Description
The first amp in Ampeg’s Portaflex series was the B-15, a 2-channel tube amplifier with per-channel volume controls and shared Baxandall-type tone control, housed within a ’flip-top’ tuned-port cabinet design mounted to a dolly.
Shortly after the B-15’s introduction in 1960, it became the most popular bass amp in the world. Thanks to the Manhattan Bass Club, there were B-15s in every professional recording studio in New York, and the B-15 was embraced by the most prolific session bass players of the time, such as James Jamerson and Bob Babbitt at Motown in Detroit, Donald “Duck” Dunn at Stax Records in Memphis, and Chuck Rainey in New York and Los Angeles. In subsequent decades, popularity of the B-15 endured, used by bassists like Darryl Jones, Justin Meldal-Johnsen, and Owen Biddle.
