AMPEG
PORTAFLEX PF-350 HEAD
AND PF-210HE CABINET
BY DAN BERKOWITZ
Alot of bass players would put two classic Ampeg designs on their amplifier bucket
list. At one extreme, there’s the SVT—the legendary powerhouse of big gigs. Take a searing,
300-watt tube head stacked on a cab loaded
with eight 10" speakers in four sealed compartments, and there you have it, manmade thunder. Sure, the rig looms five feet tall and weighs
225 pounds, but hey, it’s rock ’n’ roll!
At the other end of the spectrum is the
Ampeg B- 15, one of the sweetest studio rigs
ever produced. Despite weighing nearly 100
pounds, the venerated original put only a tenth
of the SVT’s power into a single, 15" speaker.
It got its “Fliptop” moniker from its ability to
stash the head upside-down in the cab, but
even with that attempt at convenience, the
B- 15 was hard to hoist with one strap handle.
Though it came with a dolly that helped make
it a little less of a hassle to use, the B- 15 left
many players yearning for an amp that put its
essence in a more convenient package.
Enter Ampeg’s new Portaflex series. Though
not necessarily lightweight at a combined 56
pounds for our review unit— 48 pounds for
the cab and eight for the 350-watt (at 4 Ω)
solid-state head—these new rigs are easier to
truck around. Like the B- 15, Portaflex cabinets
feature a flip-top design for storing the matching heads during transport, and they provide
rugged reliability and serious tone. Ampeg also
offers a 500-watt head and a 1x15 cabinet in
the series, but for this review, let’s take a closer
look at the Portaflex by matching up the Ampeg
PF-210HE 2x10 cab with the PF-350 amp.
A Purple Glow
Original B-15s came with a Lucite panel that
lit up when the amp was on—some owners
even ordered a custom plate with their name
on it. Ampeg’s PF-350 nods in the direction
of tradition with a two-inch, purple-lit line
above the basic EQ section. There’s no graphic
EQ, no enhance, scoop, boost, distortion, or
ultra-anything controls. Just Treble, Midrange,
and Bass, with each set at an appropriate
Treble, Midrange, and
Bass tone controls
frequency— 8 kHz, 500 Hz, and 40 Hz,
respectively. Despite being scaled from 0 to
10, they’re actually cut/boost controls, with the
straight-up position being flat. The front panel
also has a jack for an MP3 player and another
for headphones. Happily, the manual says it’s
perfectly fine to unplug the speaker from the
amp and practice silently.
The front panel also has Gain and Volume
controls, a - 15 dB pad for hot pickups or
hard attack, a Limiter button to keep things
in check when the volume gets pushed, and a
Mute switch. During my time with this rig, I
found that the input Gain control could be set
at noon or higher without triggering the clip
light. Likewise, the Volume control just started
cooking around noon—kicking in the limiter
required turning the Volume up nearly all the
Limiter button
Flip-top
design
for easy
transport
way. At a moderate level, this rig sounded sweet
and round. It turned nasty when cranked—in
a good, aggressive way—with more grit and
grind than all-out distortion. This rig can get
loud enough for many musical settings, far
more so than the original 25-watt version.
Like the front, the back panel is also pretty
basic—almost too much so. While there’s an
XLR output, it lacks a ground lift, a pre/post
EQ switch, and a level control to help tame
its rather hot output. There is an effects loop,
but it’s not switchable. Finally, I’ve really grown
fond of the sturdy speakON plugs, but this
amp only offers the standard 1/4" speaker jacks
that don’t provide as secure of a connection.
More “Porta,” But No “Flex”
