EBS Gorm 300 210 Combo

Made on the 17th of november 1999, according to the sticker on the back. Which made it EXACTLY four years old when I bought it secondhand.

This amp is very versatile, thanks to the great yet very sensitive equalizer with parametric mids. Even though it always stays clean, it enables you to play whatever style you like just by finetuning the EQ. It has just one channel, but enhances it with some clever features. First, there's the Character-switch. This was intended to simulate the effect of a tubeamp. It boosts the bass and treble. Then there's the built-in footswitchable compressor and limiter which does its work rather well without losing the dynamic character of the amp and the bass you play it with. There's a four-band EQ-section (bass, parametric mids, treble and bright frequencies), a foorswitchable suboctaver with volumecontrol for the suboctave. But here it comes: the amp has a monitorinput, through which you can connect whatever soundsource you like, to jam along with at home and practice over, or to use on stage to send other instruments through it as a personal monitor. The signal of the monitorinput is NOT sent through the balanced line out, so when using this feature on stage, your soundman won't complain! Speaking of the balanced line-out, this has a groundlift-option, and you can switch it to pre-EQ or post-EQ. Something else that makes this combo stand apart is that it doesn't have a speakeroutput. Instead, it has an unbalanced line out to a second poweramp or the EBS powered speakercabs (1x15's with 300 watt poweramps built-in). There also is a biamping-output with crossover, so you can send only the low frequencies to any type of active subwoofer or poweramp you like, no matter what the powerhandling is.

Anything I could wish for in a basscombo. And maybe even more. Even though all of these are very useful features, I guess I only use half of them at the moment. But who knows, when I take this baby on stage. Still, the features are great, making this combo very versatile both for gigging as well as using it in a studio or at home.

O, one more thing I forget. This amp supports phantom power. When using an active bass, connecting the bass to the amp with a stereo jack-cable enables you to power the bass through the amp, when turned on. EBS effects-pedals support phantom power too, so the EBS pedal closest to the FX-send is phantom powered as well, through a stereo jackcable.

A 600 Ohm headphones-socket completes the package.

I use this combo with a Yamaha TRB5II fivestring with two passive humbucking pickups and a nice preamp. This bass is very versatile, going from Jazzbass-like sounds to a high-end sound of its own. Because the Gorm is so clean at every volumesetting, it maintains the original sound of the bass very well. However, I can't set the gain at levels above 5, for the amp starts clipping when popping or slapping, or just using a rougher string-attack. Still, when keeping the gain below five (and really, why would I want a higher gain-setting? I like the clean sound of my bass! That's why I picked this amp, for a great part).

This amp suits any music style. At some moments I would like it to have more grit in the sound, but I might buy a EBS Bassdrive-pedal once to spice it up a little. In the manual, there's a couple of manufacturer-suggested EQ-settings for a couple of musicstyles to get you started. Trust me, you NEED this manual! It's pretty tough to instantly find a good sound with this EBS, the EQ is very sensitive so it demands quite some patience and tweaking. But it's worth it. If you find a sound of your liking, you'll be blown away.

The amp is pretty quiet, only when turning up the treble on my bass (but hey, why would I do that?) gets it noisy, as well as turning up the bright-knob. This bright knob boosts or cuts the highest frequencies, giving your sound more or less attack and bite. Just don't turn it full up, you'll hear a bit of noise then.

Very good sounding. I just miss a tiny edge of grit to the sound sometimes, that's my only little complaint. Great for jazzmusicians though!

This amp seems very reliable. It's very simple, so there's not much to break either. The casing and speakergrill seem very tough, so I fully trust on those to guard the ampchassis and speakers. The only thing I don't like are the handles, they're just two flimsy rubber straps on top of the combo. I'd rather have two sturdy metal handles recessed in the sides of the combo. Also, there are no casters on the top corners of the combo. But no amp is perfect. I'm pretty sure this amp won't let me down, this is Swedish topquality! For as far as I know, the previous owner never had problems with it either.

I registered the amp at EBS when I bought it, and immediately got an automated e-mail back telling me I just subscribed to their newsletter. Oh well, that's nice. I always like to keep up to date with the latest products of guitar- and ampmanufacturers. Haven't had to deal with their customersupport yet though. The only thing is, I got it with a footswitch for the compressor and octaver, which originally belongs to the EBS-1 preamp. So the wiring was done the wrong way around! But I had the plug resoldered at the store where I bought it, so that's no big deal really.

I've been playing guitar since the summer of '99, and bass since spring '2003. My previous bass was an old Condor Jazzbass (Condor is an old Japanese brand). Now, I pity ever having sold that old Jazzbass. I wonder how it would have sounded on this EBS...

Guitarwise, I own a Jackson DK2 (with a Seymour Duncan Custom Custom at the bridge position and two Little '59's in the middle and neckpositions), my old Squier Affinity Strat, a Washburn D12S acoustic and some no-name cheap-ass classical guitar as a smack-around-guitar.

I really love this EBS, the only thing I dislike is that sometimes I would like it to have a little more grit to the sound. But I will compensate that with the EBS Bassdrive, or maybe a Gallien & Krueger Dieseldawg bassoverdrive. If this were stolen, it would be very hard to find one again, since this is the first series of Gorm combo's, and it was very well priced, considering the new prices are over 2000 euro's. All the other features compensate for the lack of drive, though! I truly love this amp, and I'm not planning to sell it for a long, long time.

Amps I compared it to are the SWR Redhead combo, SWR Workingman's 12 and 15, Ashdown MAG250-115 and MAG250-210 and the Electric Blue 210 and the Warwick CL. Oh, and a Yamaha 2x10-combo. In sheer power and clean sound, this EBS whooped their asses. The other amps have more grit (especially the Ashdowns) but featurewise I liked this amp better. And because it was secondhand, it was more affordable than the other alternatives, except the Electric Blue-range and the Workingman's 12 and 15. I chose a 2x10 because of its tighter yet wider spread sound.