Gear Shed
Bergantino
FORTÉ HP By Jonathan Herrera
TO THE BASS-GEAR COGNO SCENTI, Massachusetts amp and speaker-cabinet designer Jim Bergantino needs little introduction. After a long and varied career in electrical engineering and professional audio, Bergantino founded bass-focused Bergantino Audio Systems in 2001. Since then, his products have consistently enjoyed a sterling reputation among players (and bass magazine editors) because of their top-shelf materials, durable construction, exceptional engineering, and most important, superb tone. Of the many thought-leaders I’ve been fortunate to befriend and talk shop with over
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the years, Jim Bergantino has always been among the most passionate and single-minded in his pursuit of sonic excellence. While Bergantino made its name with a broad range of high-end speaker cabinets, the company took a huge leap forward a few years ago with the B|AMP, a high-tech (by bass amp standards) analog/digital hybrid head that I reviewed in the March ’17 issue of Bass Player. The B|AMP was a notable departure from nearly every other bass head primarily because of its extensive use of digital signal processing (DSP). The DSP allowed Bergantino to implement pre-
BASS MAGAZINE ; ISSUE 5 ; bassmagazine.com
cise frequency-compensation curves that enabled flat frequency response when the head was paired with Bergantino’s cabinets. Beyond the B|AMP’s “Speaker Profile” function, the digital preamp meant the head could integrate a variety of other features that would be more difficult, costly, or impossible with an analog circuit. The B|AMP was an important milestone in the technological history of bass amps, because it was the first serious and successful implementation of a digital preamp in a pro-quality bass head. Analog-purist opinions aside, the advantages of DSP are legion — as the popularity
