Reviewed by:
hairball, on april 05, 2005
1 of 2 people found this review helpful
Price paid: $ 549
Purchased from: eBay
Features: My amp was made sometime in the 1990's but I have no idea when. I play rock, blues, metal etc and it does it all. all tube, 50 watts (1/2 power switch - down to 25 watts), 2 channels w/a shared EQ, each channel has its own reverb, stereo effects loop, footswitchable channels and reverb (on/off), 2 12" celestions - stock ones are Ok but will be changing them to Vintage 30's. the only 2 things this amp is lacking is an overall master volume and maybe a seperate EQ for channel b although I use the same settings for each channel anyway, would just be more versatile. I never use the effects loop, never have with any amp. I practise and gig with this amp, to practise and jam I switch it to the 25 watt setting (so I can push the valves more) and have it at the 50 watt setting for gigs although if the venue is very small I use the 25 watt setting and for very big gigs I use the 25 watt setting with it mic's, no chances to be taken there then. This amp is great for everything I play, before I got this I had to take 2 amps to my gigs, a Fender Hot Rod for cleans and a JCM 800 for my ODs and use an A/B selector as a channel switch in effect, no I just take this and it's great. // 10
Sound: I use a ESP LTD Viper 300 with EMG HZ's and a use Fender Strat (sometimes a Squier Strat if I can't use my Fender)and this thing sounds great with them all, yes even the Squier sounds great through it. As I said before it suits my style of playing perfectly, channel a has a lovely squeaky clean sound all the way up to the Led Zep, AC/DC crunch, and channel b takes on where channel a left off, it's gain knob that goes from 0-20 gives offa sweet crunch all the way to completely saturated can't define whether you're playing guitar or a cow with strings distortion, it has amazing amounts of gain. It is not noisy at all apart fom with the volume at 7/8 on channel b. I took the amp to a friends house and he was playing classical guitar through it and it sounded pretty good and as I said before it does blow your balls off distortion to the full aswell, and it takes everything in between classical, jazz, blues, '70s classic rock, hair metal, nu-metal, heavy metal, death metal, this amp takes on every style and provides a quality sound for it. // 10
Reliability & Durability: I do gig with this without a backup. The only complaint I have of this amp's reliability is the footswitch jack is often an annoyance but this is esily fixed. I just haven't got round to it. Might just put a new jack socket in. But the amp itself hasn't done anything to me to say this isn't right. So I'll say 4. // 8
Impression: This is the perfect amp for my music and I would reccomend this amp to anyone that plays any type of music that needs decent cleans and good amounts of gain, well I would reccomend it to anyone that wants a great amp. I've been playing 4 years I own a JCM 800 2x12 combo, and a Hot Rod Deluxe and numerous aweful solid state amps, Boss effects pedals, a Tubescreamer and a Crybaby. if it were stolen or lost or broken beyond repair heaven forbid I would look for another one, if I could find the 50 watt model I'd look for the 100 watt one (which also has a 1/2 power switch 100 watts down to 50). I love the way this amp sounds, I absolutely hate the fact that the footswitch jack won't make up its mind whether it works or nt but this is partly me being lazy and not getting it sorted straight away, my favourite feature has to be the amazing gain on channel b, it blows every other amp I've tried away inlcuding my rhythm guitarist's Mesa Boogie. I didn't compare it to anything, it was an impulse buy on eBay without thinking, turned out to be the greatst 'gear' buy I've ever made. Like I said earlier I wish it had an overall master volume switch and a sepereate EQ for channel b. // 10
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