Double Bass SWR Spellbinder Blue combo worth?

#2
I've only heard that amp live once, when Return to Forever did the reunion tour. Stanley Clarke had it onstage for his Double Bass. Frankly, it sounded terrible. The Baby Blue went through several incarnations ih a few short years. First there was the Baby Blue 2x8, then the Baby Blue 2x8 version 2, then the Baby Blue II 10", and finaly the Spelbinder Blue, followed by the Natural Blonde. IMHO not worth the effort, unless it's a Baby Blue 2x8, in pristine shape and you have a tech run a bypass for the Aural Enhancer. Even then the speaker surrounds can have issues and the original Bag End 16 ohm drivers are no longer avaliable nor are the Celestion 8 ohm drivers whicn don't sound that great. The head is underpowered and a single 12AX7 had little effect on the tone quality. Just my take of course.
swr baby blue.jpg
Baby Blue 2x8
SWR Baby Blue 2x8 V2 .jpeg
Baby Blue 2x8 version 2

SWR Spellbinder Blue.JPG

SWR Natural Blonde.jpg
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Leo Smith, MrSidecar and Barcza
#4
Ric Vice said:
I've only heard that amp live once, when Return to Forever did the reunion tour. Stanley Clarke had it onstage for his Double Bass. Frankly, it sounded terrible. The Baby Blue went through several incarnations ih a few short years. First there was the Baby Blue 2x8, then the Baby Blue 2x8 version 2, then the Baby Blue II 10", and finaly the Spelbinder Blue, followed by the Natural Blonde. IMHO not worth the effort, unless it's a Baby Blue 2x8, in pristine shape and you have a tech run a bypass for the Aural Enhancer. Even then the speaker surrounds can have issues and the original Bag End 16 ohm drivers are no longer avaliable nor are the Celestion 8 ohm drivers whicn don't sound that great. The head is underpowered and a single 12AX7 had little effect on the tone quality. Just my take of course.
Click to expand...
"..other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like our Performance?"
(jk)
This is the kind of real-world, in-the-trenches take/review and analysis that is worth its weight in gold.
Thanks, Ric Vice!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Leo Smith, rickwolff and Jason Hollar
#5
Ric Vice said:
I've only heard that amp live once, when Return to Forever did the reunion tour. Stanley Clarke had it onstage for his Double Bass. Frankly, it sounded terrible. The Baby Blue went through several incarnations ih a few short years. First there was the Baby Blue 2x8, then the Baby Blue 2x8 version 2, then the Baby Blue II 10", and finaly the Spelbinder Blue, followed by the Natural Blonde. IMHO not worth the effort, unless it's a Baby Blue 2x8, in pristine shape and you have a tech run a bypass for the Aural Enhancer. Even then the speaker surrounds can have issues and the original Bag End 16 ohm drivers are no longer avaliable nor are the Celestion 8 ohm drivers whicn don't sound that great. The head is underpowered and a single 12AX7 had little effect on the tone quality. Just my take of course.
View attachment 3477100 Baby Blue 2x8
View attachment 3477102 Baby Blue 2x8 version 2

View attachment 3477107
View attachment 3477109
Click to expand...

salcott said:
I had two SWR combo amps, and could not get a usable sound out of either one with bass guitar or upright. They were ridiculously heavy, too.
Click to expand...

Those two posts are a perfect summary of my experience with SWR combo amps. I had a workingman's 12 that really is not worth the mention weren't it for pure boat anchor value. After that came what I was hoping was a step up in quality (a baby blue II first incarnation). The really terrible live sound for me was even sadder than than for you, Ric, because it was me playing over it. The tube in those amps is pure marketing cosmetics, the EQ is utterly unusable when it comes to even remotely beautify the hideous character of the combo, it's weak and the sound manages to be blobby and severely lacking in fundamental at the same time. IMHO it really is a terrible amplifier.

Best
Sidecar
 
  • Like
Reactions: Barcza and salcott
#6
Guess I'm the only person here who thinks the Baby Blue was one of the greatest sounding combos ever. I loved mine to death, originally bought it for DB gigs but it also sounded fantastic for BG. It was underpowered, though.

