Behringer A500 Power Amplifier

500 watt solid-state power amp made in 2006. It has a toroidal transformer, heat-sink and convection cooling and stays very cool during typical operation. Rack-mountable with rubber feet, usable if you just want to place it on top of your cab.

I mainly use it as the power amp section after just before the end of my signal chain (typically right before a 4x12 cab) and my Boss GT-8 processor. Not surprisingly, has a fabulous and punchy clean sound with a low noise-floor. Combined with the right pre-amp, it has virtually infinite flexibility to play all musical styles if properly coupled with the right cabinet (and the power level is monitored or limited so the 500 Watts don't blow out your speakers). Also usable with lower-watt boutique amps to boost the signal to drive (very loudly) one or more large cabs, if desired, with minimal tone coloration.

I mainly use it for 70s and 80s classic and hard-rock tones, and a little for those classic blues tones. However, because of the minimal coloration, a rectifier or high-gain setting easily yields the chunky and tight bottom end required for modern metal -- again, subject to the speakers you have in your cab (I use principally Celestion 75s -- metal players may prefer the Vintage 30s).

It has two channels for stereo operation at 250 Watts each (4 ohms), or can be used bridged at 500 Watts (8 ohms). Since it is a power amp only, it has no channel switching, effects loop, or headphone jack -- those would all be done through a pre-amp or by using pedals. Don't really need any of that in my rig, since the Boss does all that for me.

It has all the features I need in the current rig. However, it would be nice to be able to switch from Bridged to Stereo configuration without powering down the amp. It has more than enough power to drive 4 4x12s in stereo and series-parallel operation if desired (within the limitations of Ohms Law). I currently dedicate only one cab to it (at 8 ohms), so it has power to spare for me.

It would also be nice flexibility if it were operable at more than only 8 and 4 ohms, for mono-bridged and stereo, respectively.

Nicely visible LED sound level meter runs from -30 dB to power-amp clipping levels -- which means, of course, that the only clipping you should hear is coming from your modeller or other pre-amp: with solid-state, power-amp clipping will fry your speakers.

The minimal coloration means that you're only limited by the tones and quality of your pre-amp, pedals, or whatever comes before it in the signal chain. The cleans do not distort until clipping, and, for the reasons discussed earlier regarding solid state power-amp clipping, that never happens, which means there is enormous headroom (with my cab and with a clean setting on a pre-amp, I can stay clean well into the 120 dB range in bridged mode). Distortion is determined by the quality of the modelling, pedals, or pre-amps. I use the amp with everything from Strats to PAF-style pickups on Les Pauls, to hot PAFs, to the 7-string DiMarzio Blazes on a baritone length guitar. It is very flexible. Noise-floors are largely dependent on your knowledge of gain structure, however. When it is fully cranked, you will hear hiss, but with a little tweaking and with sufficient knowledge of how to optimize gain in your signal chain, you'd be surprised at how brutally loud you can get while eliminating any discernible hiss.

So far so good. With no tubes, I have to infer it's much more reliable without a backup than a tube power-amp. Never broken down, but it's only a few months old so far. Since it's so inexpensive, I wouldn't gig without a backup since the backup is so cheap to implement.

No basis for an opinion.

Been playing for 3 years now. I own 5 guitars of different stripes as mentioned above. The guitars are customized to differing degrees. Have four other amps, from 1 to 120 watts, several boutique pedals, including boosts, overdrives, distortion, wah, EQ, and volume. I also use a DI.

If it were stolen or lost, I'd buy a new one the next day, even though I might ultimately look for an upgraded power amp from Crown or Carvin to get more flexibility on ohm settings and power output. I love it's simplicity and ease with which I integrated it into my rig.

The only thing I hate about it is the knowledge that I should give it it's proper place in a rack instead of on top of my cab, LOL... Seriously, if there is any downside it is that you will need to learn about gain structure to optimize headroom and minimize noise, but that's not a bad thing to understand and noise only happens because at 500 watts, this sucker puts out a lot of sound to begin with.

I compared it to similar power amps by Crown, Nady, and Carvin. It was inexpensive and quiet: the Nady especially was fan-cooled and noisy (though I heard there was a tweak for that...but why take the trouble at a similar price point). It has more than enough power for my current purposes. I can run it simultaneous with my 120 watt head to blend the sounds of the modeller and the tube head, which gives me the ability to blend at least 3 different sounds (in stereo) for one big sound. It's a good deal and works very well for me.