The Ashton BA400 & BE115 have been reviewed by Music Mart:
Every bassist who has ever lugged an
enormous bass head or combo upstairs to
some sweaty rehearsal room, dreams of
a lightweight amp that is still capable of
delivering the necessary low-end response.
Ashton claim to have invented just this
— a professional rig with a quality sound,
offering seven-band graphic EQ, compressor
and active tone shaping controls, all for the
very tempting price of £199.
The BA400 is a conventional-looking bass
amp head with a metallic blue-finish control
panel and an overall sturdy-looking design.
There are two quarter-inch jack inputs,
one for passive and one for active basses,
accompanied by neighbouring Gain, Shape
(preset EQ), and Master controls. There’s
a built-in compressor that you can toggle on or
off, with its own Soft/Hard compression ratio
control, and a seven-band graphic equalizer
with a bypass button enabling you to A/B the
EQed and bypassed sounds. Outputs include
parallel speaker outputs, an XLR line output
for direct connection to most PA systems or for
recording, and a headphone jack.
If two speaker enclosures are used (such as
Ashton’s own BE115 or BQ410) they must be
rated at a minimum 8 Ohms each, producing
a combined impedance of 4 Ohms — like all
solid-state amps the BA400 will only produce
its full rated output into 4 Ohms. As always,
it’s also important to use proper speaker
cables — don’t be tempted to use screened
instrument cables or you risk seriously
damaging the amp’s output stage. Probably
the first thing you notice about Ashton’s BE115
bass cab (recommended for use with the
BA400) is the weight! As a female bassist, this
was something I struggled with during the
review and I think some sort of wheeled trolley
is essential if you’re planning on moving this
cabinet any distance at all. An extra carry strap
on the BA400’s right side, in addition to the
one on the left, with some wheels or casters
for the BE115 would be excellent features to
make both units a little more portable.
Fat, resonant and punchy
The combination of BA400 and BE115 yields
all the natural tonal characteristics of your
bass without excessively colouring the tone,
but it does add a truly surprising amount of
depth at the extreme low end, sounding fat,
resonant and punchy with a very fast attack.
Switching the compressor on, and turning
the Ratio control towards Soft means you
lose a little volume, but the sharpness of the
attack and decay is smoothed out giving
an ultra-silky smooth bass that’s great for
slower numbers and works well with a passive
fretless bass. The Soft setting also brings out
more of the mids, providing a mellow tone
with plenty of warmth. Turning the dial in the
opposite direction gives you a no-nonsense, crisp, punchy bass with
less sustain.
This seems to add a little more edginess
to the bass tone and brings the low
end, with more separation between the
fundamental note and its overtones.
The Shape overall EQ control is
a useful feature, again giving you some
useful overall control over your tone
before you begin resorting to the graphic
or external processing. Turning the Shape
control down low, all the way to the left,
gives a full, fat sound with lots of warmth
and depth and the inherent character
of the bass. Turning the control in the
opposite direction has a similar effect to
the compression control although here
you lose some of the overtones, with more
emphasis on the fundamental frequency,
with an emphasised attack.
Versatile performer
Despite the excellent low-end tone offered
by the combination of Ashton’s BA400
and BE115, it’s impossible not to get the
impression that this is an amp intended
almost solely for live performance, as the
continuous and rather loud noise of the BA400’s built-in fan
makes it difficult to mic up the
cabinet for recording unless you have an
extra-long speaker cable that would get the
BA400 out of range of the mic. Switching to
the XLR DI output is the logical alternative to
capture the BA400’s bass tone, but a DI box
with an earth (ground) lift switch is pretty
much essential as there is no earth-lift switch
on amp itself.
The BA400 bass head used in conjunction
with the BE115 cabinet does provide a highquality,
versatile live bass guitar sound.
Certainly, too, the Ashton BA400 offers more sophisticated tonal
control
than many of its rivals — for example,
Ashdown’s similarly fan-cooled ABM 300W
115 — and at a highly competitive price.
Admittedly, the fan is a little noisy, which
isn’t ideal if you prefer recording using a mic,
or play in small, quiet venues, but overall it’s
a good package. It’s just a shame that Ashton
couldn’t lighten the load a little by making the
BA400 or its speaker companion, the BE115,
just a little bit more portable.