Gallien-Krueger bass amps

SO I found a great deal on a GK MB210-II T Ultralight amp on Reverb, 500 watts of digital power and a 2x10 cab. I'm a fan of the GK sound but if anyone knows what I should look out for or what kinds of sounds it does best, please let me know.

is it lass D? class D is not digital... its just a different way of doing analog.... its based on pulse width modualtion, look it up

'Tis not. It is a digital amp.

how the hell does that work?

...Not sure. I did some digging and that is all I could find. Solid state digital power amp.

that doesn't actually make any sense to me

GK doesn't seem to refer to it as a digital power amp... it has a very mdoern pwoer supply which is a digitally controlled thing that usually gets paired with Class D, but could easily be used with traditional solid state Class AB... its very light though so I suspect it could be class D. The D doesn't stand for digital, its just that class A, B and C were taken when D was invented (there's letters to describe amplification circuits going out to like 'J' I think, but manya ren't for audio amplification like class C and class D wasn't invented for audio and no one applied it to audio until very recently ebcause the power supply technologyw asn't up to snuff for audio range amplification)... I really like class D for hifi purposes, a well designed class D amp is light, loud and very accurate. For isntrument purposes it elans heavily on the preamp because its so uncolored sound wise. The preamp needs to get all the toen shaping right or you might not like your sound. it defintiely excels at bass which sounds rpetty good with minimal coloration versus guitar which kidna wants a little soemthin' somethin'

on GK, I've never delat with a DK product built in the 21st century that didnt break. Typically the power supplies go. They're cramped and a total pain to repair.... I wouldn't buy a used one unless it had a transferrable lifetime warranty. They do sound good for solid state.

This one is mint, barely played. What happens when the power supply goes? How long do they last? And if I pay someone else to fix it, will it be okay afterward?

no one will want to fix it, its a pain... if the warranty is up you'e done, if not, seend it abck and they'll reinstall a fresh PCB and toss the old one and send it abck.... my esperience with GK amps was they last 1 to 4 years, no telling when they go. its almost always the power supply baord that fries. That's just my experience with the more recent GK stuff. it sounds really good while it works and tis super versatile, but its not terribly durable. That said, I have no experience with the amp in question. The older GK stuff though? bulletproof. They go back to the 80s and its not uncommon to see their 80s and early 90s gear still running without ever being serviced.

Huh. To be honest, I'm pretty willing to fix it should it break, even if its a pain, but if you really advise against, I won't jump on it.

go look at the power supply board photo on the Gallien and Kruger website (there's a picture) and tell me you would 1 know how to fix it and 2 be able to fit your soldering iron in there! This shit is cramped! Its like a alptop int ehre, not an amp LOL I have a sneaking suspicion lke msot people who aheven't doen a lot fo teach work you don't have a firm idea how difficult it is.... and ocne you have to pay someone its probably cheaper to buy a new amp. Find out if the warranty is transferrable though. if it is, you're golden. if she takes a dump, mail her to GK and let them handle it. Its worth teching a '62 ac30 or a '68 plexi. Even if you pay someone to do the work just a handful of parts from that amp are worth more than you'll spend on bench time. Many old tube amps are also very easy to service having been thought out from that angle (there are exceptions like 50s and 60s supros and cheapies like that, but mainly? easy stuff). PCB is generally harder for humans to work on because tis designed to be worked on by machines. You are not going tow ork on a consumer grade PCB that's more cluttered then a Boss pedal as an amateur electronics guy without burning soemthign else ont ehbboard out. The soldering isn't even done the same way at the factory as you will be doing it, look it up. Anyway, there's a diminishing returns thing here. you don't buy an amp like a modern, entry level GK and then maintain it. Its the disposable smart phone of the amp world. not that tis bad, just that its impractical to service and that something better is always comng along from the same manufacturer.... well, somethign newer anyway.

and as for sound, all the GKs I've played are really variable.... they're never going to do an SVT or something like that but they do solid, clear sounds from rock to funk once you learn to dial them in. A bit of everything pretty well... in soldis tate Ierpsonally prefer Ashdown and Markbass, but that's me. What was the asking price for this thing again?

