Genz Benz Diablo anyone?

Gamera

Gamera

New member
Anyone have any experience with either the 60 or 100 watt combos of this amp? From reading some reviews it sounds like it may be an ideal amp for me. Switchable from 60/30 or 100/50 watts for manageable sound, great cleans, great crunch, great with humbuckers or single coils.

I play an HSS Fat Strat and I need fat, metal, chunky 'buckers at times and smooth, creamy, overdriven Robin Trowery neck single coil other times.

Anyone have an experience they care to share? Or better yet, sound samples? Thanks!

http://www.guitarplayer.com/story.asp?storyCode=4741
 
Re: Genz Benz Diablo anyone?

i have palyed one. it was the 100 watt i guess you would call it quarter stack. it sounds really good. nice crunchiness to it. if thats what you are looking for. it reminds me of a marshall. you would not be disapointed if you are thinking of purchasing one.
 
Re: Genz Benz Diablo anyone?

I rather liked it. It was in line when I was looking at Bogners. My only complaint is it has a few too many knobs for tweking.

It has a lot of channels, a lot of gain, and a nice true clean that has some sparkle for a high gain amp.

The footswitch options, and multiple FX loops are a great idea.

One of the sweeter sounding high gain heads I have heard, very unheralded. Though I still prefer Marshall and Bogner a bit more, these are MUCH cheaper.
 
Re: Genz Benz Diablo anyone?

as Olin mentioned, for the price it's an awesome amp - I've played through the 60 watt combo and was very impressed, great tones from clean to just about as much gain as you can possibly want.
 
Re: Genz Benz Diablo anyone?

i have an el diablo 100 and love it, best metal crunch ive heard. be sure to try it out with your guitar if you can as it can be sensitive to different pickups. only complint i have is that there is no button on the footswitch for reverb and you have to turn it on/off manually. also be sure to check it out with different speakers.

above all it sounds great and looks incredible.
 
Re: Genz Benz Diablo anyone?

On paper it looks very impressive. Active EQ, bias points on back for running different tubes, etc. And all for a very nice price.

I've searched high and low for soundclips to see what it sounds like and there's literally nothing out there. A couple of short clips that don't really show what the amp can do and a video on youtube that sounds horrible (due to the camera mic). Reviews seem all over the map from sterile, grainy distortion to Bogner-like creamy tones. If any of you Diablo owners can throw up some clips it would be great to hear what it really sounds like.

One thing I noticed on the youtube video is that the amp is very noisy on the gain channel. Comments?
 
Re: Genz Benz Diablo anyone?

I have the 60C (60W combo). I absolutely love the amp. It is the most versitile 2 channel amp I have ever played. I have used it for Jazzy things, country things, classic rock and a Santana-like gain lead. You can run el34 or 6l6 power tubes (I have loved the el34's). It has 60W/30w pentode/triode switching and a number of other voicing change devices. In all cases it has been unbeliveable. It really stands out in the mix (in a good way). It is built like a tank (Military grade PCB so this is somewhat literal). Watch the active EQ as it can easily be over tweaked though and on channel 2 be sure you understand how the voicing control is set. Besides it has all kinds of cool lights. All I have ever wanted from this amp is a 3rd channel.
 
Re: Genz Benz Diablo anyone?

Does the 60-watt combo have the ability to add a separate cabinet on later?
 
Re: Genz Benz Diablo anyone?

I had the 100W head for a while. It sounds good with the pre gain at '5' or below, but the phase inverter in this amp is a transformer, not a tube - they make a big deal out of than in the lit, because (it used to be, at least) it's more expensive to do it that way, but I don't know if it is the execution or the transformer itself, but when it saturates it sounds like sh7t. Muddy and blatty.

The clean tone is stellar, IMO.
 
Re: Genz Benz Diablo anyone?

myxolidian said:
On paper it looks very impressive. Active EQ, bias points on back for running different tubes, etc. And all for a very nice price.

