New Amp from Bergantino (New photos)

[FuNkShUi]

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1438253118' post='2832887']

There was also a hint of a Barefaced amp lurking in the shadows. I'm very interested in that as well.
[/quote]

Really?!!? I look forward to that

[deepbass5]

I think there is room for another good bass amp for the working musician, light flexible with good connectivity. There are many out there but again none that would pull me away from the medium powered plug and play units i currently own. ref Markbass and GK MB500fusion.
Actually still like the CARVIN shame they parted company with Bassgear

[Musicman20]

[quote name='Ghost_Bass' timestamp='1438251801' post='2832872']
since i got the news that Jeff Genzler is back in business!
[/quote]

Ditto. I can't wait for Genzler's new amps and cabs.

[fretmeister]

NAMM

Not Available Maybe Moctober.

[funkle]

Never Actually Made a Model

Too harsh? Too harsh. Edited July 30, 2015 by funkle

[alexclaber]

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1438253118' post='2832887']There was also a hint of a Barefaced amp lurking in the shadows. I'm very interested in that as well.[/quote]

Yes, though it's a LONG way from release!

[alexclaber]

I should add that I hope it doesn't take 3 years like the Gen 3 cabs did!

[Happy Jack]

Are you still working on the feet then?

[mrtcat]

I'm not buying anything amp wise at the moment with Barefaced developing an amp, Bergantino developing an amp and Genzler starting up. Amazingly the guys from original Genz are sending me replacement leds for my streamliner after I messaged them yesterday via TalkBass. That kind of commitment to service long after the company has been sold counts for a huge amount in my book.

[Guest bassman7755]

[quote name='alexclaber' timestamp='1438258782' post='2832977'] Yes, though it's a LONG way from release! [/quote]

So still plenty of time for us get out feature requests in then :-)

[Lozz196]

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1438262396' post='2833014']
Are you still working on the feet then?


[/quote]

AS long as no-one mentions the H word, he may just get away with it....................

[zawinul]

why not get a kempler?

[Owen]

You are all probably following the thread on TB, but if not, it appears that the NAMM model has been left with a Berg dealer who has written that it will happily drive 2 x 4ohm cabs

"The minimum factory is 4ohm. If you dig into the menu there is an option for 2.67 and 2ohm as well. I have personally run it on the 2ohm setting with 2 (4ohm) CN212 cabinets and I can honestly say it may be one of the best sounding bass rigs."

[deepbass5]

https://youtu.be/iIIuR-HjFho

[fretmeister]

From Berg website:

Why B|AMP?

September 11, 2015/in Blog /by Bergantino Audio
Before any engineer worth his or her weight puts pen to paper to start any design, he or she needs to ask themselves one very simple question: “Why?” In fact, that’s exactly the first question a venture capitalist would ask a would-be entrepreneur looking for investment money… “Why X?”

For years I’ve been asked by dealers to produce a Bass Amplifier. My response was always “the industry doesn’t need another ‘Me Too’ product with another off-the-shelf power module with another voiced preamp”. The multitude of preamp voicings reminds me of my old hi-fi days when department stores had shelves lined with speaker cabinets. The most successful manufacturers of those ‘lo-fi’ speakers knew that they had at most 5-10 seconds to impress a potential customer before they moved on to the next speaker system. So what did they do? They voiced their speakers to have the boomiest bass and most sizzly treble. Why? Because they knew, given a very short audition time, this approach would put their speaker’s sound out in front of their competitors. What the unaware customer did not know was once they got these speakers home, what they initially thought was the most exciting speaker in the store would soon turn out to be the most un-enjoyable and fatiguing speaker to listen to at home! Anyone who has listened to a very well designed and engineered hi-fi system knows that a balanced, low distortion system, always wins out in the end for a long term and enjoyable, musical listening experience.

As I’ve watched and observed many bass amplifier designs evolve over the years, I can’t help but wonder if any of these manufacturers truly understand the relationship between the amp and speaker system they are attempting to power. This explains why most of them are just using their existing or slightly modified preamps, some from as far back as the ‘60s and ‘70s, and just adding a lightweight, class D power module to it. Kind of reminds me of Einstein’s definition of insanity (“doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”). So how can the same tone controls, with fixed frequencies and q’s, EQ different speakers with different frequency responses, to sound balanced, if the electrical response of the EQ is constant, but each speaker’s acoustic response is different? The simple answer is they can’t! It’s like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole! How many times have you read on the news groups and blogs that this amp works great with that speaker but no so much with this one and vice versa? That’s because one amp’s EQ points may better match one speaker’s response than another’s, but it’s still not very close, just “better”. To think of all the time these manufacturers spend trying to voice their preamps, choosing EQ filter type, q’s, and frequencies that either offer the best compromise between all their different speaker models, or worse, basing their EQ choices on specific players with specific basses and speakers!