The Baby Baby Blue that followed had a single 10" and showed where the sound really came from....the 5" cone midrange of the BB was replaced with a tweeter and that was the worst sounding SWR I ever heard in my life (a bandmate had one in his rehearsal space that I used). Not sure what they used in the Spellbinder, but the cone midrange does what tweeters do not, namely extend the upper mids in a smooth, musical way without beaming or sounding brittle. I wish more mfrs used them in cabs.

PS Aguilar made a similar cab for Jack Casady (who had been using a Baby Blue) but I believe it's been discontinued.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Barcza and vin*tone
#7
I owned both versions of the Baby Blue back in the ‘90s, not at the same time. The specs looked great on paper, and I intended them to be my rehearsal/ studio rigs. I got what I’d call a good sound out of them once, when I plugged the BB2 into a PA cab loaded with EV 15”, 5” and a tweeter. It killed.

Otherwise, the BB was simply invisible in the mix.
 
#8
Call David at Revsound... he knows and loves the Baby Blue and can build you a cabinet to your tonal goals. Here's the tweeterless 1x8" he made for me (sorry for the blurry photo):

IMG_20190404_175638027.jpg
 
Last edited:
#9
I did get my Baby Blue 2x8 to sound decent, when I disconnected the amp, removed it from it's shelf and slipped my Walter Woods MI-100-8

into the space. Funny how a 100 watt Walter Woods could sound so much better than a 140 watt SWR (different design goals. My solution was to sell the Baby Blue 2x8 combo

and by a Baby Blue 2x8 extension, which sounded great with the Woods. There are so many better choices now all of them lighter and voiced better for Double Bass. Incidentially,

at the time SWR touted the fact that the Baby Blue had been endorsed by several Studio Bassists in L.A. but when you checked the literature, the individuals listed were all

EB players, none of the ones mentioned were Double Bassists. Just my take of course.
 
  • Like
Reactions: KUNGfuSHERIFF
#10
I've had a few BBII combos and Electric Blue II heads. The combo never did it for me. I ditched the wood case and had a friend of mine make a top and side covers for my head version to make it look like a Walter Woods. As a head greatly underpowered, but it sounded pretty good as preamp into my IP112 or using my WW as a power amp. Very similar sound as a Demeter( I took both on a gig to compare). Wish I had kept that head.
 
Last edited:
#11
No regrets here, I sold all the Baby Blue gear, and got a Walter Woods MI-400-8 and eventually a Walter Woods Ultra. I pared it with EA cabinets

either a VL-108 or a VL 208. They were so much better sounding than either part of the Baby Blue. Moved on to powered MAS 1/8 or 4x5.5. I did

keep the Woods Ultra.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Barcza
#13
Im surprised at the bad reviews on SWR combos. I have a single mid 90s workingman 12 and four Super redheads various years. They are wonderfully serving amps. I swear by the redheads on most gigs the only real exception would be some standup jazz I do a little Fender Rumble 40 does the job.
4880988A-7CD8-4C44-B010-1AD679D3AF8A.jpeg
 
  • Like
Reactions: avi
#14
While I'm sure many folks liked em, I personally was not among that group.:) With a Underwood Pickup and no preamp the Baby Blue 2X8 head had a very voiced midrange sound. The Aural Enhancer can be
bypassed to eliminate that, but that fix came later. I bought a Baby Blue 2x8 Extension Cabinet (only available for a very short time) with the original Bag End Drivers,to use with my Walter Woods MI-100-8
and it sounded great. Just my take however. The thing I found fascinating is that to my knowledge, there were no DB players among original test group of players for the Baby Blue that endorsed the amplifier.
Just my take however.

From the original SWR Baby Blue Manual "We would like to sincerely thank all the musicians and engineers that helped us with this project and
especially Walter Becker, Neil Stubenhaus, Phil Chen, Keith Jones, Jimmy Haslip, Michael Rhodes, Phil Lesh,
Dan Schwartz, Dann Glenn and Dwayne "Smitty" Smith."
 
#16
It seems you guys are all referring to the BB. I agree that the original I played a million years ago was unremarkable. However I loved the redheads. Spellbinder is a class D amp. The cabinet looks much different than the original BB's. I'm wondering if they sound better or at least be able to pull the head and pair it with a different cabinet.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back