I've searched high and low for soundclips to see what it sounds like and there's literally nothing out there. A couple of short clips that don't really show what the amp can do and a video on youtube that sounds horrible (due to the camera mic). Reviews seem all over the map from sterile, grainy distortion to Bogner-like creamy tones. If any of you Diablo owners can throw up some clips it would be great to hear what it really sounds like.

One thing I noticed on the youtube video is that the amp is very noisy on the gain channel. Comments?
Click to expand...

maybe check out 7 Witches stuff - I guess they use them. I know that would be all processed and all, but..
 
Re: Genz Benz Diablo anyone?

myxolidian said:
On paper it looks very impressive. Active EQ, bias points on back for running different tubes, etc. And all for a very nice price.

I've searched high and low for soundclips to see what it sounds like and there's literally nothing out there. A couple of short clips that don't really show what the amp can do and a video on youtube that sounds horrible (due to the camera mic). Reviews seem all over the map from sterile, grainy distortion to Bogner-like creamy tones. If any of you Diablo owners can throw up some clips it would be great to hear what it really sounds like.

One thing I noticed on the youtube video is that the amp is very noisy on the gain channel. Comments?
Click to expand...

The amp can be all of the things you indicated, good and bad. This is part of its flexibility. If you set it up for those things it will do those things. I have several amps (not real high gain), and high gain pedals. It is as quieter or no more noisy than any amp or pedal I have, have played (Mesa, XXX, 5150, etc) or heard played. It is not noisy unless you make it so.

It is not exceptionally muddy when full tilt unless you set it that way (my opinion here). For the fun of it I was running with every aspect of the hot channel cooking. It was creamy and smooth with articulate voicing (for leads anyway ... I was not doing chordal work at that time). After that I even hit this group of settings with my SD Twin Tube Classic maxed on channel 2, as well as other pedals from boost to gain stages. It was as good at doing that as any boutique amp I have seen or heard.
 
Re: Genz Benz Diablo anyone?

Here is a quick clip I had done of clean using the direct outs (Amp's and Ultra). I did a clean clip to demonstrat the Seth Lover to someone and to show someone else use of space.

This tune was recorded using a Warmoth Carved top hollow VW (24.75" scale) having a mahogany back and quilted maple top. It has a Seymour Duncan Seth Lover neck pick up, Seymour Duncan Vintage Stack in the middle and a Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates bridge pickup. This was recorded using the neck pickup (slight roll of on volume and tone). This guitar was run to a Boss SD-1 used as a boost. This signal ran to the clean channel of my Genz Benz El Diablo 60C 1x12 combo amp running at noon for gain and volume (master volume was a 2 o'clock). I used a Weber Load Dump set at maximum attenuation to keep the actual amp volume nearly silent. The speaker compensated line out ran to the board, with an additional line out from a Ultra G100 haivng 4x12 cab/speaker emulation running to another track on the board. The board was a Behringer 18 channel board that ran to a Presonus Firebox firewire sound card. This ran to a Dell 8600 Inspiron under Cakewalk's Home Studio. The bass was recorded using my Fernandez Vertigo running through the Ultra G100 to the board (4x12 emulation on). The drums were arranged using a drum loops compilation. I eq'ed the bass and drums in home studio. The bass was compressed in Home Studio at about 4:1. One lead track had the spring reverb on it; the other had some compression on it.

http://drpietrzak.com/music/bluesc.mp3
 
Re: Genz Benz Diablo anyone?

Played an el diablo 100 several times and it beats marshall in every possible way.
 
Re: Genz Benz Diablo anyone?

drpietrzak said:
Here is a quick clip I had done of clean using the direct outs (Amp's and Ultra). I did a clean clip to demonstrat the Seth Lover to someone an
Click to expand...

Thanks for the clip. Is there any way you can record various clean/distorted tones using just the amp with a mic?
 
Re: Genz Benz Diablo anyone?

My studio is being remoddled right now so I can't off hand. I would say it is best o just go out and try it yourself.
 
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