2024 Benson B700 Bass Head

From Benson:

In 2019, we were contacted by the Messthetics and asked to provide backline for a west coast tour. Knowing this was the rhythm section of Fugazi backing a wildly cool experimental guitarist (Anthony Pirog) we scrambled to find instruments to loan them…they ended up taking Chris’s personal Monarch and a bass head Chris had stuck together for a bandmate who was looking for a light, good sounding and simple solution…this was called the Sonny, and we sent it with a Benson 15N cabinet.

Joe Lally was blown away by the sound and portability, and the fact that it could hang with Brendan Canty…one of rock and roll’s all time hard hitting drummers. He asked for his own Sonny, but asked us to change the name to the B700. We decided to make it our new flagship bass amp.

Since the original circuit was sort of thrown together, Chris did a deep dive into how much flexibility one could get out of three knobs….with Joe’s playing in mind….and tapped Bryan Sours for a custom nickel DI transformer, so the amp could be used as a studio quality preamp, or just a nice sound for front of house. After several revisions, the B700 is ready to make the world a lot louder!

The B700 becomes a different amp based on where the tone controls are set. When bass and treble are above noon, it is a great high fidelity punch machine. When those controls are brought close to zero and the volume cranked all the way up, the B700 can get great driven bass tones at a wide range of volume.

Specs:

• High voltage all tube preamp

• Nickel DI output

• 700 watts output at 2.6 ohm load (approximately 175 at 8 ohms)

• 17 lbs, 19” x 8.25” x 8.25”