Behringer BX4500H Ultrabass Bass Amplifier Head (450 Watts)

Feature:
Decent EQ and tone shaping. UltraBass sounds like a fat octaver, but a little bit muddy below middle C. Sounds rightous in higher registers.

Quality:
From what I see so far, its very well made and durable.

Value:
You won't find any thing this good for anywhere close to the price.

Desirability:
The head doesn't have alot of sex appeal but if you get one of the cabs with the aluminum cones and set it on top, it looks hot.

Sound:
Great sound, lots of power. However, if you buy this head take advantage of the neutrik speakon connections! They blow away the 1/4 in. patches hands down! I was happy but not impressed with this head until my speakon cable arrived and then BOOM! Like night and day man! Best deal under $200 or $400 for that matter.

Support:
The best thing I like about a product is NOT having to call support. So far so good!

Overall:
This one is a winner. I have only had it for a few weeks but I know what I like and I like this product.

Feature:
Its got most everything that I could ever want. Should have a tuner built into it as the behringer guitar amps do. Heres what it has: 5 band eq, XLR out, 1/4 out, FX loop, active and passive ins. The VU meter should be bigger.

Quality:
It would be higher had I not had to solder in a new jack a day after buying it. I think I spent $4.00 on the jack. I have gigged rock concerts, churches, and band practices every week with this head. It gets torn down atleast two times a week and gets transported both times. Has great connectors, and is built well. Weighs 30 lbs. 450 watts. ooo.

Value:
This is the most bang for the buck ever. Very durable too. If you decide to purchace this and can solder then you will be VERY happy.

Desirability:
I really like this amp. I would prefer Tolex as opposed to the felt that they put on it simply for cleaning reasons. I replaced the fan with a blue LED one and modded the VU and leds in the front with blue ones to further increase the "sex appeal" The guts are crafted very nicely: lots of thermal compound on the transistors, fan cooled caps.. and so on...

Sound:
This is the second Behringer that I have ever owned. It will not be the last. The sound on this thing is rather "dry" unless you know your way around Behringer's Eq. Both my GMX 212 and this BX4500 have a very narrow "sweet spot" that will take some time to dial in. There is a design flaw in this head. There is a ground loop between the instrument in's and the foot switch. Behringer has "fixed" this problem by cutting a ground wire off the PCB so everything grounds through the chassis. Think single coil guitar pickup humm... What I did was de solder the foot switch jack and replace it with a Peavey output jack that is ISOLATED. (plastic coated) I then re connected the wire that they cut which allows the inputs to short when you remove the cord. This is normal with all amps so that when you remove the cord there is no nose emitted from the speaker. This whole procedure took me about an hour to complete. from testing to soldering and finding parts. After the mod I put in some blue leds into the VU meter and and on the front panel to enhance its sex appeal. After the jack replacement this thing sounds as good as the Carvin 200 that I was running before. The XLR is a nice touch as it allows me to connect to the PA at our church. The XLR is post EQ so you can control the eq on your head and have the master mixer receive that sound. The 1/4 out is pre eq so the sound is dry that comes out of that. The pre amp over drives to the red zone very easily. I have Seymour Duncan 1/4 Pounders in my bass and I have to go into the active jack with the gain at less than 1/2. But it does play very nicely through it. I dont really see any use for the ultrabass octiver or the shape filter or the foot switch.

Ease of Use:
It takes quite some time (a few days for me) to get your sound dialed in. I never really did find a use for the octiver, foot switch, or shape filter. Behringer could sugest some "preset" eq settings for it. They also need to do a real fix for the grounding problem. People should not have to open up the amp and replace components right after they buy one.

Support:
Behringer 1/2 butts this one on not fixing this problem right. Why contact them when they will just send you another defective one... Read the other reviews too!

Overall:
I guess for what you pay for it you can live with the hum if the thought of opening it up scares you.. But for 4 dollars you can fix it so why not. I have never had a behringer die on me to this day. It is a great head and I plan to keep it until it quits working. I don't think I will ever trade this. Could also make a great amp for you home entertainment system since you can bypass the pre amp section AND the hum and just use the power amp.