For the last couple months, I've been playing my nice, new Parker Fly 5-string through my roommate's old, cheap bass amp. It was a Peavey 15" combo that he bought used in 1997, (already quite old) for about $100. It wasn't bad sounding, but recently it was getting increasingly unreliable, cutting out periodically, getting random hums and crackles, and basically showing its age. We decided that it wasn't worth trying to repair it, but the speaker in it was still fine, so I gutted it of electronics and soldered the speaker straight to a 1/4" jack, basically turning it into a 1x15 cabinet.
Then I bought this, a Hartke HA2500 to power it:
Out of the box:
Plugged in quick to test everything out:
It's nothing amazing tone-wise, but it's transparent and clear with the EQ all centered and has more power and headroom than the I'll ever need in my apartment, let alone what the cabinet would handle.
That's just fine with me since I've already got a preamp I like to put in a rack with it:
Now, I know Behringer doesn't exactly have a reputation for quality or reliability, and that's well deserved for a lot of what they put out (my girlfriend had a Behringer mixer that literally caught fire on her during a show). But the Bass V-Amp Pro is actually surprisingly good. I don't know if it'll last decades, but I've had it for a few years with zero problems. I bought it pretty much on a whim for $50 not expecting much, but I've been very happy with it. I wouldn't put it up against a high end bass amp or put any of its effects up against an equivalent decent quality pedal and the interface takes some getting used to, but for the price and the convenience of having a decent number of pretty decent amp sims and effects in one unit, it's pretty hard to beat. I honestly prefer the tones I get out of the Bass V-Amp Pro to the bass tones I can get out of my Pod X3 Live.
The full bass rig:
Then I bought this, a Hartke HA2500 to power it:
Out of the box:
Plugged in quick to test everything out:
It's nothing amazing tone-wise, but it's transparent and clear with the EQ all centered and has more power and headroom than the I'll ever need in my apartment, let alone what the cabinet would handle.
That's just fine with me since I've already got a preamp I like to put in a rack with it:
Now, I know Behringer doesn't exactly have a reputation for quality or reliability, and that's well deserved for a lot of what they put out (my girlfriend had a Behringer mixer that literally caught fire on her during a show). But the Bass V-Amp Pro is actually surprisingly good. I don't know if it'll last decades, but I've had it for a few years with zero problems. I bought it pretty much on a whim for $50 not expecting much, but I've been very happy with it. I wouldn't put it up against a high end bass amp or put any of its effects up against an equivalent decent quality pedal and the interface takes some getting used to, but for the price and the convenience of having a decent number of pretty decent amp sims and effects in one unit, it's pretty hard to beat. I honestly prefer the tones I get out of the Bass V-Amp Pro to the bass tones I can get out of my Pod X3 Live.
The full bass rig:
