Well I went to Andertons in Guildford today, had good play on the demo unit with my own bass, and came out £709 lighter and with a massive box that wouldn't fit in the boot of the car. Really pleased with the punchy sound - I think this is massively aided by fact you play with it angled up towards you, but tonally I love it. Lord knows how anybody thinks it might not be loud enough. Will take it to a rehearsal on Wednesday for detailed analysis, but if it's not loud enough for you, I regret to inform your ears are completely knackered!
The Vle filter is quite good for knocking the top edge of the sound - good if you need to blend in a bit with a few softer numbers, but I dont like to turn it up much, just a little otherwise too muddy sound. I'm not a big slapper, but even so am not so keen on the vpf filter control. I have active bass so am happy to keep the sound flat and boost/cut where necessary using the controls on the bass. Haven't tried it yet with my passive jazz bass. The tweeter/horn does emmit a feignt hiss when amp switched on ( did this on the demo unit and the new stock one Ive now got) but not particularly intrusive, you can only tell when standing right in front of it and not playing anything.
So, it might be a class d amp and the drivers may not be from b&c anymore, but it's still a high quality sounding amp, and by god it's light! Have ordered a cover separately - you can get the official cover for about 40 quid at Thomman.
Big shout out to the helpful staff at Andertons - the guys knew their stuff, had a long play in the bass room first, no hassle to purchase. There's a lot of nice equipment in that shop, I do like going there even if parking is a nightmare! Good to see a bustling music shop, would much rather buy from there and support a decent business. They had 200 people turn up to the session with Nathan East last week, unfortunately I couldn't make it 😭 dunno where they all parked 😄