Fender Super-Sonic tried one out

54stratlover

New member
Tried out a fender supersonic today. For around 900 bucks, these amps are hot. they did a few things that many amp makers should be doing. All of the faceplate buttons are footswitchable. To start with, the clean channel(s) are great. A vibrolux circuit, and a bassman circuit. The vibrolux has the nice shimmering fender clean sound that many seek fenders out for. the bassman sounds well..... like a bassman. Not much more to say about that. Within the clean channel side one can footswitch between these two settings. That in itself makes me give it great reviews. Whenever i have played a boogie rectifier, or the bogner exctasy, I was wishing I could footswitch the old/modern switch, or the plexi mode on the bogner. The hughes and kettner triamp would be another amp that would benefit from an increased ability to footswitch all of the various buttons on the front of the amp. The "Burn" channel sounds great. Anything from classic rock to modern metal. I really liked the way the bottom end sounded. Not at all farty. I went through many of the sample settings, and there wasn't a dud in the bunch. I could easily recreat zep, nugent, alice in chains, and a variety of modern metal sounds. Now the kicker. The Effects loop. the guy at the shop had a cable to jump across the loop, and used the send level, and return level to make it function like a boost. So when you hit the effects loop switch on the footswitch it boosted the channel. It worked for the clean and overdrive channels. I really liked that effect/feature. Also the volumes on the clean and drive channel were independant, so theoretically one could use the drive channel for rhythm, and use a ts-9 style boost on the clean channels at a higher volume for a searing lead tyoe thing. I really liked that effect/feature. One could have used a line 6 delay in the loop and had a boosted delayed lead. I immediatly saw the possibilities of more than just a 2 channel amp.

Some things I would have like changed, were that there is no reverb on the head version, only on the combo. I would also like tremalo/vibrato on this amp also. Oh, and a 1/2 power switch, or a class a/ab like the prosonic.

For the price of this amp i would give it a 7.5/8 out of 10. I played a marshall tsl right next to it, and in my opinion it was the better of the two, for what I like.
 
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Re: Fender Super-Sonic tried one out

I also should say, that this amp is in no way a bogner, or diezel, in terms of pure dimensionality of tone, but I believe it more than carries its weight at the price it sells for.
 
Re: Fender Super-Sonic tried one out

Is the Bassman channel like a tweed, or is it more blackface?

Also, how much headroom does this beastie have?
 
Re: Fender Super-Sonic tried one out

Benjy_26 said:
Is the Bassman channel like a tweed, or is it more blackface?

Also, how much headroom does this beastie have?

The bassman channel is more like a tweed. As far as headroom goes, I would say the vibrolux circuit has the most. The bassman side tended to want to get a bit gritty, you know a little more bluesy. i could see using the vibrolux side for country, jazz, or just pure clean tone. NOW. I did not crank the amp up super high. Also the Dirty channel could be set to a clean tone. the cascading gain thing is rather interesting in terms of which side of the gain one turns up more. I remember that I did have it set to a cleaner setting, by turning up the master, and fiddling with the two different gain settings.
 
Re: Fender Super-Sonic tried one out

I'm curious about that amp, but haven't tried it. I had a Fender Pro Tube Concert Reverb for awhile, so I know how Fender is progressing when it comes to gain and features. They're finally getting the grasp of gain with a tight bottom end, because up until now it's been grainy and loose......just the nature of classic Fenders. The Concert Reverb was a very versatile amp, and I liked the FX loop boost feature. It essentially turned it into a 4 channel amp.

If there was anything I could change on my Bogner XTC, it'd be an added button on the footswitch to turn the blue channel's plexi mode on/off. The only reason they don't is probably because the cable can't handle more information. It'd be a cool mod though.
 
Re: Fender Super-Sonic tried one out

thanks for the review. i've been dying to try one of them.

-Mike
 
Re: Fender Super-Sonic tried one out

Did you try the head or the 1X12 version? It definately sounds interesting . . .
 
Re: Fender Super-Sonic tried one out

I really want to try one. Hopefully it will change my mind on Fender channel switchers. I haven't found one that I like yet. Good overview!! Thanks.
 
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Re: Fender Super-Sonic tried one out

GuitarStv said:
Did you try the head or the 1X12 version? It definately sounds interesting . . .

I tried the head. Through a marshall 1960B 4x12. The fender cab hadn't come in yet. The combo has reverb, were the head does not.
 
Re: Fender Super-Sonic tried one out

I'd love to have this setup!
2160100400v3_amd.jpg
 
Re: Fender Super-Sonic tried one out

I'm thinking a blonde one with an Eminence Texas Heat would make my perfect clean/bluesy overdrive amp setup, depending on how good the Vintage 30 sounds clean in a 1X12 open back combo.
 
Re: Fender Super-Sonic tried one out

Also, is there a footswitch that you can use to control the Bassman/Vibrolux switch and channel switching, and perhaps reverb?
 
Re: Fender Super-Sonic tried one out

Corbic said:
Also, is there a footswitch that you can use to control the Bassman/Vibrolux switch and channel switching, and perhaps reverb?

I haven't seen the switch, but I'd imagine that's one of the best selling points on these amps. I actually liked my Pro Tube Concert 4-10 more than any other Fender amp I've owned, mostly because it had so many useable features.
It looks like this new 'Pro Tube Series' amp took it even further.

For all the guys wanting a Fender that does more, this is your amp.
 
Re: Fender Super-Sonic tried one out

Corbic said:
Also, is there a footswitch that you can use to control the Bassman/Vibrolux switch and channel switching, and perhaps reverb?

Yes and Yes, and a switch for the effects loop, that can be made to act like a solo boost.
 
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