Behringer Bass cabs, first impressions (long)

As you may know, i recently had a lot of gear stolen, which included
my entire bass rig. My former rig had consisted of a Behringer Bass
V-amp Pro w/EP1500 power amp runiing bridged mono into a pair of Ernie
Ball Audiophile cabs (2x10 and 2x12) I was very happy with the sond
and versatility of the rig and also had recieved a lot of compliments
on the sound of the rig as well.

Replacing the top of my rig was going to be easy, i knew I would
simply get anothe BVAP and EP1500, but the Ernieball cabs had been
discontinued right be for i purchased them and are now pretty hard to
find. So while waiting to get my new gear i borrowed a few rigs for
gigs and rehearsals to try out different things.

1) Ampeg SVT Classic with the 8x10 cab, not bad sounding, but really
only one sound, and that was not my sound.

2) Eden Wt500 through an Ampeg 4x10. I thought the Eden was really
underpowered in this combo sice the cab was an 8ohm cab. I also was
not able to easily dial in a tone that i liked, i just couldn't get my
head around the EQ on the Eden. I was also pushing the limiter on tha
amp most of the night.

3) Same as #2 above but this time i was using a BBE MAX preamp and
running it into the the effects return on the Eden bypassing the in
Eden pre. This worked much better for me and I was able to quickly get
a decent tone, although I found the BBE to be fairly hissy, and once
again i was in the limiter of the amp trying to get volume.

4) Eden Navigator 2x10 combo with an addtional 2x10. The owner of this
rig has had it repaired twice. It died on a gig and then after being
repaired, it died again, on a gig. He has not used it since getting it
back from Eden (he was just using the cabs with an older Trace Elliot
head) saying he just had no faith in it. I hooked it up and it
sounded ok at low volumes but when I turned it up I didn't like the
way the speakers were moving, almost like they were not moving
together. I also had the Trace head available and switched to that
and the speaker issue was resolved. That combo (trace head with 2 Eden
2x10 cabs) sounded nice (playing my SX P bass with flats) but still
not the sound i was wanting.

Anyway, i had been wanting to try some of the Behringer bass cabs and
since I knew my pre/power setup was going to be Behringer, i thought
that this would be a good time to try the cabs.

At this point I would like to give a big shout out to Jim Savery
(jazzman on AGB) who heard about my gear getting stolen and contacted
me offerering assistance. Not only did he hook me up with a great deal
on a Bass Vamp Pro and a pair of cabs (BB210 and BB115) but he gave
(thats right GAVE) me one of his own personal EP1500 power amps. In
fact, all of the people at Behringer that I have dealt with have been
a pleasure to work with (Jim, Chris Gomez, Mark and Elaine!)

So...everything (except the BVAP - which got sidetracked by accident)
arrived monday at my office and I loaded it all in the van and took it
home, then last night I picked up a few small pieces for my new rack
case (a 6 space deep rack from http://www.pearsoncases.com/ check
these guys out if you need a rack case, good stuff and good prices)
and proceded to put my rig together.

I loaded the EP1500, new Furman Merit power conditioner and my old
Peavey TB Raxx tube bass preamp into the rack and then broke the cabs
out of the shipping boxes. The first thing i noticed about the cabs
was the look. They are very good looking with the dark black carpet,
rubber stack corners and the silver horn and ring around the speaker.
They feel very solid and have nice large handles that make them easy
to pick up and move and they balance well when you do pick them up.
The 2x10 is taller than my old Ernie Ball 2x10 was but does not look
as deep. It weighs about the same at about 65lbs. The 1x15 is about
the same size as my EB 2x12 was, only not as deep (again) and also
much lighter at approx 65lbs compared to the 100lbs for the EB.
Stacked on top of each other they make a nice looking stack. I tossed
the rack up on top and immediatly notice that the stack is taller than
my old stack. But that not a problem ^^. The inputs on both cabs have
2 speakon and one 1/4" all wired in parallel. I had just completed 2
new 12 gauge speaker cables with one wired 1+/2+ for the bridged amp
So i hooked them up, grabbed a bass (new LeCompte) and fired
everything up. I brought the volume up slowly to make sure both cabs
were working, they were so i brought the volume up to a decent level
(for playing in the living room) and was presented with a nice full
bass sound. The note were full and had good presence and clarity, and
the old TB Raxx preamp (which i have not used in 4 years) was sounding
pretty darn good. The overall rig responded well to different playing
styles and eq settings from both the preamp and bass. Just for fun i
cranked the volume up some more and yes, the rig can get loud easily
without being harsh and as i watched the speakers as i played there
was very little cone movement and where you could see them move, it
was very little (FYI, these are the paper coned cabs, not the
aluminum) Both cabs has horns that are switchable on/off, i tested
them to make sure they were working and they definitely add to the
sound, and to my suprise, they were not "clacky" sounding like i find
on most horn equiped cabs. Pro: They are footswtchable so you can turn
the horns on and off with a foot switch. Con: There is only on and
off, no lpad to control the horn level. This does not bother me
since I will probably have the horns off all the time since i'm not a
fan of bass cab horns. Other neat features of the cabs include the
built wheels that help to move the cabs around and the nice big side
handles.

Overall, i'm very pleased with the cabs and a my first impression is
that they seem to be an excellent value for usable, good sounding bass
cabs. Now granted, i have only had them 2 days and only played them in
my living room, but thats what first impressions are all about. It
looks like i will have a chance to try them out on a fill in gig this
friday, and if so I'll post a followup. I think that once I get the
BVAP in the rig i'll be back where i was before with a nice sounding.
easy on the wallet bass rig.

I'm also considring getting the new Behringer rack tuner (steet price
$59) to fill in the last space in the rack, but thats another post for
another day.

C-yas
.

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