Yamaha BBT-500H Head

This is a follow-up to a review I posted over a year ago.

I'm using the 500H with either one or two of the Yamaha 210 cabs.
I have used it on many gigs and I am giving it a big thumbs up.
It is a Swiss Army Knife Amp.
It does many things very well.

On some very loud gigs, I wish it had a little more headroom.
Another 200 watts or so would make this a 10.

Usually it is enough juice, and I like the way the punch matches the drummer's kick.

I'm using it with several basses and sometimes nylon string electric guitar.
With tweaking, it sounds beautiful with all of these axes.
There is so much depth to the tweaking, that you really need to learn the features.
It is not noisy, but if you have a noisy source, it will let you know.

I have used this thing on countless gigs and it has always worked great.

I'm a long time player and I'm really happy with this head.
I'd buy it again.

If you are really needing heavy slam, get something more powerful.

For normal gigs, this thing works great.

Features have been well documented so no need to comment on that.

I use this at church with the worship team and with friends in a jam band setting.

Using a Peavey Cirrus 5 string. Using this with 2 x 2x10 Yamaha matching cabs. Tons of volume and punch. You've probably read about the "hiss" and it is easily worked with. This amp is very very versatile. I love the ability to switch settings with the presets. Going to a deep bass with Modern setting to punchy with the Tube setting allows me to quickly customize sound for the song. I don;t use the distortion settings so no comment there.

This does everything I need it to do and then some.

No concerns whatsoever about durability of this product. Happy to have gotten one before the supply was exhausted since it is now discontinued.

no comment here

Been playing for 25+ years. Own lots of gear, Taylor acoustic electric, Larrivee acoustic electric, Godin Artisan signature, Fender Prosonic, tons of effects, Peavey Cirrus, Fender Precision lawsuit copy from 70's, piano etc... the list goes on.

I would definitely replace it in a heart beat. I tried lots of combos, heads and cabs and this one was the best bang for the $. Hands down.

Got this amp about 4 months ago at a great price of $349.00 including shipping from Musician's Friend. It has a ton of features that are fun to play with but I personally don't use most of them. I currently play mostly 60's and 70's rock in nightclubs just for fun. I have been playing for 40 years (since I was twelve) so NOW, the weight of this amp was one of the features that my old back was looking for. In the past I have owned just about every bass amp imaginable. Sunn 2000s, Sunn Concerts and Coliseums, Kustom K-200's,Gallien Kreuger 800RB's, Acoustic 360's,371's and 471's,Fender 400PS, 300PS,Bassmans and Dual Showmans,Ampeg V4B's, B15N's and more than 6 Vintage SVT's (the heads weigh almost 100 lbs alone!) When I was playing professionally in an original rock band in the 80's I always used two complete Ampeg SVTs which I still consider to be the best bass amp bar none. I've had alot of experience with Hartke's, and SWRs but don't like either one of them. They break down alot and sound bad-artificial- to me). So I guess you could say that I actually prefer the punch powerful tube amps. After trying out this Yamaha, my first impression was "It'll do for now".

The Yamaha's sound quality is actually pretty good (surprisingly!) I would have never thought that I would say that about a modern solid state amp, let alone a digital one. Older solid state amps like my 1967 Vox Westminster and 1969 Kustom K-200 sound as good or better, but don't have quite as much power and weigh alot more for taking to and from gigs. I use the BBT500 with two Hartke 210TP cabinets, but I swapped out the Hartke speakers with some Eminence aluminum-coned Neodymn 10's that are 8 ohms and rated at 150 watts ea. This make each of my two Hartke cabs rated at 300 watts RMS at 4 ohms, giving me the much needed 600 watts RMS, 2 ohm load for the Yamaha. I usually use the Heavy Classic setting and tweak the parametric and standard eq to simulate an SVT, of which is does an okay job. It just doesn't have as much power or punch, but is still respectable. The compressor is always defeated since I think this amp sounds a bit too compressed as it is. I have 14 basses, ranging from 7 vintage Fenders, a Ricky 4001, two Hofners, an Alembic Series One, a Gibson EB0 and EB3 and a Vox Cougar. I mostly just use my old original '62 Precision though. The amp seems to have plenty of power and plays fairly cleanly at high levels. From funk to Jazz to hard rock and ballads, It seems to cover all of these genres well.

So far (knock on wood) there haven't been any problems, and I have run it as long as 7 hours at a time at fairly loud levels. I always take a backup, no matter what amp I'm using, which seems to guarantee that it won't be needed.

