TonyMontana

The new MetroExpress/Warwick were announced for july, and were finally expected to be in stock this week @Thomann. But now the estimation changed to 5-7 weeks for the 4 strings and 7-9 weeks for the 5 strings. Somehow I think this is not the last delay ....

If you only need the poweramp, the GSS Sumo are fanless.

I have the Boss WL20L, but I cannot recommend it. The sound and latency are fine.I like that the units are small and battery powered, so I switch them easily between amps and basses. But in my home studio I have frequent problems with dropouts. I looks like whenever something is in the line-of-sight between transmitter and receiver, things will go wrong. It happens when the receiver is in the amp in the back of the room (3 meters) and I play while looking at the scores on the laptopscreen, so my body is in the line-of-sight. But it also happens frequently when the receiver is in the Helix Stomp sitting on my desk, a distance of about 1 meter, but the transmitter slightly below the edge of the desk.

Hmm, seems that it does have a switching power supply, but with a class H amplifier stage. We dont have a Class H appreciation thread anywhere here do we? 😄 A lot less scary is the Baby Sumo, which is a class D poweramp. Fanless, absolutely great for my home studio.

QSC PowerLight 2.4 (+Helix Stomp) Oh, I was excited and scared at the same time. Sooo loud !!!!

GSS also has a 2x50 amp: https://www.guitarsoundsystems.com/gss-06b400gpa-50-watt-mini-guitar-power-amp-c2x24708850

I have a baby Sumo, and it is a great amp. Sound is great, loud, and background hiss is very low. I also read somewhere that GSS uses a modified Pascal module. It is very difficult to develop your own Class D amp, certainly for a one-man company like GSS. Most of the bigger amp manufacturers use 3rd party ClassD power module from ICE. On the german bassic.de forum there are some photos of the internals of the SUMO, and the PCB has the same kind of layout as the Pascal Modules: https://www.bassic.de/threads/guitarsoundsystems-1000w-sumo-class-d-endstufe.14868284/page-2#post-16546691 Like this one from the Pascal website: https://www.pascal-audio.com/product/m-pro2/

Thanks for the tip!!! Google always directs me to https://barefacedbass.com/ and the 20% discount was never displayed there. Thanks to you guys, I ordered a Big Baby II ! Now 20-25 days waiting. Probably longer because of Christmas holidays and the pile of new orders.....

Is the fan working ok? In general, class D should be fine. But the heat issue might be brand/model specific. Techs cannot do much these day on the classD internals, it is just basically one PBA wrapped up in sheet metal

Well, the DI sounds fine. This is a great amp! And the woolyness seems to be not much of an issue anymore. I finally did put the last acoustic panels on the walls and corners, and that really improves the sound in my room. Could be that changed it for the better, but it might as well be my ears are playing tricks on me after all the cab and amp switching. I was playing last half hour on a p-bass with the bass setting at 0, just fun having playing and totally forgot about comparisons anymore. Now, at high volumes, my VanderKley 210 MNT cab is still not sounding nice. It is a 8 ohm cab, and Genzler did specify "only" 175 watt for 8 ohms. Is it possible the amp is at its limits at about 12-1 o'clock and causing some distortion? Would that be the reason to go for the 800, more headroom? Thanks!

I bought a Magellan 350 unit, connected to a VanderKley 210 MNT cab. I tested it in my home studio, and didnt feel the need to move the master pot any further than 9 o'clock. Darn, this is a loud amp. Ok ok, I admit, I tested it also at louder volumes..... it was EXTREMELY LOUD !!!! So why would you ever need the 800 version? Not for the volume is it? My cab is efficient, but not extremely efficient. It didnt sound nice at high volumes though but that probably has more to do with the acoustics in my room. Now the manual states that when contour is off, the amp should have a flat response. With the contour pot in the left position (that is contour off is it?), and EQ all in the middle, it doesnt sound flat at all: there is a lot of wooly bass. I have to turn the bass to about 9 o'clock to have a balanced bass sound all over the frequency spectrum. Strange, I have a glockenklang and H+K bassbase600, always running the bass EQ a few db plus, and same was for the GK MB500 and Markbass amps I tested recently. This woolyness is a bit of an issue, I have a few pre-amps here I would like to check on a flat amp, and the 350 has no FX inputs so I need to use the line in. Dont know what to trust anymore. Maybe I need to do some checks at DI level first to see what is going on. I can confirm the background noise is just fine, as reported earlier in this thread. The fan is audible, but you can hear they did their best to minimise the airflow noise. Sounds ok to me.

Good point. So far I have a limited set of pedals that probably would do great job before the preamp. But I'm fairly new to bassplaying and I guess I will be spending the next few years experimenting with all kinds of sounds, effects etc. My first instinct was to have all options open and not be limited by a new amp. I simply dont know at this point if I need the fx-loop in the near future (or ever?). From other threads I see most bassists dont use the fx-loop, some use compressors or highpass filters in the fx-loop. So far I only used it to do some A/B tests with preamps. I have to think about it, the 350 may be a good option for me afterall. Thanks!

ah, so there is a catch afterall... I thought the MG350 was just a power-scaled down version, which is nice because I only will be using it in my home studio. And I was about to order it. But now I see it lacks fx-send/return. Grrr.....🙁.... MG800 cost 400 EUR extra, dont need/want that power.... Any alternatives ? (500 EUR range, dead silent)

Yup, that helps! Thanks, information like this is hard to find from the suppliers. FYI, I was referring to the hissing of the amp only, I'm aware the rest of the signalchain. I want to accept a little background hissing, and noise increasing proportional to the gain is ok too. Glad to hear the Genzlers are ok. I have had some amps that were noisy at volume 0 and muted inputs. GK MB500 sounded like the Niagara waterfalls, I returned that one the same day... Thanks!

This is excellent information in this review/thread! Hope this thread is still sort of alive , I have had my share of noisy amps. I'm particulary allergic to background noise or hissing from the amps through the tweeters, because I like to play bass and jump back to my DAW without having to switch of the amp in the other side of the room. Can you tell me how is the level of background noise/hiss for these Genzler? Thanks!