Aguilar DB924 Pre-Amp Reviews 4

$80 from Marz, the Muzikians' Planetoid. It was on their clearance table, just a few weeks B4 they put the whole store[s] on clearance tables.

This is an outboard portable, battery powered pre-amp that has better tone [to my taste] than the pre-amp section of my SWR head, or many other "modern" sounding amps that I've tried. All I really need for a simple set-up using this pre-amp, is a "Power Amp In" jack or just a power amp.

You have to unscrew [and not lose] four screws to replace the batteries [2x9v], and there is no jack for a DC converter to power it from an AC line. Since it's battery-power-only, it would have been great to have a belt clip, or other means to maximize it's portability and convenience. You don't want to tape it onto your strap: it's a metal box and twice the size of an outboard Fishman.

Very solid box containing a small circuit and two 9v batteries. Has 1/4" in and out jacks, and 3 knobs for volume-bass-treble. The input jack is the power switch, which is typical of such devices. It's a very quiet circuit, offering clean gain equal to about a 1/2 turn on the gain knob of your typical combo or head.

It's not just gain. It has a modest but pleasant [to me] coloration effect even with the controls flat. Twisting the knobs, effect is similar to most active EQs built into basses [except there are only two tone knobs, no mid control]. I don't use it with active EQ basses, but you can [although I don't know what for]. If you use one of those sound-hole PUs for an acoustic, or are electrifying an URB, you want one of these. Im rating it a 4. It's a 5 based on its performance and quality of build, but in convenience features it's lacking.

Golem rated this unit 4 on 2004-09-16.

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