Gallien Krueger

in 2002 I bought this head in a combo stack unit. The head is housed in a speaker enclosure with two 10" speakers , and there is a secondary speaker cab with a 15" speaker in it. but dont' fear i'm reviewing jsut the head not the speakers. Of all the amps i've used this one is the most versitle in tone reproduction i've worked with. even being a head ina combo it's still rack mountable if you slide it out of it's cabinet (you just won't have to external housing on it. Pros: good tone shaping features (contour, presence, db cutter , and a booste knob) lot's of power for the wattage 4 knob EQ-ing (treble, High mid, low mids, bass) Durable (i've had it for 20 years now and ti's still going). Easy to dial a clean sound or a gritty overdriven sound , with out using tubes. Cons: odd labeling , there's 2 "volume" knobs but really what tha knobs are "volume" = Gain , and "Master" = volume. Maybe it's just me but this knob labeling scheme has always bugged me with GK. after 20 years i'm getting crackling and buzzing caused by the tuning mute button and the db cutter button but well what can i expect after 20 years , with no service done on the amp. I should probably take it into a shop to get looked at eventually but .. you know how money is these days. that all said there's not really much I can say bad about this amp. They don't make them any more but that's because they were replaced by other RB series amps. but if you got your eye on an RB series head, this is one way to snag one for less money than grabbing the newest at the price they cost.

I play Bass Guitar in a Southern Rock, Classic Rock, Country band and this head is one of my main amps I use. I have had a GK 400rb but in my O/P the 400 b sounds much cleaner. I also use an Ampeg v4bh & 450 but the GK is just a clean amp. I run it thru a 15 Bag end and a 12 bag end. It is a very loud amp and at high voliuns does not break up. I rarely play it past 5 on volium and master settings. Its a very light amp and very well put together. At 250 watts in to 4 ohms it is a lot louder than it sounds. I play a 72 P Bass and a 96 Jazz bass and this amp sounds great. I really don't see any bad things about the amp except that there is no stand by switch. I picked this up in a pond Shop for a practice amp for $100.00 and got a gem. If you can find one grab it. You won't be sorry.

This is a 700 RB-II model bass amp put out by Gallien Krueger. The Gallien Krueger bass heads have been a staple of the rock and roll club backline circuit for years. They are loud, clean and realiable. I was interested in the 700RB-II because it was a new and improved take on a classic amplifier. It normally costs $600. I bought mine used and have not had any issues with it. This amp puts out 480 watts at 4 ohms with an additional 50 watt high frequency output. It works like a crossover. The setup really shines with my Hartke 1 15' XL cab and a home made 2 10' speaker cab with EV speakers. Loud and clear highs and thumpin lows. The DI out makes things easy when gigging as all I need from a soundman is an XLR cable. The 4 band EQ rocks. GK does the hi and low midrange knobs which is a nice option. No reason to not like this amp. I have this mounted safely in a 2 space SKB rack. I have read these over heat. I have not had this trouble, but just a warning to be smart. You can purchase a small fan for a couple bucks and mount it on the back of your rack. There is a reason why Gallien Krueger amps have been around for years in rock clubs. Great, no fuss work horses. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

This is the tiny 4 pounder powerhouse from Gallien Krueger that puts out 500 watts and fits into your gig bag. It is silver and has a boatload of EQ options. My father was interested in this amp so I helped him check it out against other amps. He wanted it specifically because of the small size with big power. We played it against a Mark Bass of similar stature and we both preferred the Gallien Krueger. He ordered it online from Guitar Center for $500. It is compact and mean. Plenty of power. You can dial in a fat warm tone as well as get some grit. XLR out, Speakon, headphone out, this amp didn't skimp on any of the popular features you see on today's bass heads. The amp intermittently would change in volume after less than 6 months of non-taxing work. Gallien Krueger does offer a warranty, but once an amp goes on you, you become more and more reluctant to use it. Besides the amp conking out that one time, it has performed as it should. It is very lightweight and I am still impressed by the power it pushed out. Would I buy this amp again? Probably not. I value the reliability of my amps too much. It does sound great and who could complain about less weight to carry around? This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Gallien Krueger 800 RB - affectionately known as "the tank"! I am an experienced bass player who plays out quite often.... I purchased this amplifier back in 1993 ($599 I think) to replace the old 400 RB that I was using. Nothing wrong with it, just needed more watts! During my search for a new amplifier, I looked at many other brands such as SWR, Ampeg, David Eden, etc. but after trying out all of these others, I simply ended up going back to GK. So here I am 16 years later, hundreds of practice