Re: HI END AMP TALK -- all experiences welcome!
The thing with TGP is that it's probably been asked before. Perhaps a better place to read up on than post questions.
So the vibe I'm getting from you is you want a thicker, older school marshall kind of tone. Right?
I don't think 65 will be your bag. The Royal Albert model is vaguely like a JMP with a sculpted top end, so maybe that. But the other stuff you're talking about is mostly in the marshall camp, and the rest of the 65 range isn't really on that tip. Among the very best for my tastes, but for yours?
My experience with Reinhardt is the ampzilla and the 18. The ampzilla was a brutal thing, kind of like a jubilee gone wild, and not in a good way. The 18 was fantastic, easily the most 'big marshall' sounding 18watter I've heard, with a huge vocabulary in terms of the marshally tones you could get from it.
If you've not tried a Bogner ecstasy give it a go. The 'plexi' voicing on the blue channel is a beautiful thing, and that's just one of the many tones in that box. The 101B has a very compressed feel which makes it incredibly easy to play, but it is a different feel to an old-school amp, so you'll have to plug in to see if you like it. The ecstasy classic is supposed to have a more open feel so that may be a good choice if you like what you hear but need a little more immediacy. The people who own bogners get crazy religious about them, and with good reason, but they aren't for everyone. Give one a try and see. They certainly sit on the thicker side of the Marshall camp, and they record like a dream.
As far as div13 go, my only time with one has been with the FTR37, and I was disappointed. It was sort of an average bf deluxe reverb on one side and a fizzy fender/marshall hybrid on the other. I expected to love that amp and was highly disappointed. Maybe the other stuff is great...
The TopHat most in your ballpark is the emplexador mk2. It's a good solid take on the plexi and metalface tone but it's nothing spectacular. The only TopHat that I thought was a genuinely nice amp was the supreme 16 and that ain't what you're hunting. I suspect much of the buzz among tophat users may be based on value for money rather than 'played it all and this is the best'.
I've played a lot of Matamps and they are all over the map, tonally and design-wise. I know they have a certain 'ooh cool, British amp' factor among many US players, but to me they are just amps that are very hard to sell. Honestly I'd recommend the Orange Rockerverb 50 over any of the maybe 10 different Matamps I've played.
Can't help with the komets and brunos.
