Genz Benz GBE400 Head

Rated power of the GBE 400 is 200 watts @ 8 ohms, 330 watts @ 4 ohms and 450 watts @ 2 ohms.
??? Active/Passive Input Stage
??? Signal Mute Switch
??? Tuner Out
??? Input Status LED
??? All Solid State Design
??? Shape Circuits - L.F. Extend; Mid Scoop; H.F. Attack
??? Five Band Active EQ (Same Circuit as the GBE 600)
??? Front Panel Status LED Display
??? Master Volume Control
??? Unique ???Soft Limit??? Circuit
??? XLR Direct Out with Level Control; Pre/Post Switch; Ground Lift Switch
??? Effects Loop
??? Dual Speakon?? and 1/4" Speaker Outputs
??? High Efficiency Fan Cooling
Everything I need in a bass amp.

Love this amp. Useing my 62 reissue p bass and two-one 15" Eden cabs. One for bar gigs add the second (4ohms total) for outside venues. Sounds clean and powerfull with detailed depth & punch. Can get that velvet hammer tone to grinding mids and nice non harsh highs. Yeah, I play BASS!!!

I Take care of my s#*t. So I won't need a back up. Besides if Murphy ever decided to crawl up in my amp and do his stuff I'd just plug into the PA. One year use no probs.

Never had to bother with it but they have a great rep. Another reason to buy from this co. 3 year TRANSFERABLE warranty.

12 years playing. Have owned-Ampeg-Peavey-Acoustic-Crate-SWR & more...This head killed my Ampeg svt 3pro with no comparison. I will be holding on to this rig. When I need more gear the Genz Benz Co. will be my first choice and should be a top consideration for any bassist.

A very versatile amp. I play it for my funk/rock band, I used to play punk with it, and i play with it in my school jazz band. It has effects looping, but no headphone jack, which is one of the very few downsides. I also wish it had a foot swich jack to swich between the "Low freq boost", "Mid cut", and "High Freq attack" buttons. Its not a big deal though. A tube preamp would also be nice, but i love the sound anyway. I use this amp to play small-medium gigs. I use a Warwick 410 cab with it is quite loud.

With this amp, I use a Warwick Fortress MM with a single humbucker pickup. This amp suits my style of funk/rock quite well. It can get very warm, or very punchy depending on what tones you dial in. This amp has never been noisy or buzzy and I don't think it ever will be. This amp ranges tones from jazzy warmth to stomach churning punch. I love the tones that I can get with it. It does start to clip when I turn it real loud, but thats only because I'm running it at 8 ohms. It can easily go down to 2 (i need to get some new cabs). However, it has a limiter so I don't have to worry about destroying my speakers.

This amp is built like a tank. I have it in a rack case and I feel like i could drop this thing off the top of a tractor trailer while its going 70 on the highway (I wouldn't, of course). I've never had any problems with it crapping out on me and I don't think I ever will. This is what I love about solid state amps. You can do practically anything you want with them.

I sent an email to Genz Benz when I got the amp asking if there was anyway I could use headphones with it. I got a practically instant response from the Jeff Genzler himself. Very good customer support.

This is just a great amp all around. End of story. I can't complain at all. I love this thing and I can't wait to get some new cabs to experiment with its full potential.

My review is of the Genz-Benz GBE-400 rack mount head. The amp was made somewhere between 2003-2004, I'm not sure, as I bought it used. It's rated at 200 watts at 8 ohms, 330 at 4 ohms and 450 at 2 ohms. Has five band rotary eq, lo and hi input jack and tuner jack, effects loop on the back, two quarter inch speaker jacks, two speakon connectors also in the rear and a side mounted cooling fan, no noise as far as I can tell.
I find the amp to be extremely versatile. I play in a Contemporary Christian band and also do Praise and Worship at church, music styles run the gamut from r and b, a little funk, classic rock and harder rock and alternative styles.
The amp has active eq circuitry which I find much more useful than the 9 band graphic I had on my old Peavey Mark VI. Can't think of any other features I would want, if I had the money I would have gone for something with a tube preamp. The amp is fully solid state, and it has more than enough power for my purposes.

I currently use a Washburn Taurus T-25 5 string bass, which has two Washburn ABT Jazz style pickups. I am running the amp through my new Dr Bass Rx 212 cabinet, which I will be entering a separate review on later, when I've had more time with it, and I was previously running it through a Crate 1x15 that had been reloaded with an EV speaker, not sure what kind. I also run my bass through a Zoom 506 pedal. I was initially experiencing a lot of noise and hiss at higher volumes, especially through the Dr Bass cabinet, but after a little while, realized it was all coming from the Zoom, I will be replacing that with something less noisy at first opportunity. When I took it out of the sound chain, "voila", totally noiseless, as far as I could tell. Nothing but pure clean bass tone as far as I could hear, the kind of tone I had always dreamed of owning. I have yet to hook up the bass through our sound system, by the way the amp also has a low impedance line out with level control, also rear mounted, but I have not had occassion to use that yet. I think it suits my needs extremely well, I'm not into soloing, just locking in with the drummer and providing as solid a foundation as I can.

