both in terms of design and feature set, they're very current, and if money was no object then I'd be tempted to get one or t'other. I also thought it would make for an interesting thread that could potentially be informative to me and others. I'll just sign off, if I may, by saying you have very poor taste in cars.

@Dood another great review, thanks. There's almost too much going on with this amp in terms of functionality (including semi-parametric across all EQ settings) but I suspect with a bit of time invested folk will be able to pretty quickly get their head around it and save favourite settings to preset for quick access. My only niggle is that it boasts of being 700W @ 4 ohms, but doesn't give an 8 ohm power rating. So I presume its 350W at 8 ohms, which would rule it out for me particularly if I was having to part with £1,200. Would have the welly to drive the low end of a quality Fearless F112 cab? It seems to be missing a key ingredient of any quality amp which, for me, is simply to amplify with headroom to spare.

Cuzzie I'm sure you would agree - go slowly and carefully when adjusting the truss rod!

Sadly it won't be the inherent magical properties of the bass, as good as they are, but rather how it's been set up: if you lower the string heights sufficiently by lowering the string saddles at the bridge, you'll be perfectly capable of getting string buzz. Unless of course your neck is super-bowed (I prefer mine only slightly bowed). Glad you're loving your new BB though!

Can't believe that you're basing your views on real life and not BC threads! Whatever next? 😂 I'd say maybe 30% to 40% of BCers regularly use compressor pedals when gigging. But probably half of that in the non BC bass playing community. Not scientific, just a gut feel observation. A lot of bass players don't use any pedals at all when playing live.

That's a really neat summary of the Fearless vs BF BB2, which seems to chime with what other folk have been saying ie the Fearless just edges it on sound / looks (albeit subjective) / design (ability to use as wedge) / price new and the BB2 on weight / portability. Out of interest, what would be the shipped cost of the AK112UFT, and what is its power handling? The BB2 IS, IMO, still the easiest to get hold of used of all three, which then for me becomes the best value option. I guess that's simply because it's the best known and best selling of the high end 112 cabs we've been discussing on this thread.

Bit of a side track, but always keen to see what fellow BCers are doing on the video recording front. So do please feel free to share!

Feel free to work out what you think would be a fair price and providing it's reasonable I'd be more than happy to support a fellow BCer in a creative venture / buy from you. Not least as we're also using RCFs. My sense is that if you can organise and coordinate the whole thing in terms of getting banners made you'll be able to capture more of the value. Probably also worth setting up a fBook page when you've got your thoughts together?

Oh I'm sure dUg (rightly!) doesn't give a flying F that this particular unheard of bassist (me) is not his groupie.

Haha, glad I'm not the only person to regularly ask that question 😂

Well that's the second time you've mentioned this bad boy on this thread, so it's clearly no laughing matter. These have been out for a couple of years now, did you get one in the end or does your dUg pedal deliver the essence of this in pedal form for you?

Haha excellent! That tends to be my timescale for getting to grips with everything apart from my basses, amp and cab (i.e. the stuff I'm actually gigging with) too! The B3N still remains the single best value all round bass pedal bar none IMO! Are you using your pedal board in a band mix?

Thank gawd for that... "How exactly do you define 'the best'? What criteria and metrics are being used?" I'd define it simply as follows (in relation to this particular thread): if you were offered the choice of any D class amp to pair with your favourite cabs as a gift, because it could deliver a consistently great sound across a range of highly regarded cabs and basses, what would you go for? Of course it's going to be subjective, but as @chris_b says with, IMHO, great wisdom: "enough positive owners reviews will be enough for me to buy one. My experience with it will be what makes me keep it." Bravo, Chris.

Good man. What are you pairing it with in terms of bass and cab? How would you describe the tone?

The weights of these three are closer than I'd been expecting: BBNE2 10.1 lbs, BB735A 9.7 lbs, BB1025 9.9 lbs

That is one handsome bass! Black and gold were made for each other.

Agreed these threads are not for everyone. If they don't work for you then that's cool. Personally, I still enjoy getting the thoughts and views of my fellow BC'ers on this comparative stuff and appreciate the views expressed are not necessarily 'gospel' truth; at the end of the day we're all agreed there's no substitute for our own ears in terms of arriving at our likes / dislikes when it comes to bass gear and sound. So when it comes to threads as you rightly say, albeit in a different context: "One mans' treasure and all that." I do think these are potentially two great amps, though.

@mcnach, that's an iconic track! But do you think the top end of that bass line has been rolled off? Doesn't sound like it to me. Yup agreed 9kHz to 10kHz should be fine, but we typically seem to be offered 5kHz or 16 kHz+. PS also with you in favouring a small speaker or horn over a tweeter - tweeter hiss can be annoying for sure! So what cab did you finally settle on?

Apologies for the dumb question, but what does "MA" stand for? I'm guessing it's not Master of Arts?