HCM30 Review

The HCM30 generates 30 watt RMS into a 10" Custom Designed driver. It has the capacity to drive a full blown 4 x 12" cabinet which gives you amazing tone and volume from such a compact amp. The HCM30 also comes equipped with a headphone socket for silent practice.

Features:	8
Sound:	9
Reliability:	9
Impression:	9
Overall rating:	8.8
Users rating:	7.3
Comments:	4

Featured review by: unregistered, on may 19, 2005

Price paid: $ 190

Purchased from: Music Force

Features: For beginners this amp is awesome aswell as well as experienced players. I pretty much use this amp for practise and home recordings as it gives me the perfect tones for my rock/blues style. It has clean volume, crunch factor (gain) and master volume for distortion, equalisation (bass, middle, treble) aswell as a max switch that boosts your treble if need be. There are also headphone, footswitch and external speaker jacks and CD/line in ports. It would be nice if it had reverb for smoother styles but if rocks what you want then it will suffice. // 8

Sound: I'm using it with my 2002 Les Paul custom with stock standard Gibson pickups and the sound is incredible at medium gain settings (5-6). With the bass pumped up things get a bit mushy, but push the treble and middle whilst slighty holding back the bass will give you amazing sounds. Feedback at high volumes is quite pleasant unlike what some Marshall amps are prone to. Blues playing is perfect for the clean channel, when the bass is turned up. Witht he right amount of tinkering and the right pickups, I'm confident you could get any tones you wanted out of it. // 10

Reliability & Durability: I've had this amp for 3 years and have never had a problem with it. The rugged steel grill prevents damaged to the speaker and the knobs are heavy duty. There is no need for servicing as it never breaks down. // 10

Impression: When I first got it I was amazed by what big sounds could come from such a small amp (in comparison to amps with larger wattages). If it was stolen I'd probably get a Laney from the hardcore series again, but probably a 100+ just for convenience of playing larger gigs. // 10

overall: 8

Reviewed by: Pennyroyal Tea, on september 17, 2005

Features: // 8

Sound: I've been using a Fender Mexican Stratocaster with its original pickups still on. Might plan to shift to an HSS setup later but for now I'm pretty happy. I'm experimenting with lots of styles, from classic rock and blues to doom metal. I've played my friends BC Rich NJ Warlock through it and had no problem going through more brutal stuff. Eventually though I'll probably be going for a grunge/psychedelic style. Although I'd find no problem with the grunge (gives some beautiful feedback) it'd be a little hard to get the echo needed for a pink floyd-like sound. The amp is more suitable for rock than clean sounds. The amp is practically a monster in disguise when it comes to volume. When practicing at home I rarely put the clean volume higher than one otherwise the rest of my family would rip my head off. Very powerful for a 30 watter. // 8

Reliability & Durability: // 8

Impression: Its a great amp for a beginner, considering my other option was a 15 watt Marshall, or a 15 watt Behringer. I'll move onto something more powerful later (around 100 watts) and get something else that can play cleaner tones, preferably with reverb. I think the thing I like most about it is the ability to make everyone in my house swear whenever I play something through it. I'm not exactly thinking of making a career of playing music, I'm learning guitar mostly for personal use, small sized gigs, and plan on building a collection of them later. So I'll probably be using smaller amps throughout, this one might very well serve for a long time yet. // 8

Comments

[742627000017]

Gona buy it

[Serial 177]

I use the HCM30R.. it came with reverb.. i used it 4 2.5 years and i neverhad a problem now i use a spider III which rox but i still keep this baby it rox

[maui-wowie420]

I have it and wouldn't recommend it. Do not like the sound from it and have stopped using it as there is a constant buzzing sound from it which I think is related to the power supply, I could probably fix it, but have never bothered to try.

[Sudaka]

very good amp. really loud. not too well on features, but it's pretty good though