But wait a minute… I thought these were tone controls, not speaker EQs. Exactly! And herein lies the problem. Most players don’t even realize they’re actually using their tone controls to try and EQ their speakers long before they are even EQ’ing their tone. And unfortunately, we believe most manufacturers don’t understand this either. Tone controls, with their typically wide q’s, or broad shelving filters, are no more useful to EQ’ing a speaker than are mudguards on a tortoise! You may be thinking right about now of all the time and money you’ve spent over the years, chasing your tail, searching for that tone in your head, not even realizing that you were trying to solve this very problem. And unfortunately, not even knowing there wasn’t a solution to this problem…until now!

So “Why B|AMP?” Very simple. As an engineering company we’ve identified a real world problem, and are offering a real world solution to it. That’s what the Profile concept and system is all about. We’re EQ’ing the response of your speaker for you, with very precise filters, unique to each model, based on actual, real world acoustical measurements. So now you can focus on EQ’ing your tone, and not your speaker. And the only way to implement this concept is with a 21st century amplifier architecture, utilizing the latest in DSP technology along with an embedded system to control the process. No other bass amplifier on the market has the power and control over the entire system’s response and user experience than the B|AMP. And we believe that few, if any, other bass amplifier manufacturer understands the very nature of this problem like we do nor possesses the technology to solve it."

[machinehead]

[quote name='fretmeister' timestamp='1442088685' post='2864398']
From Berg website:

Why B|AMP?

September 11, 2015/in Blog /by Bergantino Audio
Before any engineer worth his or her weight puts pen to paper to start any design, he or she needs to ask themselves one very simple question: "Why?" In fact, that's exactly the first question a venture capitalist would ask a would-be entrepreneur looking for investment money… "Why X?"

For years I've been asked by dealers to produce a Bass Amplifier. My response was always "the industry doesn't need another 'Me Too' product with another off-the-shelf power module with another voiced preamp". The multitude of preamp voicings reminds me of my old hi-fi days when department stores had shelves lined with speaker cabinets. The most successful manufacturers of those 'lo-fi' speakers knew that they had at most 5-10 seconds to impress a potential customer before they moved on to the next speaker system. So what did they do? They voiced their speakers to have the boomiest bass and most sizzly treble. Why? Because they knew, given a very short audition time, this approach would put their speaker's sound out in front of their competitors. What the unaware customer did not know was once they got these speakers home, what they initially thought was the most exciting speaker in the store would soon turn out to be the most un-enjoyable and fatiguing speaker to listen to at home! Anyone who has listened to a very well designed and engineered hi-fi system knows that a balanced, low distortion system, always wins out in the end for a long term and enjoyable, musical listening experience.

As I've watched and observed many bass amplifier designs evolve over the years, I can't help but wonder if any of these manufacturers truly understand the relationship between the amp and speaker system they are attempting to power. This explains why most of them are just using their existing or slightly modified preamps, some from as far back as the '60s and '70s, and just adding a lightweight, class D power module to it. Kind of reminds me of Einstein's definition of insanity ("doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results"). So how can the same tone controls, with fixed frequencies and q's, EQ different speakers with different frequency responses, to sound balanced, if the electrical response of the EQ is constant, but each speaker's acoustic response is different? The simple answer is they can't! It's like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole! How many times have you read on the news groups and blogs that this amp works great with that speaker but no so much with this one and vice versa? That's because one amp's EQ points may better match one speaker's response than another's, but it's still not very close, just "better". To think of all the time these manufacturers spend trying to voice their preamps, choosing EQ filter type, q's, and frequencies that either offer the best compromise between all their different speaker models, or worse, basing their EQ choices on specific players with specific basses and speakers!

But wait a minute… I thought these were tone controls, not speaker EQs. Exactly! And herein lies the problem. Most players don't even realize they're actually using their tone controls to try and EQ their speakers long before they are even EQ'ing their tone. And unfortunately, we believe most manufacturers don't understand this either. Tone controls, with their typically wide q's, or broad shelving filters, are no more useful to EQ'ing a speaker than are mudguards on a tortoise! You may be thinking right about now of all the time and money you've spent over the years, chasing your tail, searching for that tone in your head, not even realizing that you were trying to solve this very problem. And unfortunately, not even knowing there wasn't a solution to this problem…until now!

So "Why B|AMP?" Very simple. As an engineering company we've identified a real world problem, and are offering a real world solution to it. That's what the Profile concept and system is all about. We're EQ'ing the response of your speaker for you, with very precise filters, unique to each model, based on actual, real world acoustical measurements. So now you can focus on EQ'ing your tone, and not your speaker. And the only way to implement this concept is with a 21st century amplifier architecture, utilizing the latest in DSP technology along with an embedded system to control the process. No other bass amplifier on the market has the power and control over the entire system's response and user experience than the B|AMP. And we believe that few, if any, other bass amplifier manufacturer understands the very nature of this problem like we do nor possesses the technology to solve it."
[/quote]

AER, and a few others, have been doing this for quite some time now. I think it explains why the AER amp two combo that I've owned for about a year (and the other AER bass combos) work so well as a gigging set-up. These type of combos seem to defy the laws of physics. (They don't of course, it's just excellent engineering).

