Aguilar Amplifiers

In an industry that gives so much love to the guitar, it's nice to have a company like Aguilar that is 100% devoted to bass players. Aguilar makes a ton of gear for bassists, which includes amplifiers that many artists would describe as the best in the world. Naturally, it's not much of a surprise that a company run by bassists, for bassists, would be able to create amps deserving of that kind of reputation. Some of Aguilar's most popular amps are also the smallest: onboard preamps. Compact enough to fit into the body cavity of any bass, they're tweaked to maximize headroom while keeping distortion low and accurately reproducing the instrument's complete range. Of all the bass guitars owned by Jennifer Lopez bassist Bryant Siono, two-thirds have Aguilar preamps under the hood, and the only reason the others don't is because they use passive pickups.

Taking a step up in size from their tiny onboard preamps, Aguilar might surprise you with the Tone Hammer bass amp heads. That's because, despite being pretty compact themselves, these amps are way beefier than they look. The 350 puts out 175W into 8 ohms or 350W into 4, while the Tone Hammer 500 takes things a notch higher with 250 8-ohm Watts or 500W at 4 ohms. If that still leaves you wanting more power, then kindly direct your attention to the DB 751, cranking out 400W at 8 ohms, 750W at 4 ohms and a stage-shaking 975W at 2 ohms.

Aguilar also makes a variety of speaker cabinets for the bass, and picking one out is as simple as understanding their naming scheme. There are three cabinet series: DB, GS and SL. The DB cabinets are built for the stage, with a strong midrange to cut through the sound of a band and be heard without losing any of Aguilar's signature sound. GS cabinets are the originals, deep at the low-end with crystal highs. Finally, the lightweight SL is in a class of its own, designed for portability with neodymium drivers. The number in the amp's name is its speaker configuration, giving the number of woofers then their size. And at the end, you'll see "NT" for "no tweeter" if that's the case. From there, it's easy to narrow down what you want. Looking for a lightweight amp with a 12" driver? Try the SL 112. Want a behemoth cabinet for the biggest venues? Consider the DB 810, whose eight 10" drivers can handle as much as 1400W. Planning on adding a 12" woofer to reinforce your low end, no tweeter required? The GS 112NT can deliver.

From onboard preamps to amp heads to cabinets of all sizes, Aguilar has you covered when it comes to bass amplification. With some of this equipment in your toolbox, you'll have the audience rocking from the moment you step onstage and hit that first note until the last sustain of your encore.