Reviewed by:
thereverendsoup, on february 20, 2008
0 of 1 people found this review helpful
Price paid: $ 400
Purchased from: eBay
Features: Shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, a company called Sovtek (also famous for the legendary Russian Big Muff and the manufacturing of various tubes) started making a line of tube amps. And, really, they're pretty nice amps. Easily loud enough to blow the doors off your bedroom, and without question loud enough to play most gigs any of us here on UG will ever get. The style of music I play pretty much ranges from power pop to post-rock to stoner metal, and this thing pretty much screams. There are two channels. The first one is a bit cleaner, and the second one has higher gain. There's a presence knob, and while I'm not enough of a gear geek to really know what it does technically, on lower settings it's like putting a blanket over the amp, and turning it up is like lifting it off. There are 3 output channels (4, 8, and 16 ohm), so it's pretty much guaranteed to work with most cabs you'll find. Still, it's a pretty bare-bones amp. The only features I wish it had are an effects loop and some built in spring reverb would be nice. But those are pretty minor complaints. // 6
Sound: I mostly play an ESP PC-2V (one of the early models, where they were using the JB/Jazz setup) through this thing. And it's quite nice for everything I use it for. I don't know if I'd use it to play thrash metal or anything like that, but with a distortion pedal (I'm using an MXR Distortion +), it's an excellent punk rock amp, and without one, on the gainy channel, you can get a nice, jangly distortion or a "classic" sounding overdrive. The clean channel does distort at higher volumes, especially with the presence knob cranked. The cleans are also really nice. Especially if you're the kind of person Who likes to add twinkly stuff to your songs. // 9
Reliability & Durability: I have had no problems with this amp whatsoever. I bought it used a while ago, and it's stood up to quite a bit of abuse, going to and from gigs, band practice, and pretty much everything that comes with using an amp a lot. So I'd say it's pretty dependable. // 10
Impression: I pretty much chose this amp because, after playing around with someone else's, I was really impressed with it's sound and versatility, especially for the price. In fact, if it had a spring reverb, I could see paying up to twice what I did for it. Unless you're a metal guitarist or something, and you really need a high watt amp, you really can't go wrong with one of these. Right now, I'm running it through an Avatar 2x12 cab with a Celestion Vintage 30 and a Celestion G12H30, and the thing pretty much screams. That said, I would recommend this amp highly. // 9
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