sessions and gigs and this unit has not failed me once! Basically everything. The tone produced by the 800RB is deep and clear, with no noise. I have had a few people ask what I use to get my sound. The answer is always the same. Fender jazz, Ampeg cabinet, and the amp itself. In regards to power on stage, it has plenty. Other than sound quality and power its reliability is outstanding. My 800RB has probably paid for itself a few times over! It has survived many tough nights in clubs, outdoor events, and other venues! I really have nothing bad to say about it. Some people are thrown off by the fact that the older units have no fan. Top notch. Heavy gauge aluminum, excellent design, reliable as hell. I would definitely recommend this amplifier to anyone who wants a reliable, great sounding unit! This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I'm 38, and started playing bass and guitar at 15 years old. I've owned quite a bit of gear over the years and have played in 3 different bands. I'm currently looking for a band needing a bass player. Into Buck Cherry, Metallica, AC/DC, etc. Looking for a practice amp, I went to my local Guitar Center and foud the Backline 112 to sound great and was loud enough for personal practice. And at $290.00, it fit my budget well. Great looks, easy to transport, loud enough to hear with my music turned up, total control over an awesome sound. Speaker and cabinet cannot handle the lower registers of a 5 string well at all, and even though its 100 watts it could never sit beside a drum kit and try to play rock music. Also, my particular amp shuts down while I,m playing! Sometimes I can't even get the amp to turn on! The amp is only a year old. Good amp, quality hardware and controls, poor speaker quality though. The amp is perfect for a practice amp. Don't think you'll be getting anything else. It might be ok for a jazz band or recording, but nothing with any volume. Excelent tone for whatever you play! Seriously needs a quality speaker upgrade to handle deep tones and lower registers, but that would defeat its budget price. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Hermie's Music in exotic exciting downtown Schenectady NY USA, $200 used, with cover. I've been looking for an MB series combo, preferably a 150, but used MBs are scarce and a 200 is what I found locally. I played for about an hour at Hermie's, as they have a miserable returns policy, and other than scratchy pots it was great. I had them clean the pots and I bought it. It's about 13x15", barely big enough to hold its 12" speaker and the electronics section. Weighs about 25lb. Run 100w RMS and sounds great in a small venue. For a combo in this power range, there is nothing not to like. I suppose I could complain about the clutter of controls for features I don't need. OTOH, I'm getting to sort of like chorus and compression ... Made of aluminum panels and a steel front grille it seems ready to survive serious trauma. Has effects loop, DI, extension speaker jacks, manual control switch for internal speaker, 4-knob EQ plus seperate input and output volume knob . Built-in compressor and chorus, output limiter, contour and high boost buttons. Speaker is 12", no horn. Headphone jack is not interlocked to speaker. I think it's by far the smallest 12" combo I've ever seen and that's really what it's all about. Sounds better than some larger combos, but it's no Ampeg 15. If you play ad hoc friendly get-togethers, the small size and decent power give you a no-fuss plug-n-play ability for spontaneous jams, yet you can easily, and reliably, gig it. To do better than this, you'd have to go for an Acoustic Image at double the price. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Purchased new at Guitar Center, talk the guy down to $300. Here are some specs; 4 heavy-magnet 10" speakers hammer out a highly articulate, loud and punchy bass sound. Built with the same interlocking corners and high-quality hardware as G-K's high-end RBS enclosures. IMPEDANCE: 8 ohms POWER RATING: 400 Watts WOOFER: 4xGK-Paragon, Stamped Frame, 10", 100W 32ohm High Presence Voice Coil FREQUENCY RESPONSE: 50 Hz to 3 kHz + 5 dB SENSITIVITY: 100dB CONNECTORS: 1x1/4" Full Range Only CONSTRUCTION: Heavily Braced Cabinet,Black Carpet Covering,16 Gauge Steel Grill,Nickel Plated Castorsand Custom Tooled Interlocking Corner System WEIGHT: 70 lbs DIMENSIONS: 23"W x 23"H x 18"D This cab is excellent, sound is great, lots of headroom. I play it through an Ampeg SVT 3PRO (puts out 275 watts at 8 ohms), with various basses; Standard Fender Jazz Bass, '63 Reissue P-bass, and a Music Man. Every bass sounds terrific, I tried every different 4x10 out there, this was tops! Very punchy mids, deep lows, clear highs. I couldn't be happier. The sound reminds me of my SVT810E, the Backline has no ports, no horns and no tweeters. I use this for small coffee house gigs and practices. This cab can cut through a loud drummer and two Marshall heads, and two 4x12 Marshall stacks. And it's only getting 275 watts of power. THIS THING ROCKS There is absolutely nothing I don't like about this cab. I guess if I had to be critical and choose one thing it'd be....it does not have Speakon Connectors, which isn't really a big deal. Construction quality is outstanding for such an inexpensive cabinet. It gets moved up and