Ampeg B-200R

Just bought this amp last week. It's pretty basic, tube pre, SS power, 4 band EQ, with bass, mid and treble boost. 220 Watt through a 15" speaker and optional HF Horn. No footpedal, which is too bad. Weighs a cool 69lbs, but looks heavier.

I play a lot of mid sized bar and outdoor gigs to crowds of 100 - 200 people and this amp has more then enough power to be felt and heard. We play the occasional large sized show (1,500 - 2,000) and the XLR direct out to the sound board takes care of things.

Okay, this amp sounds great at any volume. Even with the master set a 2, the floor rumbles. You can get a nice warm full sound or a nice punchy sound for slapping and popping or anythng in between. I'm using an Ibanez SRX590DX (has active pick-ups) and it sounds great through this amp. I tried out several combos the day I got this amp (a Traynor DB400, a Marshall MB4210 and a Peavey 115) and the Ampeg was the winner. I'm very impressed so far.

It's new, so I don't know yet. However, Ampeg amps have a great rep for being very reliable and the amp comes with a 5 year limited warranty on the electronics and 2 years on the speaker. I don't plan on carrying a backup amp to my gigs.

As mentioned, 5 years on electronics and 2 on the speaker. Pretty darn good in my opinion! If something ever happens, I can bring it back to the shop I bought it from for servicing.

I had a Behringer Ultrabass 1200 before this amp and the difference is very dramatic. The tone is clear and warm. You can feel this amp! It's a combo on Steroids! The only drawbacks are that you can't hook into an extension cab and to access the HF Tweeter, you have to shut the amp off and unplug the patch cord from the speaker only jack to the speaker with horn jack. A foot pedal would have been great for switching between these different modes as well as punching in your bass/mid/treble boosts.

right, this amp looks great with the vinyl finish, and the eq and bass boost/mid cut/treble boost are great. the removable casters are a nice function too.

if i had to be picky, i wish it had a effects loop, some side handles,
and the tweeter on/off function (i will explain later) is downright stupid, and the lights that tell you when the signal is to high/low
is positioned where you have to practically lean over the amp to see it (irritating when you are using an EUB mounted on a cymbal stand.)

but when its all plugged in and playing, none of these things really matter. the top-mounted knobs are perfectly positioned for mid song tweaking, and easy to see in the darkest of venues, and it looks great.
so features wise i have had to really think to find faults.

9.5/10

this thing sounds absolutely fantastic. clean, warm, clear, punchy and plenty loud too. sounds great doing heavy slaptastic stuff as well as quieter styles. other bass players always comment on how good it sounds, both though the e-bass and the upright. ive found it almost impossible to dial up a bad sound out of it, and the highest ive tested it on volume wise is about three o' clock/four o' clock on the output, and as long as your input level isnt clipping like crazy, its as clean as it is at low volumes. i cannot praise it enough.

im using a fender jag bass and a palatino EUB with a fishman pickup running into a ehx black finger compressor.

i play ska, reggae, funk, and ballad songs in a band,
and play jazz and metal songs on my own

i would give this a ten, in the last year that ive had it it has been dragged up and down old tracks, up stairs, left in places with no heating on, and been taken to germay and back twice by a delivery firm and shows no signs of wear and tear at all (exept a little mud from an outdoor gig),

***BUT***

my one, and only one complaint is this-

if you want to turn the tweeter off, instead of a switch on the amp to change it there is a jack cable sticking out of the back end of the amp, with two holes to plug it into (one for with tweeter, one for without.). no problem with that, but i made the assumption that if you were to turn all the volume and eq knobs to 0 and change the cable round, that wouldnt damage the amp. there defiatley wasnt anything in the manual to suggest this would be a problem, which i found particularly surprising seeing as the cable changeover COMPLETLEY killed my amp. maybe im just stupid, but i cant help but feel that that some sort of sticker:-

(**warning!***do NOT change this cable over when the amp is even remotely switched on, idiot!**hazard!**)

could have prevented this disaster. now that i know about it, its not a problem, so i guess its the fault of the guys at ampeg, not the amp.

or me for being a moron.

i dealt with the company (thomman) that sold me the amp rather than ampeg when it broke. but i did send ampeg an email to let them know what happened, and they responded instantly and in a friendly manner, which is pretty good of them because by this point, it was already in the process of being fixed, and they had already sold the amp, so they had no real need to contact me.
so yeah, above and beyond really.

im gonna have to give this thing a ten, a coupe of very minor complaints
and one piece of vital information missing from the manual are easily made up by-

great sound and eq!
easy portability!
high CLEAN as you need volume!
sexy exterior!

if you're a bass player, and you want a small amp that sounds like those big, heavy arsed svt jobbies youve heard so much about, then buy these things and you will love it. i definatley wouldn't buy anything else if it was stolen, and if i ever needed anything louder, id just plug this into pa system.

by the way the drummer in our band is as loud as you can be without mic-ing a kit up, and i compete with that easily

buy buy buy- just make sure you switch it off before changing the tweeter

Great 4-band EQ; three voicing filters: low boost, mid scoop, high boost one channel; tube (1x12AU7) preamp, 200 watts RMS solid-state power section, peak indicator, controllable-level direct/headphones out; 15-inch speaker with optional tweeter; removable casters, rear-ported cab. Compact, reasonable weight (69 lbs.)

I love this amp! A rock-and roll bassist living in NYC and gigging regularly in small???to-mid-sized clubs, I???m always looking for a way to go small while still getting the tone right. Now, every bassist knows there???s a sound compromise in any compact amp, but until I have a squad of roadies to haul my wall of SVTs, the B-200R is a GREAT way to go!

This amp is a light-years improvement over Ampeg???s BA series; I could never figure out how to get a decent tone out of those little black boxes! THIS amp has terrific EQ controls and voicing filters; plenty of solid-state power with the added warmth and growl of the tube preamp. I set my gain just in the red, and this baby sings!

I originally thought that I would prefer to bypass the tweeter - my experience with SWR and suchlike bass-driver-plus-tweeter setups always saw me running to turn the tweeter off completely. Well, throughout this amp???s initial run at a mid-volume rehearsal, I started out with the tweeter bypassed while tweaking the EQ till I felt it sounded best. Then for the heck of it, I engaged the tweeter, and WOW! It added a pleasing presence without adding the harsh clatter typical in "high fidelity" cabs!

This amp is vintage sounding all the way, like a mini SVT hiding inside a Portaflex.

PS: After reading the horror stories of delivered-broken B-200Rs, I bought the floor model in my local shop, just 'cause I was sure it worked! Mine is a new-model Chinese-made model, and it works/sounds just fine.

Highly recommended!

No problems yet; only had it about a month. Rating neutral for now!

Ampeg offers 5 year warranty on the amp, 2 years on the speaker. Bought it from a dealer who offers to take care of any issues should they arise.