Bass Gear Review

Reviewer	Chris Stone
Experience	20
Email	chris.stone@readersdigest.co.uk
Review date	January 09 2004
Manufacturer	Acoustic Image
Model	Clarus 1A
Price	Ł450 used
Item owned for	1-6 months

Dimensions	8 x 6 x 2 inches
Weight	5 lbs
Power	200W/4ohms, 300W/2ohms
EQ	4 band - bass, mid, treble, presence - cut and boost on each with centre
	detents
Other	High and low gain inputs; switchable high and low impedance on high-ga
	in input; effects loop send and return; XLR DI output; two Neutrik Speakon spe
	aker connectors; US/European voltage selector; power-on indicator light; IEC m
	ains receptacle

This amp is quite a remarkable piece of kit. I'd been looking for a while for an amp that's small, light, and easily portable, yet is good quality, well-made, powerful and produces a good sound. This amp meets all those criteria. It's a "class D" digital switching amp, but despite being digital it has a slightly warm and punchy sound. The EQ is subtle and more suited to tweaking the tone rather than changing the sound of the bass, so you need to use it with a bass that can sound good with EQ set flat. This is an older model; the more recent ones have a ground lift on the XLR and a notch filter. Comes complete with a padded gig bag that looks like a small laptop case, and a speakon to jack speaker lead. Apparently the momentary short that occurs when plugging a jack plug into a speaker can damage the amp, so you have to be careful, but Acoustic Image recommend the use of speakon connectors only to avoid this risk. This is the only drawback with this amp, but if you use speakons there's no need to worry. I've used it with a Warwick Corvette and a Hohner B2A, through various cabs - Eden 115, Eden 210XLT, Ampeg Portabass 112H, and Eden CXM112 - all sound good with this amp. It can produce enough volume to easily fill a large auditorium. You can't completely kill the sound - even with both volume knobs turned fully down, some sound still comes through, and there's no mute switch. They're not cheap, and seem to be difficult to come by secondhand in the UK but I managed to find this one at The Bass Gallery in London, who were very helpful. It reproduces the sound of the bass very accurately, and sounds great linked up to a SansAmp bass driver. I'd recommend this to anyone looking for a good lightweight amp; just be sure to switch it off before connecting or disconnecting the speaker. Unbelievably easy to carry around.

Construction	100%
(Robust casing, very small and light, looks very solidly put together)
Clarity	100%
(Almost too good; you have to watch your technique!)
Versatility	90%
(This is a minimalist amp and doesn't provide much tone shaping, but it does w
hat it does - amplifies the sound of your bass - extremely well)
Volume	100%