Gr8Scott
Wookieologist
My first impression of the Traynor YCS-100 is that it is a diamond in the rough. It has many flaws that make it something less than perfect, but it has enough going right for it to be worth further investigation. First and foremost, the 100/30 watt switch thing is a godsend/curse. The 100 watt side of the switch allows more clean headroom so the power section of the amp isn't breaking up (if the user only wants preamp distortion this is supposed to be a good thing). Running it in this mode makes the tone overall a bit more balanced sounding. The amp was apparently designed to be running it at 100 watts most of the time and at 30 when practicing occasionally. When using it at 30 watts, the volume decreases enough to be running the output tubes harder without damaging your hearing quite as much, which gives the amp a decent throaty master volume EL34 sound (with the right speakers it will sound pretty marshally). Problem is that when using the amp in 30 watt mode the overall tone of the amp shifts toward a less bassy and more bright sound. The sound isn't THIN as many previous reviews have said, but brighter by far. Adjust for it properly and it still sounds really good. The gain channels come into their own when the master gain gets cranked (as they should). I have to turn the presence on the amp down to zero when using it in 30 watt mode. The treble on channel 1 and 2 goes to zero also to make those particular channels sound almost balanced and it's still a tad bright. The clean channel benefits from the 30 watt switch and gets more sparkly (of course) in class A mode. I figure that using darker 12AX7's might do the trick to get the amp to be more adjustable in either mode.
Another flaw is a parasitic oscillation in the preamp. When you run the gain past halfway on either of the gain channels you get a sound like a jet taking off in the background that gets louder and higher pitched when you increase the gain or stop playing and let it get going again. It sucks and is a design flaw pure and simple. I've heard that Traynor has a recall in effect for this problem to cure it with new boards. This oscillation makes me hesitant to try the Sovtek LPS tubes because they have a tendancy to be a little microphonic (which makes such an oscillation even worse but they are excellent tubes nonetheless).
With all this said, it's a good sounding amp. I think they had their heads up their collective asses when they designed this amp in some respects (it should have been a 50 watt amp with class A options and fewer "tone shaping" buttons (I don't really use the modern and scoop buttons on the gain channels). I do use the bright button when in 100 watt mode for the clean channel, but that's all. I also use the boost buttons for the pre channels to get more gain out of them (it also seems to beef up the sound a bit more too).
The lead boost is a novel feature. It gives the same controllable level boost regardless of where you are channel wise. Neat feature.
Neat amp and it has a lot going for it. If Traynor gets their poop straight on the pre and fashions some kind of fix for the tone difference when swapping wattage, it would be most excellent. I wonder if I can mod the amp to darken the overall tone of the amp a touch when using the 30 watt mode only? Maybe add a couple of poles to the switch in the rear to add a capacitor to the mix somewhere along the lines...:fingersx:
Another flaw is a parasitic oscillation in the preamp. When you run the gain past halfway on either of the gain channels you get a sound like a jet taking off in the background that gets louder and higher pitched when you increase the gain or stop playing and let it get going again. It sucks and is a design flaw pure and simple. I've heard that Traynor has a recall in effect for this problem to cure it with new boards. This oscillation makes me hesitant to try the Sovtek LPS tubes because they have a tendancy to be a little microphonic (which makes such an oscillation even worse but they are excellent tubes nonetheless).
With all this said, it's a good sounding amp. I think they had their heads up their collective asses when they designed this amp in some respects (it should have been a 50 watt amp with class A options and fewer "tone shaping" buttons (I don't really use the modern and scoop buttons on the gain channels). I do use the bright button when in 100 watt mode for the clean channel, but that's all. I also use the boost buttons for the pre channels to get more gain out of them (it also seems to beef up the sound a bit more too).
The lead boost is a novel feature. It gives the same controllable level boost regardless of where you are channel wise. Neat feature.
Neat amp and it has a lot going for it. If Traynor gets their poop straight on the pre and fashions some kind of fix for the tone difference when swapping wattage, it would be most excellent. I wonder if I can mod the amp to darken the overall tone of the amp a touch when using the 30 watt mode only? Maybe add a couple of poles to the switch in the rear to add a capacitor to the mix somewhere along the lines...:fingersx:
First one I found is sitting in my office right now. It cost $750 shipped. Honestly the power amp section of this amp make it worthy of that price alone. I could run a seperate pre through it and be very happy with the outcome. Hopefully Traynor will get this straightened out for me and I won't have to do that. They have a good name, and I doubt they would let a screwed up pre ruin their flagship line like this. As of right now, I'm going to reserve my judgement until I have some time to deal with Traynor. If they work to make things right on the pre the rest I can probably fix myself.
