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Dr. Z Monza

PostPosted: Fri May 04, 2012 1:02 am
by Alain Benoit
It's pretty.
It's got red tolex.
It's the 10" combo version.
This model does not have a PPIMV, that feature was released this year.
The driver is an eminence 10" alnico "Red Fang".
EL84 based output section.
20 watts.
One 12AX7 for a preamp stage, one 12AX7 for a PI.

On lighting it up, I found the volume control to be scratchy, odd for anew amp of this ilk.
Turning the volume up even a moderate amount resulted in a lot of hiss, again surprised at this outcome.

Stay tuned for test results, expectations are high.

A.

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Re: Dr. Z Monza

PostPosted: Fri May 04, 2012 7:07 am
by macrae11
I should have gotten Matt to take that up to the session today.

Re: Dr. Z Monza

PostPosted: Thu May 10, 2012 3:51 pm
by Alain Benoit
Well after having a few guitar players try it the results are in and they are not pleasing.

The controls work like this, the 'volume' is really a gain control while the 'drive' is just a little bit more gain in a different way.
The tone control is more bassy on the left and more trebly on the right.
It was really very difficult to get this amp to clean up nicely at any kind of usable volume, actually the 'volume' control didn't let hardy any sound through until it was nearly at 9:00.
In my opinion single 10" combos are not super useful except for maybe a harp amp. If a combo is to have a single driver it needs to be a 12" one and needs to be ferrite magnet based and have some capability of reproducing some low end preferably even a bump in that area. In this case it was a single ten AND an Alnico one at that, way too bright and way too shrill. The tone control needed to be planted weel left of center to get anything semi useful. Plugging the amp into a 412 combo almost redeemed it somewhat, almost.

In conclusion this amp needed a lot of tweeking to find anything close to usable, and that's with only three knobs in total, should not have been difficult but it was, at it's best it hinted of something potentially cool but fell well short of delivering.

Of course I bothered to open it up for an interior inspection. Construction was turret board style with reasonable quality components.
Still though at a $1500 price tag and a sound only a mother could love.......................................

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Re: Dr. Z Monza

PostPosted: Thu May 10, 2012 4:03 pm
by Mathieu Benoit
macrae11 wrote:I should have gotten Matt to take that up to the session today.



Think of all the time we'd have wasted. :-P

Re: Dr. Z Monza

PostPosted: Thu May 10, 2012 5:20 pm
by macrae11
Well there you go. Didn't notice that it was the single 10" version. Single 10"s work great for small one trick amps. Fender Champ and Pro Junior, Epiphone Valve Junior. Not usually as a workhorse amp.

Re: Dr. Z Monza

PostPosted: Thu May 10, 2012 6:59 pm
by Alain Benoit
That's one of the issues I have with how they are doing this, most of their models are available in different configurations.
Well that may not always work, for example would you want a Fender Twin with a single 10" driver?

I really believe that this amp should have been a single 12" combo but with a conventional ferrite magnet driver, may not have saved it but would not have made it any worse.

A.