Bass Amps
Bassists had 900 things the be happy
about with Carvin's bass amps in 1988 - specifically, the new PB900
Pro Bass II head with an astounding 900W of power. Also new was
the PB400 and PB200 models, which replaced the PB100 and PB300 of
1987. The Concert Bass Stack was redesigned, and the Pro Bass
115 and Pro Bass 215 both took advantage of the new heads. |

|
 |
At left is Dana Strum, who played with
Vinnie Vincent after his Kiss days. He's shown with a new 1988
LB70, and a pair of new Concert Bass Stacks. |

On the surface, the new Pro
Bass II amps looked almost the same as the previous year. The
immediately noticeable differences were the new logo, and the new enclosure,
which was now covered in Ozite, versus Tolex. However, on the inside,
the power had been increased - in some cases, dramatically. The PB200
was the smallest of the lot, at 200W. Also, the PB200 had only the
parametric EQ, not a graphic EQ. The 400W PB400 had a 5 band graphic EQ,
and produced 400W of power. The top of the line was the PB900, which
produced the most power of any Carvin amp produced to date, at 900W. The
PB200 sold for $369, the PB400 sold for $499, and the PB900 sold for
$699. All three models were also available as rack-mountable units
(below).

 |
The Pro Bass 115 and Pro
Bass 215 were updated for 1988, each using the new PB200
head. The PB115 used a single Carvin 15" speaker enclosure,
and the PB215 used a pair of Carvin 15" speakers.
Electro-Voice speakers were optional. The PB115 sold for $529,
and the PB215 sold for $619. |
 |
The new Concert Bass Amps were
available in with the PB400 or PB900 head, and a 2X12 and 1X18
cabinet. The SB218H used the PB400 head powering Carvin
speakers, and sold for $979. The SS218E used the PB900 head
powering Electro-Voice loaded cabinets. |
|