"I just got the Rockman Bass Ace last week and have had a chance to play with it for several hours. In that time I'm decidedly lukewarm about recommending it too highly.

I'm 44 and I play the bass in a very progressive church with music that ranges from heavy rock to funky gospel to nice slow worship music. We have a great sound system and I use pro-quality equipment so I place a premium on high fidelity tone. I bought the Bass Ace so I can plug in my Ipod and practice along with the upcoming week's music without bothering my family.

I've owned a number of headphone amps in the past including a Boss HA-5 Play Bus (which I still have) and an original Tom Shultz Rockman Guitar model (long gone). I also sometimes use the headphone-out option on my Line 6 Pod XT Live. Incidentally, the Guitar Rockman was great as long as you wanted to sound EXACTLY like Boston. The XT Live produces the the best tone overall but it is not very portable. The Boss is easily the best portable headphone amp of the group for bass even though it's designed for guitars and it's over 20 years old. But I a bass-centric unit...

At this point you're probably familiar with the specs and basic attributes of the Dunlop Rockman Bass Ace so I'll skip to my impressions.

PRO'S

Price: Overall, the Rockman is not a bad unit for the price.

No power switch: The amp comes on when you plug the bass in and goes off when you unplug it. No switch to forget - just remember to unplug it after use each time.

Bass tone: With decent headphones (see below) and some tweaking the bass tone produced by the Rockman is not bad - definitely usable. That said, compared to the Line 6 and the Boss listed above it is clearly the worst of the three.

CONS

Auxiliary Input Tone: When I did an A/B comparison with my Ipod direct into the headphone and then through the Bass Ace, the tone through the Rockman was MUCH worse than direct. On other headphone amps I've used the AUX input was very transparent and sounded virtually identical to the direct line. The AUX input on the Rockman sounds muffled. Very disappointing. Also, the input jack is a 1/4" meaning you need to have a converter to plug in your Ipod. I suppose that is a personal preference.

Headphones: The headphones that come with this unit are virtually unusable. I have a set of mid-priced Sennheisers and in an A/B comparison the difference is incredible. The elcheapos that come with the Rockman buzz and distort at even the lowest volume. Push them a little and the tone is unbearable.

Size: This thing is HUGE compared to other headphone amps. Based on the weight (it's relatively light) it must be mostly empty space so I can only assume that the Bass Ace was purposefully made larger than necessary in order to give it gravitas. This thing is the size of a small cigar box. The result is that it feels cheap and hollow and it's too big to comfortably hang on your belt or on the guitar strap like I've done with other units.

EQ: This is a con because there is no real EQ. I never have a problem getting excellent tone out of my Warwick Thumb but I had to tweak the EQ on my bass dramatically to coax a decent tone out of the Rockman. The Bass Boost function is useless. To me it seemed like less of a boost and more of a scoop. Engaging the Bass Boost actually reduced the bottom end. The Treble Boost function improved the tone somewhat (after I rolled back the treble settings on the bass) but introduced a serious hiss. I got used to it but overall what you get is what you get with this unit. There are no effects, delays or reverb. Also, there is no Drive or Gain option. That's fine with me since I like a fat, clean tone but don't expect to be able to dial in monster tone if you bass doesn't have it already.

Name: Bass Ace? Really? That's the best they could do? C'mon Dunlop. Haven't you ever heard of a focus group?

Summary:

Overall, this is not a particularly high quality unit compared to the Tom Shultz equipment I've used before. I would imagine that he is disappointed in the unit bearing his name. That said, what can you expect for this price point.

If you want excellent headphone tone out of the box or if you want a unit that serves double duty as a pre-amp to run direct into a PA, keep looking. This lo-fi amp is not going to make the cut.

If you need a cheap, portable, easy to use headphone amp to practice with then you might be happy with the Rockman Bass Ace as long as you pick up a good set of headphones to go with it.

NOTE TO DUNLOP: Get Tom in with the guys at R&D and design a serious bass DI with a headphone out option with the following features:

>XLR Line Out
>1/4" Line Out Dry
>1/4" Line Out Blended
>1/8" Headphone Out (Blended Only)
>Gain (Punch)
>Treble (Top)
>Bass (Bottom)
>Presence (Attitude)
>Blend (wet vs. dry signal)
>Output Level (also controls headphone volume)
>Ground Lift Switch
>Active/Passive Switch

Put in a metal box in a color other than black and work up a better name. Price it at $199 and offer it as a DI/Headphone amp combo that sounds better than a C Tech and offers more options than a Sansamp. You'll rack up.

IMHO"

"I had one for my guitar in the 80's and it was nice ! This new product seems to have been made as cheap as possible. Probably like many companies looking to have more profit at the cost of quality. The case is cheap plastic and the headphones are probably worse than ones at the dollar store. The headphones were a BIG disappointing as being shipped with a "BASS ACE" because they cannot handle the bass sounds, and just rattle like crazy. Might be good for an old 9v transistor radio. They should be ashamed shipping these with this product (Bad Form). I would have preferred the AC adapter over the 50 cent headphones.

I paid $62.00, but the quality seems like it should have been $39.99 since it does not have the AC adapter. I do like having the Bass Ace, though, using my better headphones...the sound is much better. Needs the AC adapter because the battery life seems short."

"I bought this item with a history of having own a Bass Rockman many years ago. To my surprise, it was not what I remebered or expected when I received it. The older rockmans were metalic and sturdy. Was new is molded plastic an seems a little frail.

So far, I am not impressed, but satisfied with what I got. The unit produces descent sound if you DO NOT use the supplied head phones. I'm currently using mine with BOSE QuietComfort noise cancelling head phones, which produces better quality sound from the unit. Also, I'm using Bartolini active pick ups on a pre-Gibson Tobias , which can overdrive and distort.

So, for the price, it's not a bad buy. But expect quality to equal the price, and nothing more."