Haven't had to deal with this yet.

I think that I've covered this in the previous sections. If there were something that I didn't like about it, it would be that it lacks the smoothness in frequency response and punch of a good basic tube amp, but all in all, it's a great portable amp for the money ($350.00!)And it weighs almost nothing!

already described by other reviewers

Easy to use: if you want to use it like a normal amp, go ahead. If you want to dig deeper, go ahead.

I like the build-in compressor.

I checked the amp with my Lefay Herr Schwarz, a Yamaha BB Std. and a Yamaha BB5000. Used in a jazzy setting with a 1x10" Yamaha cabinet and in a very loud punkrockband where I only used the preamp section.

First you notice, that all sound setting are a bit compressed. This is typical to modelling amps. The build-in compressor works very good and good slap sounds are easy to achieve.

There is a noticeable hiss, when using tweeter equipped cabinets.

Several sound presets offer a very disturbing noise at 3000 Hz or more. This noise depends on treble boost, use of cabinets with tweeter and the impedance of the input load. With passiv basses it is there, with active basses, a CD player or a buffer preamp between bass and amp, it vanishes. The noise is present at the line out, which is a really knock out criterium.

I gave the BBT back.

I won't let it fall down, because it is build very cheap.

n.a.

The sounds are interesting, it seems to be very versatile.

The compressor works good.

There is too much noise, I won't use it on stage.

Bought it March 2006, 5 months ago (a few weeks before the price went down ! Aaarrgh...).

I play many styles inside cover bands (rock, funk,country, etc.). I bought it because it's versatile. In fact, I just use 3 or 4 of the 11 amp types: Classic, Modern, Tube and Solid.

There's an accurate parametric equalizer, an efficient compressor which can be set from subtle to hard) and an effect loop (but I don't use any effect). There's also a very usefull speaker simulator and 5 user's memories I love.

It's so cheap, light and small you can carry it in a laptop rucksack.

I use it with two 4x10 Yamaha cabinets and a Variax bass.

I admit, I took a long time to find the sounds I need (it's not plug&play for me). The head has 5 factory presets but I erased them to store mine. And that's one of the best things with the BBT500: once you've got the right sound, just press a button and bim! stored! Plus, if 5 memories aren't enough, you can use the Midi connection and store your parameters into your computer (almost limitless).

To give substance to the sound -even with 8x10"- I must switch on the cabinet simulator.

There's an evident hiss that you can stop by cutting the tweeter (on the Yamaha's cabinets).

A bit more than 20 years ago, many of my friends refused to buy Compact Disc: "too many very high and very low frequencies (inaudible to human ears) are missing!", they said.
Today, most of them have a huge CD collection; and they appreciate that it's more durable than vinyl records or cassettes, very easy to manipulate, store and carry.
Many musicians hate "digital". Artificial and cold, they say. For my part, I don't see any dramatic difference compared to tube or transistor amps. With this full digital head and the two cabinets, I get a rich powerfull and indisputable great sound.

The head is noiseless and doesn't become hot.

I'm ready to concede that isolated, in an acoustic room, you could notice a difference but I don't believe this can be true when mixed with other instruments.
I'm ready to concede that it's a great feeling to play a vintage bass plugged into an Ampeg or Eden set, it looks and feels better but I don't believe these reasons are enough to spend so much money.

After two months one led (a memory led) stopped to work, but the memory still works. It's annoying but not too bad. I first got upset but, in fact, I can live with a non-working led. No amplifier is above breaking down.

The knobs look cheap and unreliable.
I have the feeling this head isn't durable but I hope I'm misled by its weight and its cheap knobs.

I always prefer to gig with a backup. It has nothing to do with the equipment. In fact, I plan to buy the same head as a backup as it is so cheap now (366? !).

I have never dealt with the Yamaha's customer support.

I've been playing for 25 years, using many basses: Aria, Yamaha, Fender, Musicman and mainly a Variax at the moment.

If it were stolen or lost I would buy it again and cheaper (the price went down).
I love the sound(s), the 5 memories, the measurements, and the compressor.
The knobs and the undurable feeling.
I tried many equipements before to choose it: Eden Nemesis combo, Markbass, Ashdown, Hartke. They all sounded great (except the Hartke and the Markbass) but they were to expensive. I'm not playing with world famous stars, I have a family, I don't aim to become a star since I turned 35, so why should I pay so much to hear my bass?

