I was playing down in my nation's delightful capital city this weekend. There's a guy down there who's setting up a guitar shop specializing in premium gear, a first for this country, and conveniently right across the street from the venue I was playing. He wasn't set up yet, and was busy sanding and painting, but had remembered me from an email about a month ago and had a suhr strat and Victoria tweed twin in the back room just in case I popped by. Cool!
So I check them both out in the shop for a bit. I then got called away to soundcheck, and after soundcheck he bought both up for me to A/B against my strat and vibrolux.
The Victoria tweed twin was outstanding! -Absolutely beautiful tweed tone, with full bottom end and nice clean headroom. Both the lo and hi inputs had very usable tonalities, and the breakup was smooth and chewy. It had that wonderful dimensional warmth that tweed amps have, where you never feel like you need reverb, and yet the tone still cuts through.
Compared to my vibrolux, it was definitely up a level. It had similar volume and headroom, making it usable for my types of gigs, but sounded fatter and more complex, with much better low end response that isn't so much 'tightness' as it is 'non-fartness'. My vibro definitely sounded good, but the twin had that x-factor about it, where you just want to play and play.
We're looking at returning to Wellington in feb, and the shop will be fully set up by then. He'll have a shipment of Carrs, victorias and suhrs in, as well as Duesenbergs, top end fender and gibson, keely, t-rex, and sheldon amps from the UK. I can't wait to check out the tweed 2x10 super he has on order. That could be the grail for me...
So I check them both out in the shop for a bit. I then got called away to soundcheck, and after soundcheck he bought both up for me to A/B against my strat and vibrolux.
The Victoria tweed twin was outstanding! -Absolutely beautiful tweed tone, with full bottom end and nice clean headroom. Both the lo and hi inputs had very usable tonalities, and the breakup was smooth and chewy. It had that wonderful dimensional warmth that tweed amps have, where you never feel like you need reverb, and yet the tone still cuts through.
Compared to my vibrolux, it was definitely up a level. It had similar volume and headroom, making it usable for my types of gigs, but sounded fatter and more complex, with much better low end response that isn't so much 'tightness' as it is 'non-fartness'. My vibro definitely sounded good, but the twin had that x-factor about it, where you just want to play and play.
We're looking at returning to Wellington in feb, and the shop will be fully set up by then. He'll have a shipment of Carrs, victorias and suhrs in, as well as Duesenbergs, top end fender and gibson, keely, t-rex, and sheldon amps from the UK. I can't wait to check out the tweed 2x10 super he has on order. That could be the grail for me...
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