Nostalgic Distortion
New member
One amp to rule them all!!!! Okay, perhaps not but its pretty freaking amazing for under $500!!! I just picked up this little gem for a steal yesterday and I got it locally. After going through about a half dozen different amp heads & combos over the course of the past month or so I was starting to get disenfranchised with the whole process? Basically I needed to find a amp that wouldn't just be a specialty amp for some stuff, I've got several of those already...
What I needed was something that could cover a lot of ground and do it very well, not just here's a Fender, VOX, & Marshall type voicing, if you squint your eyes you'll hear it? As for the price I definitely lucked out, $450 local pick-up!!! If I'd bought the same thing online it would have been substantially higher! He did me a solid on the price, no doubt, but it weighs a ton so the shipping is what would have really hurt me?
This particular amp has very low hours and I bought it from the original owner who happens to be someone that I know & trust. I essentially traded my DSL40C for it (in a round about way, sold on Reverb then it paid for this) and I honestly couldn't be happier!
So it's not a Bogner Custom Creations this amp isn't really geared towards Higher Gain, at least not specifically anyway? Really it reminds me of a Mesa Dual Rec.? It has a very Fender-ish clean CH with great dynamic snap & beautiful, ghostly, reverberated, well you know??? The clean CH has a crunch button that kinda bumps it into this vintage Orange territory & with more gain the signal becomes more dynamic & the sustain really starts ringing out!
The onboard effects in it are pretty darn great too! To be honest I kinda like the onboard reverb (Hall, Plate, Spring) & onboard delay (Ducking, Analog, Tape) more than the the reverb & delay I get from my very expensive boutique pedals!!!
Typically even if a amp has onboard reverb I'll use my Mad Prof. Silver Spring through the loop because it sounds more natural than a actual spring box does in a lot of cases & it's pretty hard to beat my Keeley Recino for delay! This little lady is the exception to the rule, both effects are natural sounding & very useable, although for super high gain stuff the Keeley still holds together better but that's just because it's an analog voiced digital delay. It's been my experience that digital delays in general sound better for high gain but that's just my opinion....
View attachment 76556
I haven't spent a whole lot of time on CH 2 yet because I tend to get most of my dirt from pedals, at least at lower volume levels anyway? I guess if I had to describe the gain CH I'd say it's part Bogner, part Messa, part CRANKED Bassman through a 4X10??? Like if those amps had a three way & the vintage Bassman forgot his protection, LOL!!!
Obviously you can get a little more than what I've described from it when it's pushed & that's where the Bogner-ness really starts to bleed in! Unfortunately to really appreciate this the amp has to be LOUD!!! I'm playing hooky from work today and I'll be the only one home so hopefully I can get a bit more time on CH-2 later on...
Oh, it's also got about a dozen little switches & knobs on it to & I've got absolutely no idea what they do yet, LOL!!! I'm pretty sure they are just for tone shaping so I'll have to play around with them and see what's what. With that in mind, if it sounded that good with a flat "NOONED" EQ last night I'd imagine it's only going to get better from here on out???
What I needed was something that could cover a lot of ground and do it very well, not just here's a Fender, VOX, & Marshall type voicing, if you squint your eyes you'll hear it? As for the price I definitely lucked out, $450 local pick-up!!! If I'd bought the same thing online it would have been substantially higher! He did me a solid on the price, no doubt, but it weighs a ton so the shipping is what would have really hurt me?
This particular amp has very low hours and I bought it from the original owner who happens to be someone that I know & trust. I essentially traded my DSL40C for it (in a round about way, sold on Reverb then it paid for this) and I honestly couldn't be happier!
So it's not a Bogner Custom Creations this amp isn't really geared towards Higher Gain, at least not specifically anyway? Really it reminds me of a Mesa Dual Rec.? It has a very Fender-ish clean CH with great dynamic snap & beautiful, ghostly, reverberated, well you know??? The clean CH has a crunch button that kinda bumps it into this vintage Orange territory & with more gain the signal becomes more dynamic & the sustain really starts ringing out!
The onboard effects in it are pretty darn great too! To be honest I kinda like the onboard reverb (Hall, Plate, Spring) & onboard delay (Ducking, Analog, Tape) more than the the reverb & delay I get from my very expensive boutique pedals!!!
Typically even if a amp has onboard reverb I'll use my Mad Prof. Silver Spring through the loop because it sounds more natural than a actual spring box does in a lot of cases & it's pretty hard to beat my Keeley Recino for delay! This little lady is the exception to the rule, both effects are natural sounding & very useable, although for super high gain stuff the Keeley still holds together better but that's just because it's an analog voiced digital delay. It's been my experience that digital delays in general sound better for high gain but that's just my opinion....
View attachment 76556
I haven't spent a whole lot of time on CH 2 yet because I tend to get most of my dirt from pedals, at least at lower volume levels anyway? I guess if I had to describe the gain CH I'd say it's part Bogner, part Messa, part CRANKED Bassman through a 4X10??? Like if those amps had a three way & the vintage Bassman forgot his protection, LOL!!!
Obviously you can get a little more than what I've described from it when it's pushed & that's where the Bogner-ness really starts to bleed in! Unfortunately to really appreciate this the amp has to be LOUD!!! I'm playing hooky from work today and I'll be the only one home so hopefully I can get a bit more time on CH-2 later on...
Oh, it's also got about a dozen little switches & knobs on it to & I've got absolutely no idea what they do yet, LOL!!! I'm pretty sure they are just for tone shaping so I'll have to play around with them and see what's what. With that in mind, if it sounded that good with a flat "NOONED" EQ last night I'd imagine it's only going to get better from here on out???