I don't like the fact that you take time to set the sound but I guess this is in compensation for versatility.

Mostly covered already...

I use it with 2 ofthe matching 210 cabs.

The speaker simulation be switched to just go to the line out, which is quite useful. I've used it live and for recording with the line out.

Wattage is quite low at 4ohms, you have to use 2 4ohm cabs to get all the power, so that limits your choices quite a bit. If this had 500w at 4ohms, it'd be a 10.

I use it mainly with passive Fenders. Live, I use it for an indie rock band that I'm in, but I use it for my own side-project stuff as well. The EQ and compression make it really versatile. I also like that you can blend the FX loop in with the clean signal. Live, it sounds great, and it's got loads of power. I use it with one of the matching 2x10 cabs in a rock band with a loud drummer and a 2x12 valve guitar amp, and it sounds great.

Now, for the downside. It's a class D power amp, so it's quite noisy at high frequencies. It goes away if you roll back the tone on your bass, or if you turn down the treble onthe amp. It would only really be a problem if you were playing something treble-heavy, like punk. I've only noticed the hum using speakers with tweeters, tweeterless ones sound fine.

Line out sounds great(no hum, it comes from the poweramp). It's a pity about the HF hum out of the speaker, because otherwise this would be the perfect recording amp. As it is, though, it's still very good.

Once stopped working after a rehearsal session. Just wouldn't switch on. I had been running it flat-out for 4 hours solid though, and it works fine now.

These are being taken off the market soon, so lots of shops are selling them off for really cheap(and the cabs as well). At the price you can get them from thomann, they're a complete bargain, and I'd highly recommend them to anyone.

Made in 2006, digital preamp and digital poweramp.

Parametric Equalizer, 5 Band EQ, Compressor, effects loop.

Has 11 different sound types (Flat, Tube, Solid, R&B, Vintage, Modern, Classic, Heavy, Drive, Distortion, Fuzz)

500W at 2Ohms, MIDI-switchable (5 User presets), noiseless fan (in case it gets too warm), line-out (XLR and 6.35mm)

Very light, weighs something like 6 pounds or so, much lighter than any amp I ever owned (except the Marshall MS-2)

I used it with a passive Yamaha BB-300, sounded great. All the different sound styles really sounded different and makes playing a lot more versatile than with a simple one channel amp.

BUT...the best thing...

I'm using this amp with a Cheri Telecaster and an ESP-LTD VB400 Baritone Guitar. I play mainly country, blues and metal over this amp. And believe it or not, it sound awesome. The bridge pickup of the telecaster with the "Drive" style of the amp is probably one of the best crunch guitar sounds I've ever heard. The baritone sounds boneshaking over the distortion channel. Great thing about this amp is the "low-mid" poti. It allows you to dial in that special "makes-your-belly-hum" punch. Especially for metal rhythmn guitar this is great.

Amp is absolutely noiseless, no hiss,no hum, no buzz.

Got it for 3 months now, played 10 gigs, rehearsed a lot. Works fine all the time, would gig without backup.

Haven't had to deal with Yamaha with this amp. But when my DG Stomp broke down, they were quite helpful and replaced the unit within 12 days. Warranty is 24 months (might depend on the country you bought this amp)

I'd buy it again, even considered buying a second just to have one extra in case something happens to mine. If it was stolen I'd buy another one, thanks to the midi dump feature you can always make a backup of your settings....so I'd have enough time to chase the thief....

This one contains a LOT of features: 11 basic sounds (incl. 4 drive/fuzz sounds), possibility to store five different sound settings, a five-band semiparametric eq, a one-band fully parametric eq, a compressor/limiter/gate with possibility to set all necessary parameters, low-pass/high-pass filters if used in a bi-amp system, pre/post/bypass line out/DI out, speaker simulator, fx loop (with possibility to mix the dry/wet signals), etc etc etc...

So... everything you would possibly need except effects is there, which makes it very versatile. On the other hand, it is rather difficult to use if you start to mixture with the eq's and compressor. It's easy to use these functions but it's also easy to "get lost" in the various sounds this amp can produce. Actually, I would have preferred an amp with a little bit less possibilities to make it easier to use. This one was just so much cheaper than the other more simple amps I was interested in, so I thought it would be a good second choice, at least when virtually all reviews (not only here) says the sound is excellent. For only 900 euros I got this head, a 4x10" and a 2x10" cabinet (I bought two cabinets (both leightweight Yamaha BBT series) to get a versatile system and to be able to use all 500 watts this can produce).

