Re: Out For Delivery
I haven't had much chance to let it rip yet. I did manage to get it all set up and put it through some low-to-mid volume paces for about 20 minutes this afternoon, but that was it.
I had a brief freak-out moment where the amp fired up just fine but no sound would come out! But a quick look in back revealed that a preamp tube had come unseated during shipping. Once that was firmly back in place, all was well.
From what I could tell, it sounds great. Very different character than the Pro Mod, surprisingly. Much smoother and more refined. Chewy. The bass and low-mids might slight slightly higher in the spectrum, hitting you with more of an immediate chest-thunk than the gut-whomp of the Pro Mod. I'm thinking the Quick Rod may actually sound fuller in a band mix due to it's money-freq sitting higher up out of the way of the bass.
The clean channel is dramatically different, obviously due to the dedicated EQ. Cool thing - the clean channel has volume AND gain control.. You can dial in a nice little bit of grit despite the massive headroom, and it's very lush.
The real fun will be getting both Splawns up and roaring for a show.
what the heck is a gears switch?
It's something that Splawn came up with. It's essentially different levels of gain or overdrive within a single channel, so you may have a two channel amp that has OD1 and OD2 on one channel and OD3 and solo boost on another channel, like that.
If I didn't explain that just right, will someone please correct me.
Not quite... The Quick Rod has two channels: Clean and OD. OD has two footswitchable modes: OD1 (rhythm) and OD2 (lead). The difference between the modes is just a pre-set gain boost.
The gears switch is a 3-position rotary switch that defines the preamp configuration of the OD channel. Gear 1 is supposed to be like a hot-rod Plexi; Gear 2 like a JCM 800, and Gear 3 like a modern high-gain amp with a classic Marshall voicing. Overall it's pretty convincing in all 3 gears but Splawns have more low end than you'd ever get out of a Plexi or 800.