Laney B1 Head

I didn't purchase the Laney B1 amp head by choice, it came packaged with two amazing, made in the UK, Laney cabinets - a 4 x 10 and a 2 x 15. I had borrowed the cabinets from my local music store for a charity gig and they were too damn good to give back. The dealer threw the head in for an extra AUD$100 and I admit to being blinded by those magic words "1500Watts". He had sold that B1 head twice before and on each ocassion it was brought back within the 30-day, money-back guarrantee period.

The head was made in 2004 I think and it looks attractive with its aluminium facia, chrome knobs and blue and green LED indicators. Unfortunately the amp weighs a ton especially when compared to my MarkBass amp combo.

The Laney B1 is great for one thing - seeing every guitarist's jaw hit the floor when you tell them the amp is rated at 1500 watts. I doubt you would ever connect up enough cabinets to run it successfully at 1500watts but the figures sound impressive.

The features on this B1 are exactly the same as those listed in the previous reviews on this site and if anything I found the amp to have too many controls.

I used the head in an 11 piece motown orchestra for all our outdoor gigs. No effects, no pedals, just straight into the front of the amp. The rig never sounded loud enough and if you push the amp too hard the protection circuit cuts the power/volume to half. I have since read on other sites that other B1 owners bypass the protection circuit. Indoors the volume was fine but I had a superior MarkBass combo for that and the Laney was eventually put into mothballs.

The one feature I wished this amp had was a headphone jack and an instruction booklet that has a set of recommended settings for different styles of music and differing playing techniques. I've searched internet sites for other B1 users and they postly complain about the protection circuit. Too many controls for me and probably not enough for a bass tech.

My Laney B1 gathered dust until I joined a hard rock show and was in search of a back up amp. I sent it to a repair agent (who has asked not to be named) with instructions to install a switch that bypass everything and effectively, converts the B1 into a straight 1500 watt power amp (at 8 ohms). Now I can use the amp with my BBE Max-T Pre amp for playing hard rock and aggressive pop. The weight of the unit means it still spends most of the time in the trailer as my standby amp.

I play in three tribute shows (same guys, different acts) that involve many costume changes and I use a total of nine basses every night. They are:
1. 2007 Status Mark King Artist Series Headless, active. (Status Quo)
2. 1963 Fender P-Bass, passive. (Blues)
3. 1957 Re-issue Fender P-Bass, reverse head & tuned BEAD, passive. (ACDC)
4. 1974 Re-issue Fender Jazz Bass, Dimazio pickups, active. (Motown)
5. 2009 Devries Headless, Fretless Beatle Bass, active. (Police, Bad Company)
6. 2008 Ibanez Iceman Bass, active. (Kiss)
7. 1991 Greco Les Paul Bass (lawsuit model), passive. (ZZ Top)
8. 2004 SUB Musicman, active. (Angels)
9. 2006 Dean Edge 5-String, passive. (CCR)

The B1 as a slave amp works well with all these basses because the BBE Pre-Amp is doing all the 'shaping' of the tone. As soon as I switch it over to the onboard controls it's a nighmare. So horrible that I am considering hiring a bass tech to sort it out as it is beyond my understanding and I think it should be used in both modes. Switched over everything sounds muddy and it fails to impress me onstage or at rehearsals.

This amp was serviced twice before it became mine, twice more in the first two years and only once since the the major modification. I service all my amps once a year and so should you. If I was a kid or a parent dealing through a retail store I would have traded it in before the 30day guarrantee was up. But I only paid AUD$100 for it and I have direct contact with a service agent who builds his own brand of amps so I have made something out of nothing.

The problem is, this amp is too 'old skool' in its engineering and development. Engineering is my field of expertise. It's too heavy, when others are getting lighter. It doesn't allow the natural tone of your instrument to come through when most other amps do. It can't be rack mounted without modification.

The final nail in the 'how reliable is it' coffin for this amp is it's reputation. On the rare occassion thatmy bass tech has pearched the B1 on top of my tower of Laney cabinets I don't feel safe eventhough it makes it through the gig.

Twice I have used original replacement parts and on both ocassions the parts had a first up failure. The first was a transformer, the second was a switch.

Laney is imported into Australia by some businessmen living 1669 klms away. They have appointed the 'usual suspects' as service agents in our city and there always seems to be a stockpile of Laney models littering the floor of the shop. I was shocked to learn that Laney do not provide a warranty on speakers in their combo amps. Original parts are not always available and there is a list of original parts that will be never available. I use non original parts in the B1 and so far so good. I have never dealt directly with Laney and for all I know they are most likely to be incredibly helpful, caring and knowledgeable people. I deal with my service agent who greets me with "oh no, not again."

