Gearjoneser
Gear Ho
I went down to one of the few Guitar Centers that stocks high end amps, GC Sherman Oaks, mostly to hear a Bogner Ecstasy Classic that Olin said they had.
Well the Classic was already sold, so I checked out the Diezel Herbert, Diezel Einstein, Soldano Avenger, and a Bad Cat Custom 15/30.
First, the metal monster, the Diezel Herbert. If you want metal, look no further than this fire breathing gain machine! I'll admit, I like more organic sounding amps, but this 180W crusher has 3 nicely voiced channels with their own volumes, besides the 2 switchable master volumes. Channel one is a decent clean tone which I expected from an amp with infinite headroom.....maybe similar to a Mesa, Peavey, or Crate BV clean channel. The crunch channel can clean up to the point of Angus Young type tone, but it really excels as a metal rhythm like Lynch, Wylde, or Dime. The 3rd channel is just distortion mayhem...probably the highest amount of defined gain I've ever heard come out of an amp! It's probably too saturated for most rhythm, but gives a nice singing metal lead tone with the gain on half!
I also liked how the amp had switchable masters, so you can boost any of the 3 channels, and also some midcut knobs to dial the mids further than the mid controls on each channel, as well as a deep knob for enhanced thump.
You'll need $4100 to get into that amp though, so keep dreaming!
The Einstein was a little more my style, since it has 3 different modes with EQ, Clean, Texas, and Mega. Mega is the trademark Diezel rhythm gain tone. Unfortunately these 3 channels share 1 set of EQ's and are NON switchable from a footswitch. The gain channel, Lead has it's own set of EQ's, and is very versatile, which will take you through most levels of gain for soloing. Voiced very nice. This head is 50W or 100W, which is what most people need, not the head-imploding watts of the Herbert or VH4. I think most players from varying styles of music would prefer the Einstein 50W over the others.....I know I'd choose this one. Diezels aren't cheap, but they don't suck either. These are in the mid $3000's.
The Soldano Avenger is touted as being the SLO lead channel only, for players that would rather roll their volume back for semi clean tones. However, gain is what Soldano is known for, and this will definitely dish out copious amounts of high gain chunk.
It's a little looser in feel than the super tight Diezels, but possibly fatter as a result. With a Les Paul it reminded me of Billy Gibbons when he's playing with max distortion. I really like this amp because of it's character, and for a 6L6 amp, it's pretty nice in the mids. It's one channel, but you can cover a lot of ground with different variations of volume/gain. I think a strat would probably sound better on this amp than the Diezels too, although all of the amps mentioned are really meant for heavy humbucker tones.
Also, the price is a lot nicer on this amp. Still not cheap, but at $1550, it's reasonable, if you don't need a second channel. A used one would be a good score for around $1100.
Continued....
Well the Classic was already sold, so I checked out the Diezel Herbert, Diezel Einstein, Soldano Avenger, and a Bad Cat Custom 15/30.
First, the metal monster, the Diezel Herbert. If you want metal, look no further than this fire breathing gain machine! I'll admit, I like more organic sounding amps, but this 180W crusher has 3 nicely voiced channels with their own volumes, besides the 2 switchable master volumes. Channel one is a decent clean tone which I expected from an amp with infinite headroom.....maybe similar to a Mesa, Peavey, or Crate BV clean channel. The crunch channel can clean up to the point of Angus Young type tone, but it really excels as a metal rhythm like Lynch, Wylde, or Dime. The 3rd channel is just distortion mayhem...probably the highest amount of defined gain I've ever heard come out of an amp! It's probably too saturated for most rhythm, but gives a nice singing metal lead tone with the gain on half!
I also liked how the amp had switchable masters, so you can boost any of the 3 channels, and also some midcut knobs to dial the mids further than the mid controls on each channel, as well as a deep knob for enhanced thump.
You'll need $4100 to get into that amp though, so keep dreaming!
The Einstein was a little more my style, since it has 3 different modes with EQ, Clean, Texas, and Mega. Mega is the trademark Diezel rhythm gain tone. Unfortunately these 3 channels share 1 set of EQ's and are NON switchable from a footswitch. The gain channel, Lead has it's own set of EQ's, and is very versatile, which will take you through most levels of gain for soloing. Voiced very nice. This head is 50W or 100W, which is what most people need, not the head-imploding watts of the Herbert or VH4. I think most players from varying styles of music would prefer the Einstein 50W over the others.....I know I'd choose this one. Diezels aren't cheap, but they don't suck either. These are in the mid $3000's.
The Soldano Avenger is touted as being the SLO lead channel only, for players that would rather roll their volume back for semi clean tones. However, gain is what Soldano is known for, and this will definitely dish out copious amounts of high gain chunk.
It's a little looser in feel than the super tight Diezels, but possibly fatter as a result. With a Les Paul it reminded me of Billy Gibbons when he's playing with max distortion. I really like this amp because of it's character, and for a 6L6 amp, it's pretty nice in the mids. It's one channel, but you can cover a lot of ground with different variations of volume/gain. I think a strat would probably sound better on this amp than the Diezels too, although all of the amps mentioned are really meant for heavy humbucker tones.
Also, the price is a lot nicer on this amp. Still not cheap, but at $1550, it's reasonable, if you don't need a second channel. A used one would be a good score for around $1100.
Continued....
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Now sell your stupid American Strats and get a real boutique guitar.... just j/k 
The retro classic is just the classic strat with more attention (aka, hand tapped woods for maximum resonance, the best fretwork of possibly anyone else out there today AND Don actually personally answers the phone and offers good customer service). And Joe, if you like the pickups that are in that Grosh and trust my judgement, you owe yourself to getting a set of WCR "SR" pickups... I guarantee you'll be floored.
