ahhhhh yeah! First of all I gave it a thorough (3 hour) once over last night. It was only slightly above room temp. when I shut it down.... awesome!!!!!!
Took about an hour to really find the sweet spots, and get the tubes goin. Once they warmed up it was like an electric fuzzy warm thick blanket encapsulated my soul. The low end, and mids through the 12" was rich and I mean rich, but the jangley high end was not annoying like I was hopeing. Speaker seems fairly well designed, and sounded very good. While this amp is very versitile so far, that ability to produce an almost disgusting high end tone is not available, making it slightly lacking for a studio amp, IMO. Good thing I didn't sell my Fender 15.
The DSP I was plesently suprised with, no significant destruction of the guitars freqs high or low. Delay was cool, with varying times through different selections. Flange almost worked like a tremelo it was kind of an interesting effect, but was simply awesome with the depth that this amp has. The chorus was also cool, but easily the lesser of the 3 effects, nothing to write home about, just standard. All the effects had a kind of smooth overtone which I guessed masked the effect from sounding as digital as it is.
When the gain was cranked and the master was at about noon, there was almost no audible hum or buzz. Just what I was hopeing for with this amp, almost no noise
The footsitch was very crisp, had a cool design plugged into a true bypass pedal input.
Another problem I found was the IEC power cable connection was not nearly as firm as it should be. Once I tilted the amp to check the tubes and feel if the amp was getting too hot, and as soon as I moved it, the power cable loosened and the amp shut down, NOT GOOD
I guess I'll be hauling some gaff tape with the amp at all times.
Beware, if you decide to get this amp through the mail or internet, please request special shipping! The amp weighs about 50 lbs and was shipped with no double box and no bubble wrap, the amp was almost falling through the bottom of the factory issued box. But it is true hopefully that this shows how tough the thing is. It was shipped with tube sheilds or covers, I'm not sure what they call them, and most importantly it worked right out of the box.
I thought I'd report my first impressions, mostly faults, but this amp really is a gem. Great sound clarity and warmth. Initially it was not as loud as I would have hoped, but later that night I had some ringing going on. I'm not sure this makes sense... but you get that feeling that its not loud, but it is, it just sounds good, not loud.
09-27-2005, 01:05 PM
New Gibson/Epi amps.
8.5 outta 10
Linear Mode
