Phil Jones Bass BP800 gear review from a blind player's perspective

[JGSpector]

For my first gear review I thought I’d start with what I think is one of the best amp heads for blind bass players, the PJB BP800.

Disclaimer: I’m just a dude who plays bass in a few projects and bands for fun, I am by no means a pro musician or online reviewer. All views are my own and I have not received any payment or other incentives to produce this review.

Overview.

Like many bass players out there, I’ve owned, borrowed and tried out dozens of amps from a plethora of manufacturers over the 26 or so years that I’ve been playing. Some have been combos but most have been heads. There’s just something I like about a box that you can put in a backpack with some cables, take to any venue, plug in and get your sound from.

My last few amps have all been class D models. Personally, I reckon a class D bass amp of 800 watts or higher is the perfect balance between power and head room, weight and portability, certainly for my requirements anyway.

I’ve always been a fan of hi fi like tone rather than the more traditional tone qualities of tube amps and I’ve been a fan of the class D form factor for many years now. The fact that everything I read and listened to about the BP800 said that it delivers completely uncoloured tone really peaked my interest. So, let’s go.

Build Quality.

When the BP800 arrived, I was hugely impressed. Chiefly by how it was cradled in a padded structure that protected the amp from damage whilst in transit. I always think it’s a good sign when manufacturers package their products intelligently as it seems to indicate attention to detail that always appears to translate into the products themselves.

On lifting the amp out of the box, I was immediately struck by how solid it felt whilst being rather light. It sounds silly because the dimensions are shown on the PJB website but, it felt smaller than I was expecting. The protective sleeve that comes with it is another nice touch that I am sure most players will be pleased with. I was already impressed and I hadn’t even plugged the thing in yet!

Features, layout & ease of use.

I’ll get straight to the point here. The EQ and front control panel is an absolute joy of functionality, simplicity and intelligent layout. Everything makes sense, is intuitive and everything is solidly engineered. The knobs are things of beauty but I’ll come back to that later.

The rear panel follows the same ethos. Everything is arranged sensibly and intuitively and everything you could need is present.

Something not to be discounted about this amp is that it can literally fit in the pocket of a bass gig bag.  Or small backpack along with some spare cables etc. For me this is really appealing as I can have bass in gig bag over one shoulder, amp and cables in a backpack over the other shoulder and cab in one hand leaving my other hand free for me to be guided by another band member.

  

If there were to be some things that could be added to this amp to make it even better, I think  they would be:

- A USB port for charging/powering the iPod/MP3 player that you would have plugged into the aux in mini jack. This is me being really picky but to be honest, it’s not even a big deal, it would just be a nice to have rather than an absolute must. For me, it would be nice if all class D amps with aux in functionality had this feature.

- A built in compressor. This is very much a personal preference thing. If you don’t use compression or have a compressor pedal that you use, this doesn’t matter at all. If like me though you do like to use some mild compression and like to have minimal fiddling around with pedals etc, a built in compressor would be very welcome. As a side note, the PJB D400 amp does have a built in compressor which is simple to use and sounds great. I was a little surprised to find that its big brother doesn’t have one. I will be reviewing the PJB D400 separately.

Knobs and switches: The knobs on this amp are superbly engineered just like everything else but the reason I am raving about them so much is because, due to the long triangle shape, you know precisely at what level you have set any particular control purely by feel, for me this is a big thing as being blind, to be frank, it can be a royal pain in the backside figuring out what position each knob is set at on other amps, particularly in a gig environment. We all know what it’s like, there’s always a rush to get set up, there’s about 50 things all happening at the same time, it’s noisy, dark (not that it bothers me of course) and you’re trying to set your EQ and dial in your sound. The fact that I have absolutely no trouble whatsoever in feeling the position of the knobs is a breath of fresh air for me. To be fair, not all knobs on all other brands are terrible, most however are not easy for me at all. The knobs on this amp though are by far the best I’ve ever come across and are an absolute dream come true for me. Add to that the fact that all but the aux volume and master volume controls have a centre detent, knowing where I am regarding my front panel settings is a doddle. The switches on this amp are also of solid quality with positive clunks and clicks under the fingertips when they are engaged or disengaged.

Sound quality.

Other people have said this in their reviews/demos of this amp and I have to agree, absolutely everything you put into this amp you get back out. I didn’t actually change the EQ from the 12 o’clock detent position for several days when I first got it because it just sounds so good. When you do play around with the EQ though, wow and I mean WOW! Small adjustments go a long way for sure. You could easily play around for hours trying out all sorts of tones, I certainly did, before I knew it, an entire afternoon had passed simply because I was enjoying myself so much. The array of different tones you can get out of the amp is seriously impressive in the first place and then you’ve got the tone controls on your bass for on the fly adjustments on top of that. At home I was playing the amp through a single Barefaced SuperMidget cab (600W 8ohm) and there were times when I had the EQ cranked at the bottom end that I was seriously concerned that the roof of my house was going to collapse under the sonic barrage. When I’ve used it with both of my Barefaced cabs at band rehearsal it’s absolutely incredible.

- The low bass control manages to keep every ounce of clarity regardless of how extreme in either direction you have it set. It didn’t matter which bass I used with whatever pre amp and pickup combination, it stayed tight, clean and practically punched the air out of your lungs when maxed out.