Weighing only 5? kg, this head is also very portable. :-)

I give it a 9 because there is simply too many features in this head. That makes it rather hard to use. However, you don't need to use all features included... ;-)

I use a passive, unmodified Warwick Corvette Standard 4-string bass with this amp. The different sounds work mostly really well, but I think I'll use the "modern" and "tube" sounds the most. Some of the other sounds are really good too, including most of the drive sounds, but for my music styles (rock, pop, soul, funk, reggae, jazz etc..) these two sounds fits my playing the best I think. Thanks to the eq, it's possible to make very different sounds with the same "base" sound (like "tube").

The sound is quite noisy when using the tweeters in the cabinets (i.e. high frequencies over 3000Hz are a bit noisy), so the noise gate might be useful when not playing but I think it mutes the signal too early even at the lowest treshold settings. Or maybe I have set the input level too low to avoid ugly clipping sounds. The cabinets sound quite bad if the tweeters are off so you have to have them on at least a little if you like high frequencies.

I recommend to set the input volume, gain and master volumes as high as possible, because if you set these too low you won't be able to turn the main volume up high enough. But it's better to be a bit careful with the input volume, it might start to distort too early if set too high, especially if you afterwards boost the bass without lowering the master volume on the same time. It's important to know how the four different volume knobs work. It's easy to get along with these as long you understand the input and the output volumes aren't saved in the memory places and the sum of the gain and master knob values should be less or equal to 10.

Too new to say... I have to use it without backups, but in case it would break on a gig, it's almost always possible to connect the bass straight to the PA (or is this called a backup?). By the way... who carries an extra bass rig to the gigs just in case the other one brakes?? I mean except the professionals who don't have to carry their own equipment...

Seems to be quite poor.. sent an e-mail a while ago but haven't heard anything from them yet. Even on the yamaha websites, it's really hard to find any useful information on this amp except from the most basic features. Don't they want to market their products???

Great amp, but as said it's easy to get lost when experimenting with the different sound possibilities.. I don't know if I would buy it again if it were stolen. It depends on if I could afford a >1000 ? excellent-sounding and easy-to-use head, I would probably buy that instead. I generally play with only one sound anyway. This amp sounds very similar to way more expensive amps.

For people who likes to experiment with different sounds, or in general wants a great-sounding, versatile amp for little money, I warmly recommend this one. If you are "mentally allergic" to compressors, parametric eq's etc, there are other alternatives, but not for the same price if you want a sound of the same quality as this amp provides.

The features have already been described.
It is a pretty amazing little amp.
I just got it and have used it on a couple of gigs.
It feels good when I play through it.
So far it has plenty of power for my needs.
I'm not getting the weird sounds the previous reviewer was talking about.
It comes with clamp on filters that might be the cure for his problem.

I'm using it for jazz and funk.
Fretless and slapping sound very good.
The EQ is very versatile, the compressor is excellent.
It is a bit hissy, but in a normal live enviornment, I don't hear the hiss.

I can only guess about the reliability.
The knobs seem pretty cheesy.
I hope it will be a workhorse.
I like the light weight.

So far this thing is a keeper.
I have a couple of loud gigs coming up and that will be the test for me.
If it can hang in when things are pumping, I'll be very happy.

Features are already written...Though I have to admit it's very chinese, cheap looking knobs (and not just looking).

I've used it mainly with jazz basses, and several bass cabs (800 watt marshall4x10, peavey 4x10, cheap 1x12, its own 2x10, and 4x10 yamaha cabs...). It's a really great sounding amp, actually I've never heard one amp sounding so great...But then one problem appeared, at high volumes the tweeters started to distort, peak in an ugly way. It took a time we found out the problem is not with the speakers, but with the amp itself. Taken measurments, and found out, the amp distorts all the time at a very high frequency, which becomes audible on high volumes as well. I took it back to the shop, where they found, that ALL the amps has the same problem. The digital poweramp is not shielded properly...

Well it works, but how? I don't know how these amps passed the quality check...

I haven't dealed with them, I let the music shop do it.

I think this could be one of the best (if not the best) amps all around, but I just can't trust in them this way. It really sounds monster, and even feels good, punchy, not dead like line6, or the roland digital stuff. I don't know if others have experienced this problem...
Maybe yamaha should relelase its preamp alone as well-the poweramp problem would be solved.:)