Warwick - The Bass Forum - Hellborg Preamp Tour - reviews.

I guess everybody here is familiar with the layout and technical details of the JH-pre, so I´ll cut straight to chase.

Here are the negative things I found out about it:
- It´s not mine.
- To make it mine it will take quite a bit of money or a lot of luck.

But seriously: I played the preamp with my “big rig” – TecAmp Black Jag 700 Classic and TecAmp L810- and the small setup – MarkBass Little Mark II with SAD 1x12”/horn. Basses were F-Bass Studio 5 and AC-5.
I plugged the JH-pre into the poweramp of the Black Jag first and found it very easy to dial in a wide variety of sounds. From dry barking tones with reduced low frequencies it went to full, round yet defined sounds, from mid-cut funkiness to mid-rich fretless mwah – the JH delivered.
Switching back to the Black Jag on its own revealed just how good the JH is. Though the controls are pretty similar, the JH sounded more detailed, more musical and punchier in every setting. In comparison especially some boosts on the Jag sounded overblown and artificial and tended to obscure the natural sound of the bass a bit. Don´t get me wrong, the Black Jag is a fine amp and it sounds great on its own – just not compared to the JH-pre. To be fair it has to be considered that just the JH preamp costs almost as much as the TecAmp head with 700w, so you get what you pay for.

What I particularly dig about the preamp is the possibility to switch the DI-out not only pre and post-EQ, as found on most units, but also post-EQ and pre-FX. That way I can adjust the sound I´d like to pass on to the F.O.H. and then have an external EQ in the loop to adjust that to what the stage requires. Brilliant!

The only real problem I encountered was that I wasn´t always able to tell the setting of the knobs. Though the “halo” looks really classy and does tell you where the knobs are, I frequently couldn´t see immediately if for example the bass was turned up to 3-o ´clock or down to 9-o´clock. Nothing that would keep me from using the preamp, but how about this: If there where a tiny hole drilled all through the knob where the marker is the light would shine through and give you all the orientation you´ll ever need.

All in all it was a great experience using the JH-pre and I consider it to be one the best preamps I´ve ever tried – and I´ve played (and still own) a lot!