by Scott DeVarenne » Thu Jul 26, 2012 12:51 am
I shouldn't whine- it really is a great little amp, for the price ($500 Canadian). Even though I haven't cracked it open to take a look inside, it seems and feels to be built very solidly. NO PUSH BUTTON SWITCHES. I love that. 2 big boy toggles for power and standby, five mini toggles for tone tweaks. The Vintage/Modern switch is a power amp voicing, vintage being flat, modern adds a low and high boost. I prefer vintage. USA/AC/BRIT are preamp voicings. They have a significant effect. Hot/Clean allows for a huge range of gain adjustment. I dig the frequency centers of the Bright/Normal and Tight/Deep switches. Of course, the Bright switch's effect is diminished with increased gain. Engaging Tight really does clean up the low-end mud (especially if you are using humbuckers), and the loss in low end can easily be compensated for further down the line with the bass knob. Between 0 and 12 o'clock, on the Master Volume, performance is linear. Around 1 o'clock the sweetness kicks in, there is a jump in volume and things get thick and slightly compressed. Beyond that, however, things get hairy, meaning power stage distortion. I can't say for sure, because I really don't have the experience, but I suspect what's happening is primarily phase inverter distortion as opposed to the output tubes distorting. I say this because comparing the amps performance with 6V6s compared to EL34s, said distortion is very similar (of course there is an overall tonal difference), and there is a negligible difference in volume output. I should mention that I recorded the amp's performance with different tubes using a looping unit to ensure consistent conditions.
More later, maybe.