down one flight of stairs and in and out of an SUV about 3 times a week. It shows no signs of wear. The metal grille is very durable, I've kicked it hard about 8 or 9 times and it's never bent, broken, or even chipped the finish. The carpeted finish is very sturdy and shows no signs of wear after 6 months...wish I could say the same for my SVT810E which was 3 times the price of this thing! Tooled corners and heavy and nickel plated casters are great for moving this thing. This is the best 4x10 for my style of music. I play hard rock; punk, emo, hardcore, emocore, alternative, metal, etc. I play hard and push my equipment even harder. As hard as I punish this cab it punishes my ear drums right back. So many people ask, "that is a GK Backline cab? I thought those things were just cheapy little cabs". Well...go try one at your local music shop and lets your ears be the judge This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I bought this amp through Musicians Friend and paid about $280. I bought this amp because i need something portable with some punch that could be used at smaller gigs. It is very easy to move around, and is a perfect practice amp. It has two selectable channels, one which has a gain gontrol for distortion and one for clean. Also I like the rock back feature, which makes the amp handy for stage use. The carpet on the amp is very durable, and it has a nice handel. This amp is a great practice amp like I said before, but at the gig when you ahve to turn it up past helf volume, even on the clean channel there is awful distortion. I would not recomend this amp to anyone with a Musicman like mine with active pickups. The amp cannot seem to handel it and thus sounds like a blown out speaker. Also a 3 band EQ is barley enough with no other tone selections. And why is the power switch on the back??? The amp is well constructed, and covered with carpet so you dont have to worry about scratches. You do have to worry about dog hair though. The amp has a nice handel which make it comfortable to carry around. This amp is not one I would buy again, at least for anything but playing by yourself. I ended up trading mine in for a Ampeg 115. Good for practice, not so good at the gigs. But hey, what can you expect for a little under $300? This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I bought this amp brand new in a store in Sweden, where I live. The reason for this purchase was simply that I needed a new amp, my old one didn't sound good anymore. The price was 6750 swedish kronor = about 850 dollars. Great sound - nice and warm. The amp is quite easy to use, not to complicated. The eq has knobs for low, mid and high and contour. Of course you've also got a level and master volume control. The amp has 125W in it which is enough for me. When we play at parties and such we always use a PA to run our sound through, but the amp makes enough noise to stand for itself at smaller places. A good thing with the amp is that you can choose to go pre- or posteq when you use a PA. Another fun thing (but unnecessary) is that it has two channels - the normal one and one for distortion. The dist channel is fun to play around with but I'll never use it when I play with the band. Maybe someone else can find use for it. But not me. The amp has side handles which are great when carrying the amp. Nice move, GK! The on/off button doesn't feel so reliable. Press in and it's on and then press it again and it's off. But somehow I get the feeling that the on/off button one day is going to stuck inside the amp. I hope not, though. But it could have been done better, why not a normal on/off swith - I/O? You know, the orange one. The biggest thing I don't like is that I had to return to the store twice to change the amp to get one that worked alright. Quality problems, GK? Well, as mentioned above I had to return twice to the store to change amps. The third one (brand new, all of them) sounded OK. Bad luck och bad quality? I don't know. The first one made a strange rattling sound, totally unplayable, like a screw was loose inside. The second one had a flat strange sound and had a distorted effect when played on low volumes. The third one, at last, sounded great. But my trust for GK is not so good anymore, sorry to say. Anyway, the construction is beefy enough - no problems there. I already mentioned the on/off button and my feelings of bad quality there. An amp that sounds great, no doubt - if you get one that works alright. I compared it with some other amps and the GK was no doubt the best sounding. Except for some doubt about the quality I would recommend this amp for everyone. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