one of the secrets of building up an amazing gear arsenal is being wise with the little funds you have.... that means not investing ins tuff that is more likely to cost you money then to make you money tog et closer to having the gear you really wanna get... there's interim gear, there's the tone quest, but getting sidetracked from the ultimate goal of having sweet ass shit is a pitfall and you can be sidetracked by costly repairs on budget gear or by purchasing stuff that keeps on working but depreciates in resale year after year... you can get it fucked up and the gear colleciton will not feed and grow itself with minimal financial input. Step 1 is DO NOT buy gear just to buy a new piece of gear. Its like ebign a car guy who ahs an old Honda that gets him to work but wants a vintage GTO. You see a good price on a Toyota that's a lot like your Honda. Do you need another car with abd resale to get you to work? The Honda is still running. Shouldn't you bank that loot and keep saving for that first GTO? Maybe when you get the GTO later you don't like it so much and you sell it and sue the funds to buy a vintage Mustang or a couple of Pontiacs, so what? That's the quest, figuring out whats for you and getting it. The Hondas just take you to work, don't overinvest in them, do whatever's cheapest to get to work be it fixing that car or trading it in, but break even as well as you can and keep questing.

this is my Thursday morning gear wisdom

Got it. I poked around Reddit too for opinions and people have said that this amp isn't too bad in terms of breaking. I think (since this is absolutely a disposable smartphone purchase) that I might go for it, though for a similar price I could have an Ashdown. It's less watts though, and as this is my first gigging amp in a band with some larger rigs, I think I need more power.

EDIT: According to four different GK owners, their newer amps have stepped up in QC and are actually pretty reliable. One guy has had his for 8 years with no issues, and another said that he had his for 4 years and the pots just started going bad.

personally I don't go by reddit because its hearsay, I go by what I've seen, that said, the last broken GK I dealt with was a good 5 years ago (dead power supply on a 1 or 2 year old amp)... I've used a lot of ashdown bass amps and owned a MAG 300. They are loud as fuck watt for watt. I have enver had one rbeak or even seen a broken one.

good rule of thumb, for small venues for a good clean bass tone you will want at least double the wattage of the lead guitarist assuming that guitar amp is running close to tis wattage rating (as in, wide open or close to it). If he's more at half-mast double the wattage willd definteily do it, maybe less. You also want to move more voerall air then the guitarist if you're not sure every gig will supply PA reinforcement for the bass. So a 4x10 against a 1 or 2 speaker guitar rig is good... a 1x15 or 18 is good against 1x12s but maybe won't cut it against 2 speaker rigs. Against half stacks you will wnat a super efficient 4x10 at the elast and even then some PA reinforcement will help you project to compete with those 4x12 sound cannons. Usually against 2 hgalf stacks in a weak PA situation I think a good balance is best achieved by a SVT cab or a 2x15 or maybe combiantion of a 2x10 and 1x18 stacked up.

My guitarist has a 200w Marshall head into a sweet 2x12 Fender cab. The GK I'm looking at has 2x10 and 500w, so I think I'm good on power with the GK. I have a buddy with a GK 1x12 combo and it was pretty good sounding. Lasted him seven years or so before he sold it for some money, but I never saw it break.

200 watts? what the hell? a marshall major? or is it some solid state thing? marshall really overrates their solid state amps whereas they underrate their tube amps. take a look at how loud he's setting it.... you may not need 500 watts if he's not running it loud. But, if he ahs 2x12s you need to move more air than 2x12s will if you want to projec tinto teh audience when there's no PA reinforcement. the goal is to spread your sound out to everyone and wattage alone is not going to ensure that.

some solid state abomination, he seems to like it but only hwne hes running it clean with a sweet distortion or fuzz in frontt. He sets it around full, as is our custom.

there;s now ay its 200 watts,,, wait, is it their stereo chorus amp?

I think. That sounds right to me... Looked it up, and yeah, that's it.

I doubt she produces 200 watts all the way up, think more like 120 or so ... they just ahd to goose their stereo amp's figures because the father of loud needed to make sure everyone knew his company's solid state chorus amp was louder then a roland LOL... and its not like the JC120 produces a proper 60 watts a side asyou and I duenrstand wattage from a guitarist perspective. Also, the drivers in teh valvestate cabs are really inefficient low end speakers so he's not dissapating that wattage effectively unless he's using another cab or put some better drivers in there. 500 watts is more then enough power for you! that would be enough solid state power to keep up with 2 cranked non-master marshall superleads in a 4 peice band assuming you had as many speakers or more as both guitarists put together you would be solid

Nice. I do have another guitarist who has an all-Katana rig, though, and he usually doesn't mic his amp because between the head and the cab he has 350watts. The other guy who bought all his gear used and doesn't know or care about it mics his amp up because he can never compete against the other guy.