I have been playing bass since 1994. I started out playing blues, graduated to motown and am likely to retire playing hard rock.
I own 12 basses and play nine every night. The other three (not listed above) are investment instruments to be gifted, upon my death, to my three children. Just as my father did when he gave me a brand new, 100% original, 1963 P-Bass when I turned 30 in 1993. If you call a BBE Max-T an effects unit then that's the only effects I use. I have a rackmounted power conditioner, a rackmounted wireless system, a rackmounted In Ear Monitor system and a Rackmounted tuner, but none of them have an effect on the Laney amp. Oops I do own a DOD Deep Freeze Stereo Chorus pedal which I use to spilt the signal for large stages where I have an cabinet for side fill.

If the Laney B1 was stolen I'd laugh at the theif's misfortune and hope the damn thing falls on their head.

Would I replace it, hell yes, with a Genz Benz or a MarkBass. With another Laney? no thanks!

What do I love abou the amp? It has the words 1500Watts written on it and that freaks people out.

What do I hate about this amp? The weight.

The Bi is modern day dinosaur and doesn't compare to other modern brands.

Laney has wonderful brochures with Toni Iommi on the front and that's about it. If you have an instrument that doesn't produce the tone you need for the style of music you are currently playing, buy a BBE and create the tone. Then buy an amp that is transparent so it will suit every band, every style of music, every situation.

Not so much a Laney problem, but since it's under new ownership it's impossible to get parts for the Class T poweramp. Found a site (www.41hz.com) that might be able to get spares for the amp, or alternatively they offer another high powered Class T poweramp which seems like it's small enough to fit into the B1/2/3 head.

Really like the B1, but if there aren't spares available for this site, if your power amp dies it's not gonna be fixable.

British made bass head. Can produce as much as 1500 watts of power into 4 ohms (bridged). Onboard active crossover with separate speaker outouts.

Front panel: Input sockets for passive and active basses. Tuner output. Blendable FET/Valve preamp stages. 7-band EQ with pre-shape, equalizer defeat and bright switches. Onboard compressor.

Rear panel: Effects Send and Return, Pre-amp out and balanced DI.

I play a wide range of styles through this amp from Soul to hard rock with both a Fender Precision and a Yamaha BB415 and the tones available are incredible, from a fat rounded dub/reggae sound to a Duff McKagan clank.
The sound obtained by over driving the valve pre-amp is not very musical and I would recommend some other pre-amp unit if this is your aim. I use a Tech 21 VT Bass character pedal to get my bite and keep the amp clean and loud.
Very quiet in operation, no real hum or hiss. Loads of power available, plenty loud enough to drown out a very loud drummer (should one wish).
I found that when using it with two 4x10 cabinets, I was getting no extra volume than with one cabinet but was driving the amp much harder causing the protection circuit to cut in. This only happened once and since I've been using one cabinet, I've had no further problems. I think that the problem lies with inefficient speaker cabinets. Better cabs wouldn't require the amp to work so hard to produce the same volume.

This thing is built like a tank (and weighs about the same). All the controls feel positive and solid. I'm sure that it'll outlast me.

Not had to deal with customer services

In the 20+ years I've been playing, I've owned Trace Elliott, Hartke and loads of other gear and I'd choose this amp over all of them. If it were stolen, I'd be looking for another to take it's place.

I'm gonna be lazy and use the questions already given to me...

* Is the amp versatile enough for you and the styles of music you play? What are those styles?

Yup, can't imagine anything this amp couldn't do, aside from more defined tube sounds, does grind fine but since the power section is SS it hasn't got the full blown growl of a cranked all-tube head. Still very growly if you want it to be, but in a slightly more defined way.

Pretty warm sounding for an SS amp, and doesn't go shimmeringly bright with the cabs I've used it with so far, I guess you could EQ it it in but it doesn't seem to be what the amp was designed for based on the flat sound.

Can imagine it playing out pretty well for most things, the bright and pre-shape switches give it more then enough definition when you need to cut and punch through, but disengaged the amp is mellow enough for soul/R&B (especially with the tube pre), and would cut it for dub and reggae quite easily with all the power it has to project the low end properly. The only thing I can imagine it not faring well with is a more hi-fi/modern kind of tones, and all-tube grinding rock tones which I already mentioned. The EQ, 2 tone filters, 2 pre amps and compression are enough to get alot out of it though.

* How many channels? Does it have channel switching? Effects loops? Headphone jack?

Unfortunately I don't think (as far as I know) that tube/SS/blended pre configurations are footswitchable. Although, the compression, pre-shape, and graphic EQ are. The effects loop has 3 settings attenuated, flat and bypassed, I don't use it, and it's pretty cool that you can cut that entire section of the circuit out when it's not being used.

* What features do you wish it had? Why? Are there features you never use?

A tube/SS/blended pre options to be footswitchable. Don't use the compression and will probably never use the bi-amp on the dual poweramps, but neither are thing I really like the sound of too much.

