GA100H Review

A beefy 100W head unit that is the perfect partner for the GQ100 speaker box or your existing speakers. 2 channels with separate EQ controls let you switch easily between clean and dirty sounds. Master level and reverb dials let you control your sound, and a headphone output is handy for setting up, tuning or practice.

Features:	8
Sound:	10
Reliability:	4
Impression:	8
Overall rating:	7.5
Users rating:	2.9
Comments:	3

Reviewed by: unregistered, on june 29, 2005

Price paid: $ 874

Purchased from: Landers Music Orange

Features: Made in 2003 in China, this amp has good sound for a solid state. I play punk, ska, metal and hard rock and with the exception of hard rock it is easy for me to find suitable tones. It's a 3 channel amp with clean, dirty and boost. I bought a footswith for an extra $50. There is an FX loop but it seems to reduce overall gain too much. I have gigged this amp a few times and it has stood up well. It is extremely loud being a solid state 100 watter. However if you plan on doing low palm muting riffs the volume can't really go too loud because the speakers dont seem to handle it. // 8

Sound: I use a Yamaha Pacifica 604W with a splitable bridge humbucker and single coils for the middle and front. I have played an Epiphone V, and Ibanez RGX through it. As I mentioned earlier, this thing has quite a good heavy tone on the boost channel. If you turn the contour down to about 3 oclock it has a very Metal Zone sound to it. Turn it up to around 6 and you get a nice smooth distortion, good for modern punk stuff. The dirty channel really leaves a lot to be desired however. Even with gain almost all the way down it is still impossible to get a good crunch sound. Turn the gain up and it just becomes a raspy sound. Thats why I got a Boss DS-2. I find using the dirty channel with the DS-2 in normal mode gives an absolutley amazing fuzz sound - suitable for Hendrix. The clean sound is what you would expect from a solid state, very clear with no hint of breaking up. // 10

Reliability & Durability: This is where the Ashton falls down. I have gigged this amp a few times but have not treated it roughly. Yet I am finding that the speakers are starting buzz quite loudly when palm muting on mid to high volume. Also, having all four speakers working is a bit of a hit or miss afair and I am guessing the wiring or soldering in the cabinet needs looking at. Luckily my drummer is an electrician because its past the waranty. The amp itself seems fairly sturdy tho. // 4

Impression: This amp is made for metal, punk and heavy rock. Unless you have a spare $5000 to spend on a mesa, the next best thing would be maybe a Marshall with a Metal Zone. The value for money here is something hard to beat. Try finding another half stack with celestion speakers for around the $1000 mark. If Ashton can fix the reliability problems then this would be the ultimate begginers package. By the way, I have also tried the valve model and it sounds terrible. // 8

Comments

[chaoticfables]

We have this amp at my school, it's average. Distortion sounds good if you get the tones right.

But when you switch to distortion, the amp gets quiet. You need to get used to changing the knobs and stuff.

[codex_gigas]

i use this amp,get super feedback at high vols, clean channel good though

[ShredHead396]

I got this head for 260 aussie dollars, not bad at all