Carbon Fiber has proved to have some amazing benefits over wood and other materials in many fields such as aeronautics, sports and also music. Today we have carbon fiber guitars, violins, cellos and even some amazing bows (such as Arcus) that prove that this material is capable of producing some amazing results in music.
The main advantages of carbon fiber are that its extreme strength, flexibility and lightweight.
Normal tools just won't do the job so really special ones are needed to create the special weave pattern that forms the ultra strong fiber panels.
Gianfranco Rizzi, CEO at GR Bass had this idea to use carbon fiber for a revolutionary new series of cabinets and combos that would match his ultralight and powerful heads. Not surprisingly, GR Bass has grown a lot since they started out a few years ago and are now one of the biggest names in bass amplification in the world. Please welcome the amazing Aerotech Series.
As bassplayers we have always dreamed of a cabinet that would be feather light and could cover just any stage with the best sound, correct? 30-40 years ago you had to carry an heavy all tube stack if you wanted to make yourself heard in a big stage. Great sound, no doubt about it, but a real pain in the ass to move around. We are talking more than 100kg for a 300W tube stack and an 8x10" cab. Now you can have even better results in a rig that weighs 5 times less. Amazing.
This is the AT Cube 500 combo and it put out 500W of pure power at 4 Ohm. There's an 800W version in case you need even more power. It weighs in at just 7.8 kg so lifting it with the top handle is a breeze. But wait, feather light weight is not even the most impressive feature on this combo. Just grab a good bass, switch the amp on and be prepared to listen to a sound that's simply incredible.
The low end is deep and solid. It never becomes muddy. Midrange is excellent and all the notes seem to find a new degree of definition that we have never heard before. The high end is really smooth a musical, far from the annoying and harsh sound we get on some other brands. Excellent stuff.
On its own, this combo is able to have you covered in just about any situation. But if you need the "full stack" experience then all you need to do is add an external 8Ohm cabinet (a GR Bass 12" is enough but of course it will drive a big 4x10" cab like nobody's business). Simply amazing.
Gianfranco Rizzi visited us early in 2020 and he brought two prototypes of carbon fiber cabs to the shop. These were a 2x10" and a 2x12". We were blown away by the incredible low weight at first but then we tested them and that was it. He explained that it took him a full year almost non stop to come up with the correct weave pattern, amount of epoxy, internal bracing and damping until everything sounded the way he wanted. Also he had to solve an added problem: ultralightweight cabinets would move and literally "walk" from vibration when a loud head was used. This was sorted out by changing the balance between the parts.
We are glad to report that the final product is simply perfect in terms of sound, pressure and ease of transportation. This is a little revolution in bass cabinet design .
Yes, it is the lightest professional 500W 1x12" full featured bass combo in the world, sure, but it is also one of the best sounding too, if not the best and we can't stress that enough.
Excellent job, Gianfranco. We have the feeling we are going to see a lot of carbon fiber cabinets and combos in the future.
GR Bass Aerotech AT Cube 500 combo
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