Hi my name is Dan Veall and welcome to my
overview video with the brand new 802
High Dynamics Linear bass amplifier from
EBS in Sweden. This is a 100% analog
signal path beast of an amplifier,
kicking out some 750 watts RMS into a 2
ohm load, or 450 watts into a 4-ohm load.
I'm going to go across the front panel
briefly and then I'm gonna spin the
amplifier around and have a look at some
of the connections around the back to
give you some idea about the feature set
that this amplifier has. Across the front
panel, if you are aware of the TD and HD
range already, then this amplifier is
going to be pretty familiar. But even if
you're not, the feature set is dead easy
and it's really easy  getting a
great sound without too much messing
around. On the left-hand side here a
standard input jack for my instrument.
This is a 2 megaohm impedance preamp
input, which means if you're using piezo
pickups - or something like that - you're
not going to get any unnecessary loading
and actually going to get some nice
clarity straight into the front of the
amplifier. To the right of that we have
two buttons marked
boost. Think of this as the character
switch from previous models split into
two, so rather than hitting the character
switch and having bass and treble boost,
you can now have one or the other or
both.
Now that is really handy if
you've got maybe a bright sounding bass
and you don't want to add any more
top-end.
Punch that low and shake the windows -
fantastic! Moving along, gain control with
peak led. This, as it suggests in the
manual, you want to play to the point
that you
turning up the gain control were you
seeing that little peak light flicker.
This is going to give your optimum
signal into the amplifier before it
starts breaking up and driving. To the
right of that, we have a one-knob
compressor. This is superb. The threshold
is set internally and this knob here
controls the ratio of the compressor.
Fantastic if you're switching between
maybe slap bass and fingerstyle, or
plectrum work, and by riding that
compressor then you're gonna get a nice
smooth sound across the board and
everyone's gonna love it. Front of house is
gonna really appreciate that. I dial in
with my bass until the blue LED starts
flickering and maybe decide if I want a
little more compression or a little bit
less compression and I like to ride
that to give myself a nice and even sound. On
board the 802 - I love this already -
I love graphic equalizers and I love
passive tone stacks that you find in
some valve amplifiers, but if there's
something I really want on every single
bass amplifier that I plug into, it is a
semi-parametric equalizer. What this
basically means is, on a standard
amplifier, is that my individual tone
controls; bass, low-mid, high-mid,
treble, are usually fixed. The frequency
that I can boost and cut I can't change.
Now this might be at odds with the
instrument and the cabinet I'm using.
Wouldn't it be great if I can find a
frequency which is sympathetic to both?
Great, right? It's here on the bass and
treble controls, which are shelving eq's.
We have a little switch where we can
choose a frequency Center. On the bass
control, it is shelving 60 Hertz. 80 Hertz or
100 Hertz. And I can flick the switch to
decide which one's gonna suit me the
best. Some nice subby bass end
my drop tuning, I might go for 60
Hertz. For a bit of kick drum type punch
I might choose 100 Hertz. Over to the
treble control, this is also a shelving
equalizer. I have just two positions 5.5
K, from a nice bit of pick bite, and 8 K for
a bit more additional top-end brightness.
And I can boost and cut either of them
from a center-click - thank you very much
EBS for working on dark stages it's actually
really really handy to be able to feel
where you are on the control. For the low-mids and the high-mids again, if you're
used to the TD and HD range, in fact even
the Reidmar amplifiers as well, they have
one single controllable mid-range
control. The 802 now has two and I've
kind of really wanted to see this and am
very pleased to see that the 802
has got it. Well this basically means as
you can see on this dial, I've got my
frequency Center for my control
straight-up 610 Herz, and I can boost
and I can cut. So if I want to have that
lovely passive tone stack scoop, I might
choose about 500 Hertz, bring the dial
around to where I think that is, and then
I can cut away and I get a lovely scoopy
sound there. High-mid control, much the
same, but I'm going to look at the higher
mid-range rather than the lower
mid-range. And you can see on the dial
here that actually I've got some higher
figures to play with. But I do like the
fact there's this like crossover, so
maybe I actually know I wanted the 500
Hertz up here? That's great because this
dial starts at 200 Hertz so I can get
the two to work together if I want to.
Treble control, we've touched already.
Now, bright is a high-pass filter and as
I boost it up I'm going to get some
lovely top-end air to my sound. For
active instruments I actually found that
I'd like to pull that down a little bit.