I haven't had any problems with it yet, have had it for about 5 months, have used it in some really raucous rehearsals so far. Me and my friends like to get really noisy. I hope it never breaks down, as I bought it used and it has no warranty. The only back up I would have is an old Crate 150 watt combo that my bandmate has, that has seen better days and is noisy and hissy as it can get. Don't have enough info on reliability so I will not rate this category as high, although it seems to be built real sturdy and although we have rehearsed for 2-3 hours at a time at some significantly high volumes, I haven't noticed any significant overheating, the fan really does its job.

Haven't had occassion to deal with the company, and as I said above, I bought it without warranty.

I've been playing for about 24 yrs. Started using an old no name violin bass copy that was used by my first church band, that had old strings and an 1 1/4 action at the twelfth fret. I have an old Washburn B-15 four string, a Fender fretless jazz bass 4 string- made in Mexico, which I will soon be selling for another 5 string bass for backup, I've been playing really aggressively lately and have been snapping strings and alas we have no roadie.
If it were lost or stolen, I would be very sad, and would try to find a similar deal on a used one, as there is no way I could afford a new one.
I initially started my search for a new head as my old Peavey never produced the true bass tone I craved, and weighed in at about 40 lbs. As I've gotten older, I have developed some back problems and needed to get something lighter, the GBE-400, although more powerful than the Peavey is only 23 lbs, and produces the tone I desired. I had also tried the Ampeg portabass and B2R- too expensive, various Hartke's- not significantly different from the Peavey to justify a change. Have had experience with Trace-Elliott- owned by the church, an SWR workingmans combo, A Yorkville 250 watt combo, all in all I believe the GB produces better true bass sound and is at least as good as the ampegs I have tried.
I'm basically a church musician, the great majority of whom will never be paid for their music, bang for the buck is a very serious consideration. When I tracked this down over the internet at Dave's Guitar Shop in Wisconsin ( I'm from south Texas by the way) at the price they sold it for, it was like a Godsend, they even took my old Mark VI in a trade in- Good people to deal with by the way. I am extremely happy with this head and believe I will be for many years to come. Even at the normal internet and local store discount prices for this head I would consider it an excellent buy.

This is a 2002 GBE400 head it is very versatile I have used it for Rock,Country,and Blues music and the tonal variations are awesome. I use it in big and small rooms and never have any problems with not enough power.It is all solid state with parametric EQ and three very useful pre-shape buttons

I mainly use Fender basses and sometimes a Gibson Thunderbird or a modern bass with an active Music Man style pickup. The amp is perfectly suited for my style you can adjust to any useable sound you need. It was noisey at first but sent it back to Genz Benz and the problem was corrected.

This amp has never broken down where it could not be used. It came with a wobbly volume pot and that did break off but I think it may have been damaged at the store I bought it from. I always kept it in a rack with a front cover so it broke but was fixed for free under warranty and is fine now. I consider this amp to be 100% reliable and I take it to gigs without a backup more often than not

Ok here's the long story. I got the amp it hummed pretty bad in the rooms I play in which are mostly old bars with bad wiring. I wrote Genz Benz an Email got no response I got ticked off and left a bad review. Several months later I tried another Email. This time I got a response apparently they never got my first Email. I sent the amp back, Genz Benz paid for the shipping both ways. The transformer was I believe the problem and was replaced. These guys were very concerned and bent over backwards to fix the problem. Scott called and helped sort out the problem and I even got a call from Jeff himself. The bottom line is don't trust Email completely like I did I don't believe they ever got it. These guys are top notch the amps are awesome I just got caught with one with a defect and the guys at Genz Benz fixed it.

I have been playing for decades I own 24 basses and about 6 or 7 Peavey bass amps along with the Genz Benz(my current main amp) If the GBE400 were stolen I would go buy another one you just can't beat the thick tone it produces. I love the tone it has. I hated that I had a problem with it but hey they fixed it free so I can't bitch. When I bought this amp I compared it to some modern Peavey heads and some Ampeg stuff . It was better than the Peavey and equal in my opinion to the much more expensive Ampeg. There is nothing I wish it had it's all there. I would however like to remove my previous review and leave this one instead if that is possible