* Where do you use this amp? Does it have enough power for you?

Use it for heavy rock and I've not ran out of power at any gigs yet, come close but I'm only projecting from 1 cab at the moment, not playing anything huge but don't see it running out of enough volume for stage monitoring even with loud drummers and 2 loud distorted guitars. When I've played it through an 8x10 It's not come very close to running out of power though.

* Feel free to enter any other features (stereo, tube or solid state, etc.).

3 modes for the dual power amps; Bridged (1500W @ 4ohms), Dual-mono (2x750W @ 2x4ohms - 1500W @ 2ohms overall), Bi-amped with variable poweramp balance - crossover at 150hz (Same spec as for Dual-mono)

Compression is adjustable and has an adjustable make up gain level, so can be used as a volume boost.

The tube pre has a 2 gain levels - drive and output level, can get some nice clean sounds out of it using a low drive level (have to have some drive to get signal through) and high output level.

The carpet covering is a bit horrible and the knobs are a bit tacky, only 2 cheap thing I've seen from the amp, getting a new case covered in tolex and chrome corners made in the future and gonna find some more study controls to get put on it, it was only ??200 for me which is a bargain so I think it's worth it.

This ones from the BLT era too, so the assembly was done in England, although alot of parts were probably sourced from overseas.

Covered most of this already, the thing has alot of headroom so is very clean and defined (not if you drive the tube section of the pre of course). Can be very tight if you EQ the low end to be, but can also be very boomy and overwhelming if you set it the right way. Flat with most of my basses it favours sounding fairly tight in the first place though.

Don't really like the tube sound to be honest, maybe the tube is broken so that's why it's sounding a bit mushy, will be good for people wanting a nasty overdrive or a full on distortion though. not good for a mild rock grit in my experience, nice warm clean sound from the tube though if you set it up right and don't play too hard. Using the active input helps run the tube section a bit cleaner too.

Not at all noisy though in my experience so far, and the DI is pretty decent quality, although I prefer to be miced up when possible. No fan either so that's good for the more pedantic studio engineer.

Use it with an Ibanez ATK with Bassculture.de replacement pickup and a Fender Bullet, both sound great for it, and I can make it sound awesome for the heavy rock stuff, although I've not really used for anything mellow so far. Sounded great miced up in the studio with my cab and look forward to doing more recording with it.

Started having some problems with the protection circuit shutting down my amp, but I've had a good 2 months without this happening. Bought it second hand so it probably needs a service anyway which I've wanted to get done since I got it but haven't had the money. Only happened last practise, and I didn't switch off the power at the main and back on again before starting up the amp again, so it might well be a non-issue.

Not gonna give it a mark at this point anyway.

Laney have usually been pretty helpful when I've asked questions, although they've changed ownership from BLT to some other company since I've last needed anything, so I'm not gonna give it a mark here either.

Long time Laney user now, really like their distinctive sound, used to have a R4H head and matching 4x10 before buying this head and the a Bergantino NV215 a few months before. This head is pretty much the range up from the BLT era Richter, which was pretty good, but a bit underpowered for my needs, worked well with the matching cab though at the time.

Overall a nice warm defined sounding amp, my only qualms with it are the case and the knobs and that I might need a few more watts perhaps in future, but that might not be the case when I get another extension cab. Can't see myself really needing another amp for a very long time, only reason I'd get another amp would be to have an all-tube amp of some persuasion, or needed something for something a bit more scooped metal sounding like a Trace, although I'm sure this head can get out some good metal tones with the right bass.

I'd be very upset if I lost this amp somehow, as I don't think I'd find another very easily. I'd go out of my way to get another though.

I have owned a Laney B1 bass head for over a year. The head is best suited to dub funk playing. I bought it with the intention of rocking out with it, as it has a blendable tube/ss preamp, but in practice at volume all i found i could achieve was a non-musical clipping sound. The Eq however is very special, with the bass section being crazily low!!

I have used the head with an active Ibanez EDB600 and a Fender '73 Jazz. It sounded better with the active bass, it gave a much fuller sound. The Jazz was a little hollow sounding through it.
I have already said that the amp distorts at louder volumes in an un-musical fashion, but this is where i come to my main problem with it.
The amp has an over sensative protection circuit, which means it cuts out at higher volumes. This has freqently happened on stage and has resulted in me confining the amp to rehearsals only. i now use the best bass amp ever onstage- the Marshall VBA400!
overall thought, good sounds, just unreliable.

I've already voiced my opinion on this! Terrible!

Never spoke to them. my local dealer told me that it was a common problem on earlier models.

I have played for 12 years now, and have owned a variety of basses in that time, but my '73 jazz is still my favourite. The jazz sounds amazing through my new Marshall VBA400 and the matching 4x12 cab. If the laney was lost (which at this moment is a possibility!) i would not buy it again!!