django49

Fer sure! V1 was not fully ripe when they released it! The good new re that is that JHS admitted their mistake and apparently made it good for anyone unhappy with the original version.

The elusive Dumble amp tones. Whatever that means to you..... There have been multiple threads about all this. One more now is available.....JHS has come out with a "DIY" version called the "Notadumble" that is pretty darn good for the price. At $119 (plus shipping and tax). It does NOT have tubes and does not have the many finetuning controls of such as the Ethos versions. What it does have is the simpler 4 control function of such as the Zen Drive as well as a separate preamp/boost or whatever you call it. To me it more or less emulates the in/out OD section of the D type amp, inc such as the Fuchs ODS. Use one or the other or both. (Plus an FX loop with TRS). It IS DIY so you assemble yourself. Very simple. All parts provided aside from a screwdriver and pliers. No soldering, etc. Quick and easy. Even comes with a tube of "Goop" in event you want to make it more authentic. Had to try it. I am pretty impressed. Stuck it in front of my Swart SST (which I consider one of my favorite amps of all time). A wee bit of finetuning to sort out "my tone" and balance the two sides to sit right on top of the amp's stand alone tones. Works great for me. Better than I expected, actually. Not that I needed another variation, but for a simple grab and go.....It will not replace my Ethos CFD Or Effectrode SR-71, but it ain't bad. And it also does not cost $600. A very simple pedalboard with this, a board mounted power amp (the Carvin is not bad for their low price!) and one or two pedals in the loop. Small, light and an easy in/out for setups. And probably less in total than the cost of the CFD alone. I just might try that this weekend. Would it be better (as in more tweakable) if it had a full tone stack instead of one tone and one presence? Yeah. BUT I was able to get to the tones I want very easily. Certainly quicker than the 23 knobs and (2-3 way) switches plus 4 footswitches on the CFD. Def learning curve there! Worth consideration..... BTW, they also make a DIY "Notaklon". I have NOT given that a try.

Good results! More than once I had someone come over to buy something, ask what else I had, then proceeded to take more. A few years back I had a young guy locally that went rather nuts on guitars Could barely play when I met him, but he got better. Over a couple years, he bought over $60k in guitars and related gear just from me. Pretty sure he spent even more on real high end guitars from others. I reckon that he shipped a good number of them to China through Hong Kong before they tighten things up. I could make more progress if Mr. Hong was still in a buying mood....😉 Yeah, I have a pretty weighty stack of amp gear, including several classic Mesa pieces, some Swarts as well as the (too many) cabinets I built. But it does not make a lot of sense to ship those heavy things.

So, I broke down and agreed to sell the two special DuoTones I still had. That gets me down apparently to just five. Newport with Bigsby Monaco Elite with Lollar P90s Monaco SuperPro....Custom order with korina, Lollar Imperials, F hole. 25th Anniversary Ltd Edition Artist Ultimate (Not counting a cheapie import set up in a faint tilt toward David Gilmour's Strat). Cannot think of too many reasons to cut loose any. Well, I probably will sell the Newport, but looking to do that locally. Hard to believe how many I once had!😉

Getting great tones without the heavy lifting is what I have gone to for a bit now. Not really anyone I need to impress with a "stack". (Side note...I built a 1 x 8 cab with a 100 watt speaker that stood up admirably to an Orange half stack live, but that is another story). I have put together a setup with the Imperial preamp as a base. Royalist preamp in the bypass. So, more or less F type Blackface and Tweed, plus multiple M type options on call. For those that think the Royalist has insufficient gain, a boost in front works wonders. I happen to like the Chase Bliss Brothers AM (sort of a modern King of Tone without the time and expense to run down) for that. Add FX in the preamp loop, if desired. I do NOT have experience with the Fryette and am sure it is great. But what I have tried work well for me as pedalboard mounted power amps. (I want stereo and portability). The Duncan stereo works well, but the one I like better is the Thermion Zero (which can be redundant with the F type preamp built in, but can be bypassed or used for a separate preset). And if you want to get by for a lot less, Carvin makes a stereo power amp for $159 that I find very usable.....Downside is that it is small BUT needs the (included) brick of a power supply. Not bad if you can mount it under the board. Gig bag, pedalboard and small-ish stereo cab......In and out in one easy trip. And as much volume as I ever need.

Amazing what a tattoo artist can do!

Nice. I am a long time advocate of the Forte 3D type cabinets, which the lower portion clearly replicates. Will the top half have side reflecting panels inside as well? Or are those cutouts for inset handles? On some I have built, I had the top semi-open, with an oval cutout on the back, sorta Fuchs/Dumblish style and I liked that combination. Sounds so much bigger than a typical 2 x 12. You might prefer a closed back top. FWIW as to speakers, my favorite in the 3D style is the Alnico Cream, but I have yet to be real disappointed in any speaker I wired in it. And such as the CL80 (or Mesa MC 90) work well on the semi-open back. But that is for my tone taste.

Except the price.

Dare I say that is pretty much what the Hamer Talladega Pro was going for? I really liked it a lot. (Yeah, you know me. I had three and let them all go. Jol arguably tried to go upmarket toward the Huber Dolphin and did so as the economy was tanking. His efforts more or less live on with the Dantzig Tulsa. Which I have not played). Pretty much from the moment I got it, the Dolphin spoiled me. You might consider it a mashup of a Tele and LP, what with the coil splits and body shape. Whatever. It made me a better player from day one. I am a broken record😉.....FWIW, I play it a lot more than the Orca 59, which gets closer to a LP (Generally with a 25" scale). FWIW, I would tend to prefer something other than the 490/498 pickups, but YMMV. Anyway, I would suggest trying it before turning the thumb down. Once upon a time you might get a Dolphin in the low $3k range, but them days are long gone. https://www.premierguitar.com/hamer-talladega-pro-review

This could be as big as the one Pat Boone did of the genre......

Sounds like a good option. FWIW, I have used Audioengine systems and they seem to do a very good job at either desktop or larger room sound at a very fair price.

I hope this one is different enough to avoid being sued by Fender.....

I guess I am the real outlier. Used 10s on the shorter scale necks for years. When I discovered I could go comfortably to the 25.5"scale, and on a fairly fat neck, I also discovered I liked 11s better. I do not have huge hands and not near the strength I once had. And I am an unrepentant string bender. But it works...Different strokes and all that.....

I second the TWE 1. Or, frankly, most anything Robbie/Ethos puts out.