$400 CDN. Purchased used through Central Music in Welland, Ontario, Canada. (original first series, or "1" designation) First off, I have a confession to make- this is my SECOND 400RB! I've been running one in my two channel bass rig for the last 3 years or so. When my Peavey preamp died and took a my power amp with it, I decided to look out for another 400RB. There had been one sitting in a local music store that I frequent, and I'd been keeping my eye on it, hoping that for some weird reason, I'd be able to just buy it and be done with all the fussing around. Now on to the formal review part! As I mentioned, I'd already been using a 400RB in the bridge pickup side of my rig (remember its a dual channel setup- with the bridge PU going to one amp and the neck PU going to another). While most people I know get the best results running this amp at 4 ohms, I'm only had the chance to use it at 8 ohms through my SWR 4x10. During a recent gig, I found that I had JUST enough power to be level (volume-wise) with my two guitarists (one uses a Marshall Valvestate with a Fender 4x12, the other uses a Fender an original '65 Twin Reverb), sans Peavey and power amp (I ran the rig mono that night). Adding this extra amp (and thus going back to dual channel) was a Godsend! I have all the clarity and serious tone that GK is famous for and the ability to actually lift my rack at the end of a gig (it weighed over 80Lbs before dumping the pre/power combo!). I haven't run out of power yet. Even on the biggest stages I've played, there is always enough "cut" to be heard. There are two minor beefs about this amp, but they are MINOR! 1. In order to get the most volume out of this amp, you MUST run a 4 ohm cabinet. I noticed that my SWR 4x10 sounds a little more "polite" than my custom built 2x10 (using the same drivers, but totalling 4 ohms). my main goal was to lighten up the rig and have it actually fit in my car! If I added another SWR 4x10 to the rig, I'd have to buy a bigger car! 2. The effects loop is POST EQ, meaning that if you use a compressor in the effects loop (like I do), then ANY changes in boost or cut will affect the action of the compressor. This can actually make your frequency extremes "dissappear" if you don't adjust everything accordingly. Luckily, I was able to set everything and then just forget about it. I don't tweak my EQ around that much anyway. Like I said, these are minor faults These babies (or "the twins", as the band now refers to them!) are as bullet proof as they come! I haven't had a single problem with them. Well, thats not entirely true! I did have an overheating issue after I had the amp for about a week or two. I was playing in a rather fast and furious hardcore punk outfit at the time and the amp kept cutting out after every ten minutes or so during our first show. This gradually got worse as the night wore on until I finally just listened to my sound through the house PA system for the whole third set. This was remedied when I had the amp opened the next day for the rituallistic cleaning of the control knobs (do it EVERY 3 months if you play at least one show/rehearsal a week- for ANY gear- basses, amps, effects!). The nuts and bolts that held all of the big output transistors to the heatsink were all loose! Simply tightening this solved the problem. I've never had that happen again, but the heatsink gets MIGHTY hot after an hour of playing. And I'm talking tube amp-like hot! Not enough to burn, but your hands will get VERY uncomfortable if you lave them on the heatsink too long after a good jam session! I will be installing a fan in the back of my rack, ASAP! For the money on a used amp, you can't really go wrong. If you are looking for a pure tube sound, this isn't it. But if you are looking for a nice alternative to the typical crappy transistor combo amp, and have a cabinet like a 1x15 or 4x10 kicking around, grab one of these amps. They are one of the greatest values on the used amp market! This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

The Gallien Krueger Backline 600 is a two channel, 300 watt each bass guitar amplifier head. It's a pretty in depth head with a lot of controls and routing options for the recording and gigging bass player. It's a solid state amplifier and it has 1/4" connections for your input, an effects loop, a tuner out, and a foot switch. It also has a direct XLR output which is a great feature on any bass amplifier as it allows you to get a direct signal from the head right into whatever you're recording with. UTILIZATION The make up of the Gallien Krueger Backline 600 is actually pretty easy to follow, but there's a lot of control possible here. For starters it has a four band equalizer, along with some built in overdrive and further controls for counter, level, boost, and a master control. In my opinion it's definitely a good amount to work with as you should have your hands pretty full with these controls. Even so, I don't think the manual is a necessity. SOUNDS The Gallien Krueger Backline 600 is overall a really full sounding amplifier. I haven't actually used the amp with a speaker cabinet as I've only plugged it in direct into my Digi 002R audio interface for monitoring and recording purposes. It sounds great through this and I can only imagine that it would translate well when used with a speaker cabinet. The overdrive on here is cool but it's not too heavy so if you like distortion a lot you'll probably need an external device. Overall it's a versatile head so you shouldn't have problems getting a nice array of tones here... OVERALL OPINION The Gallien Krueger Backline 600 is a great choice for any bass player looking for a quality head on a budget. It's not the best of the best, but it's great for the price! GK has a number of nice heads that are inexpensive including the Backline 600 that I'd recommend checking out. At the price of only around $300 US dollars, the Backline 600 is one of the best bang for your buck bass heads around.