- The high bass control does a wonderful job of giving you warm fat tones on its respective frequency range and equally enables you to thin them out but still keep them present if you wish. The manual for the amp says that the high bass control effects the tone of the D and G strings and I tell you what, it is absolutely right. I’ve never come across this kind of description for how EQ controls effect different frequencies on a product. I really like it and it makes a lot of sense. For completeness, the manual states that the low bass control effects the tone of B, E and A strings.

- The mid control does exactly what it says. Play with this and your mids will either punch right through, sit low in your mix or do anything you like in between. I found myself getting my low and high bass levels set to where I wanted them and then tweaked the mid control to taste and it worked really well for me.

- The low treble control I found great for adding that extra bit of crispness to all of the notes across the fretboard. I play with fingers rather than a pick as that is my preference and this control really helped separate those big notes. Even with this control set at its detent position it is just superb.

- The high treble (presence) control I haven’t needed to use at all since getting the amp, my Spector basses have a hefty amount of presence naturally, so it’s not a control I’ve ever really used to any degree. Having said that, I have played with this control to see how it affects the sound. To use a cliche term, it really brings some more sparkle to the overall tone and if that’s your thing then I suspect you will enjoy what this control does. I imagine I may very well use it when I have old less bright strings to bring back some of the sparkle though.

- The instrument input control does exactly what you would expect it to do. I really like that it has a centre detent just like the EQ controls, it gives a great point to start from and there is an awful lot of adjustment to be had in that control depending on your preference.

- The DI on this amp is supremely quiet and clean. Not much more to say really, just excellent.

I played through a fair few effects pedals too including, fuzz, overdrive distortion, chorus, octave, wah and of course compression. The amp handled every one with ease. The fuzz and distortion sounded massive, the chorus was warm and gorgeous, the octave was amazingly clear and the wah was downright fun. Obviously avoiding boosting the high treble (presence) when using fuzz, overdrive distortion and wah were preferable to avoid any super harsh high end noise, I just left it at the centre detent position and it was sweet.

The truth is, I could not get a crappy sound out of this amp. Even when they were sounds that were not to my personal taste, everything I did, regardless of how extreme, was crystal clear. The tonal versatility is vast.

Something I haven’t mentioned is how loud this thing is. I’ve played through a lot of amps, a few of them have been very loud and the BP800 sits right up there with them. That every sound you play through it is so pure almost seems to make it seem louder. I have absolutely no doubt that the bass will be cutting through the wall of guitar sound even at the loudest of gigs.

Summary.

I’ve found this amp to be an absolute powerhouse of clean, uncoloured bass tone. The packaging, build quality, sensible layout, usability and of course the sound, all come together to make an absolutely superb product. It sits in the £750 to £1000 price bracket here in the UK and obviously depending on where you buy one from will dictate the actual price you pay. There are other bass amps out there which are higher priced that don’t, in my personal opinion, come close to being as good as the BP800. Opinions are all subjective of course and hopefully this review is taken simply for what it is, a collection of my thoughts regarding this amp and how it suits my personal tastes and playing requirements.

If you are blind or visually impaired, then the PJB BP800 or indeed its little brother the D400 would be well worth checking out.

To find out more about the BP800 amp, visit the PJB website at: https://www.pjbworld.com/cms/

 

Edited December 28, 2023 by JGSpector
correcting of typos

[machinehead]

An excellent review.  Thanks for taking the trouble.  It sounds just like my kind of amp.

Frank.

[JGSpector]

Thanks, I enjoyed writing it. Glad you found it interesting. The amp very much falls into the category of "I wish I'd got one years ago" for me.

 

James

[carlitos71]

Great review, thanks for sharing

[MacDaddy]

[Harlequin74]

I know its a while ago JG, but just to say thanks. Picked one up and love it!

[spyder]

It's my favourite amp for a clean transparent sound.

 

Thank you for your great review.

[Dan Dare]

On 11/05/2021 at 11:49, MacDaddy said:

 

Perhaps not the best response to someone posting who is blind. Ah well, it was a couple of years ago...

[MacDaddy]

25 minutes ago, Dan Dare said:

 

Perhaps not the best response to someone posting who is blind. Ah well, it was a couple of years ago...

 

I think you're right, text to speech software would not work on emoticons, I didn't think of that 😟

Apologies to the OP.

[JGSpector]

Not to worry. Screenreader software does identify emojis. For example, if someone likes my post or puts a concerned face in like in the response above the screenreader actually says "like" or "concerned face". 

[NickA]

Great review.  I'm a big PJB fan myself with one of the combos and a powered extension. 

 

Starting to wonder if I should go the more modern way of a nice big cab and a tiny little amp.  Chose cabs to suit occassions without changing amps and modern amps are really light.  

 

Glad to hear the BP800 is so good; the BP400 is effectively what I have across the two combos (same pre, pluys a 150W and a 250W class D power amp) and it's a bit on the quiet side.  Shame about the loss of the compressor, it's pretty good (tho IMO not quite as good a the two band one in the old trace heads).  BP800 may be the way to go (that or a mesa d800 .... at a price!)

[JGSpector]

I had a PJB D400 which I actually liked slightly more than the BP800, it was a fantastic little amp, it just lacked the power I was after. PJB did do a D1000 model and I would love to get my hands on one of those if one came up. I believe the D1000 is basically the same as a D4000 but with a 1000W power amp.

[NickA]

1kW!!!  That would clear any room I'm likely to play in.

 

PJB watts tho not Trace Elliot watts!