I've been wanting one of these super tiny bass heads for a while, but could never find much in the way of demos or reviews of any of them (TC, Trace or Warwick). However last week I saw an ex-demo BAM200 for sale so thought I'd go for it, and it arrived this morning I've been using a GK MB200 for the last 5 years or so, so that's what I'm comparing it to.
There were a few things I couldn't find out before I bought it, so in no particular order:
- There's a load of preamp compression available, depending on where you set the gain (also affected by diming the EQ, so I guess the compression is happening after EQ). This even happens with the master volume turned down, so this is a nice change from my MB200 where you only get the punchy limiter sound at deafening volumes.
- It's waaaay less scooped EQ-wise than the MB200. There's definitely something subtle happening in the preamp making the tone more interesting than just using a PA speaker, but it's subtle, and in general it seems pretty clean. A P-bass and my active 6-string both sound awesome plugged straight in. However, my series-wired Jazz (series to add more mids to counteract the GK scooped EQ) is now pretty honky and nasty, at least with the EQ all at 12 o'clock.
- Background hiss isn't silent, but it's pretty low. I tried a few small heads last year (the Markbass Nano 300 and the Warwick LWA500), and this is about the same as the Markbass. (The LWA500 was _silent_, I'd have kept it if the compressor worked). Unfortunately there is a fan, which has just come on after 10 minutes of bedroom-volume noodling. It's no louder than a laptop fan really so I'm not too worried, but worth knowing about if you care about fan noise.
- I'm quite enjoying the sound, it feels very "balanced" - I usually roll off quite a bit of the highs, either on the bass or on the amp, but even then all the notes are clear, e.g. I can play 5ths low down and it's not a pile of mud. It works a lot better in the acoustically-dubious corner of a small room than the GK, which is very bassy by default and can be quite difficult to tame.
Hopefully that's interesting/useful to someone. If there's anything anyone would like me to try out or find out then do let me know.
Cheers!