But you know what if I wanted to make my
old vintage p-bass sound to be more
active it's great, because I can push
this up and get a nice new string kind
of characteristic. One feature I really
like, actually I have the Reidmar 750 as
well - astonishingly loud little amplifier, now
one thing which we really like about
some amplifiers, like valve amps, is
when you start cranking them and making
them work really hard so you get that
lovely power amp Distortion. But when you
have an amplifier like this the only way
were gonna get that Drive sound is so loud we start annoying our drummer and
our guitarist...
That sounds like quite a lot of fun
really, but umm you know in a live
environment or a studio environment that's
probably not the wisest thing to do so
rather than pushing the volume all the
way up, we have a drive control onboard
which is connected to a kind of tube
emulation circuit. And as I push that up
I'm gonna get more and more bite into my
sound and then I can set my volume to
taste. All the way down,
it's bypassed. All the way up, lots and
lots of Drive. You're gonna find
where it's gonna be most suitable for
the style of music that you are playing. For
my vintage P bass I like to warm it just
a little bit and I think the dial was
about there. Okay. Master volume, power
switch, standby here puts the amplifier into mute and
all of my outputs are muted so I can for
example unplug my bass without things
getting bang and clunk. That's the front
panel let's flip the amplifier around
and have a look at the back. A quick
switch around then and we have the panel
in front of us. Power input on the far
left-hand side. This is the standard IEC
connector and in the dead center we have two
speakon outputs wired in parallel.
These are lock-in and heavy-duty and I
really
like to see these on modern amplifiers.
This is a really great inclusion that
we've had for a lot of years. The EBS
cabinets, were looking at the Neo line
410 here, also has speakon connectors on
the back, and indeed EBS even do a really
nice line of big chunky lock-in cables
as well so you can have your matching
head, cabinet, and cables. Across the top
here then we have an array of
connectors. We have a tuner output which
is great for connecting to an external
tuner. Underneath that, a line output. This
is very very handy. You see, this is
a post volume knob output. Should you
decide that the 802 is not loud enough
you can slave other amplifiers from it
so if you decide that you suddenly need
a whole bunch of extra cabinets, and you
want to drive them with another
amplifier, then you can do it from here
and maintain all of your EQ settings
from the 802. Nextup, effects loop. This
effects loop is post EQ, post Drive
settings. So if you
would rather insert your pedals...yes
that's right, you can insert your pedals
here rather than line levels studio
equipment...you can put them after your
drive settings, after your EQ settings,
and after your compression settings. So
maybe, I want to put in a delay or
something like that, I can insert it here
and it's going to sit in the signal path
where I want it. Two connectors for remote
control. We have four items we can remote
on this amplifier; the character, filters,
the drive, and the overall mute. You can
do that off separate foot-switches of
your own, or indeed EBS as we have the RM-4
remote control which will plug
straight to this amplifier. And you can
access all of those functions on one footswitch. Okay, moving on, I really like
this: two XLR-sockets providing DI output.
The first one here is a pre EQ. If you're
into re-amping and the like, then this is
going to be the output to use. Take
straight out to your recording device
and then you can later feed your
amplifier with the same signal, and then
re-amp, superb! To the right of this we
have a post EQ DI output, so all of your
settings on the front are being added to
this sound as it comes out and you can
feed it to front of house PA or your
recording device, at the same time as the
pre EQ, and mix and match. But I also
really like the addition of this. Just
underneath my finger here there is a
speaker simulator onboard this amp, so
for example, if you have to turn the amp
all the way down because you don't want
to upset the neighbors but you still
want that recorded sound of a speaker
cabinet being miked up, enable the  speaker
simulator and you're good to go.
Of course, if you're using
speaker simulators elsewhere in your
chain, then you can just bypass it and
you're gonna get that lovely amp DI
sound. Nice big fan on the right hand
side here. This is pretty much telling
you that the amp means business. It's
expecting to work hard and therefore it
needs to stay nice and cool, so
that's on the right hand side there. The
the amplifier, of course, is rack-mountable so
this is tour ready.
but the ultra-cool clear sound you're
getting from the 802 amplifiers can be
absolutely brilliant for studio use as
well. And actually having played with
this for a little while now,
I think this amplifier is absolutely
cracking. I'm looking forward to do some
more videos when we can crank up and
listen to some of the sounds it is
capable of achieving, but for now our
hope that you have enjoyed this first
look at the EBS 802 and I look forward
to bringing some more videos again soon.
Take care and I'll see you again!
