Trace Elliot ELF 200W Micro Bass Guitar Amp Head

Our bass player and lead guitar player retired at the same time, so I switched to bass to audition new guitar players and needed a bass amp. Lots of power in an incredibly small package, at a very reasonable price point.

Fan is too loud unless you have it cranked. Good sounds at any volume

I use this rig with two elf 10" cabinets. It sounds great.

i bought this because im quarantined in my girlfriends apartment and i didn't have an amp head with a headphone jack. i had been curious to hear one for a while so this was my excuse to finally buy one. the build quality is very good and i was actually blown away by the tone, both through the headphones, and through a speaker cabinet. i wasnt sure if the "trace elliot sound" was for me but i actually found it very pleasant. big fat bass and a crunchy upper mid. honestly its not far from the "ampeg sound" so its not too hard to like. obviously the portability is great and hilarious. it really does fit in your jacket pocket. in terms of power, i think that its plenty loud enough to tackle most peoples idea of a low to medium loud gig. obviously its not going to cut it with your thrash metal band, but with an nice efficient cab i would feel confident taking it to a cafe jam or acoustic backup or even pub gig no problem. my complaints are that both the volume and gain have some pretty severe shelving at the bottom of their range, so its not really possible to, for example, dime the gain and feather in the master volume for more crunch. even if you're just trying to play super duper quiet, the level controls are very finicky down there. the amp seems to be happiest with all knobs at noon. the other complaint is that the fan motor is extremely sensitive, to the point that every note you play causes the fan to wind up, and if you rest for a second, it winds down again, the overall effect being that the fan is constantly changing speeds, going up and down. this happens even with just the headphones plugged in, so that the other person in the room just hears this robotic wheezing sound. it wouldn't be a problem live but it might not work for recording quieter things with a microphone. it would be better if the fan stayed at a constant rate. it would also be very handy for this kind of head to have a aux in. all in all im very happy to own this amp despite its quirks

This amp does everything I want and more. I have paired it with two Trace Elliot 1x10 cabinets. It's astonishing what this amp delivers with 200 watts and I love the classic TE tone it produces. Some consider the Elf a backup amp but truthfully it will handle 98% of my gigs. I could not be happier. Did I mention how light this amp is ha ha? 1.6lbs! Hats off to Peavey and the TE team for bringing us this little marvel of amplification.

It is what it says it is, I tried in on BBC 12/12 and it drives this and end of service i put it in bass guitar gig bag . Good option when I leave Mark Bass 800 home and don't need power