AKG BX20E

The AKG BX20E is a large spring reverb chamber that is most likely to be found in professional or larger home recording studios. The only one that I've ever seen is in the studio that I'm currently working at, and it really sounds good. We had this hooked up to our patch bay, so I didn't really get a glimpse at the connections that it has. It's got two channels in it, and since we had it hooked up to our Neve console, we used the level knob on the console rather than on the chamber itself. It definitely isn't rack mountable as it's bigger than most racks!

UTILIZATION

There isn't much to know about the AKG BX20E once it's hooked up. You don't have any control over the sound beyond setting how much reverb you want, but what else can you really ask for here? I don't know anything about the manual, but one isn't necessary with the BX20E anyway.

SOUND QUALITY

The tone quality of the AKG BX20E is definitely up there with the best sounding spring reverbs that I've heard before. It's big sounding with a certain dark characteristic to it. It definitely sounds like you placed a good room mic in your drum room to a degree, as it's up there in terms of realistic sound quality. You don't need any parameters here, as the sound that it does have is it's own color already. Beyond getting a room sound, this is really as close as you'll get to realistic sounding reverb.

OVERALL OPINION

I don't really know how many of these AKG made, but it really doesn't seem like there are too many BX20E's out there any more. Until I used this I didn't even know that AKG made anything like this, as they certainly aren't known for this. I'm definitely a big fan of any sort of reverb/echo chamber, but the AKG BX20E definitely goes beyond what I could have expected from it. Definitely a spring reverb that's worth using if you're ever able to.