Frank.

[Owen]

There are one or two in the wild in the US so there are real world opinions floating around TB.

[72deluxe]

Hopefully it'll be interesting. This does mean that the opinions of Berg cabs as being "neutral" and "non-colouring" as people have repeated for years must have all been rubbish, as else why would you need to apply corrective EQ to the cab if the cab was entirely flat snd neutral to begin with eh?

I have Berg cab and am really really chuffed with it. But all cabinets have a resonant frequency and handle certain frequencies differently, so I can see the reason they'd put EQ/phase correction etc. at the amplifier output stage. Speaker processors and management systems have been doing this for decades in the live sound system area, so it is interesting to see it come down to bass amplifiers.

Bergantino told me to treat my cab as a fullrange cab and wouldn't state the crossover frequency for the internal speaker/tweeter arrangement, nor would state the resonant frequency of the cab sadly. If you put a signal through a cabinet that is the resonant frequency of the cab, the entire box will go mental and you'll not able to put much power into the speakers as they bump their endstops. But as we don't put pure sine waves through our cabs, it's a moot point!

Not sure if this amp is overkill or if it will confuse us though - we'll have EQ on our basses, EQ at the preamp stage on the amplifier, then corrective EQ at the output stage, then room acoustics to deal with, all of which will sound different to our ears depending on where we are standing relative to the speaker cabinet. So it's probably somewhat overkill for a pub gig rig. Either that or they'll be soundproofing pubs across the land to behave like critical listening rooms in studios, replete with pink noise generators and realtime analysis for corrective room EQ...

Live sound guys will suddenly have to deal with a rise in bass player amp snobbery If they added a valve in there too, then it'd tick all the boxes for complete elitism compared to those poor player with only solid state class A/B amps and non-EQ'd outputs!!

Edited September 14, 2015 by 72deluxe

[IanA]

I have owned quite a few different Berg cabs over the years and would say that each one has its own personality, none of them have been 'neutral' if such a thing exists.
Personally all that matters to me is how the cab sounds and how it interacts with the rest of my gear, if it is noticeably voiced and sounds good then great.
Even as a fan of Jims gear this amp has limited appeal to me, in a live situation I want to plug and play with the ability to make quick easy minor adjustments... My Puma does that very nicely(I run it flat all the time) so for me there is no need to upgrade.

[chris_b]

+1

I'm a long time Berg cab user and fan but while I was initially very interested in this amp, the more I find out the less bothered I'm feeling about it.

I'm just not interested in flipping through screens to set up, alter or adjust the amp.

I got rid of my RH750 because I didn't want 2 tier controls and sadly this amp is doing exactly the same thing.

[JTUK]

I agree that simple is best. It starts with your bass anyway...and too much second guessing of that just complicates things.
for me, my onboard pre amp adds a smidgeon but in reality this can be quite powerful tone shaping tool in itself.

I don't want to double up at a later stage..which is why once the tone is set at home.. which is the same as for a gig, it then is
just about levels.

Too much corrective EQ seems like a recipe to screw everything out of sight You'll then have ti get into the realms of photgraphing your
front panel..and everything else, to remember where you were.
Not what you want to be doing if set-up time/sound check is limited for any reason.

[Owen]

You would never get any decent PA going out without DSP processing for the speakers. This is what is being offered here. It is all under the hood and never needs touching. Bergantino know how to implement this because they are experienced in the field. Obviously there are people out there who do not care for the IP series but the vast majority of people who have tried them are smitten. I know I am. Obviously I would like the d&b audiotechnik rig I unexpectedly found myself using as backline once, but that is hardly likely to happen. This is just DSP for bass cabs. There is nothing massively clever about it, given what is going on in the PA industry, but no one else has done it and put it all in one place for multiple cabs for us. If you want to get all geeky on the EQ front then you can go crazy. I am personally looking forward to ironing out the wolf note on my Bb on the A string on my DB using the notch filter and then having another setting for my bass guitar at the flick of a switch. Otherwise just use it as a simple 4 band eq and leave it.

[LukeFRC]

[quote name='owen' timestamp='1442092543' post='2864436']
There are one or two in the wild in the US so there are real world opinions floating around TB.
[/quote] ....to save me reading 500 talkbass posts what's the general gist?

You still loving that ip310?

[Owen]

The gist is that it is indeed "all that". I am massively loving the IP.

[stevie]

I'd like to point out that a bass cab isn't a PA. So while you can use DSP in a PA system for quite a few different things - lots of them really useful - on a bass cab all you can do is alter the frequency response a bit and perhaps add some judicious limiting. If a cab needs this kind of tweaking, it should probably have had more money spent on the drivers in the first place. So the comparison with PAs is misleading IMO.