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Would You Really Want One?


crunchee

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I just found out about this amp today, my first reaction was 'ewwww', kinda like the time I found a very dead mouse in a closet, after it got squashed by a box and it started to smell.  It's (the amp, that is) been out for at least three months, or it was announced about that long ago; and I was blissfully ignorant about it until one made it's appearance at DGS today.  I might be interested in one, if the used price was really low.  Thoughts?

https://shop.fender.com/en-US/guitar-amplifiers/contemporary-digital/tone-master-deluxe-reverb/2274100000.html

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It's not for me,  it's solid state.  The only transistor amp  for guitar I'll ever bother with is my little Yamaha THR10X and only because it's dinky & convenient, so grudgingly it serves a purpose.  I gather some digital modelling amps are meant to be rather good but I can't be bothered to get my head around them. Apart from that I just bought a Marshall preamp and power amp, both valve-flavoured.

If you're interested the people at a well-known UK music shop (who I've come to think of lovingly as 'The 2 Pillocks') do a blind test between  some valve amps and a digital modelling amp and the results are rather surprising. The link is below but at 53 I'll stay with what I've always used and liked, which is Marshalls. I've never had a bad one or one I regretted buying. Each to his own.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6AwTp4ZUm0

 

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It is light as all get out, looks like a real Fender, works like a Fender. My guess is that its going to be a hit, special for the aging rocker/ bar band/weekend hero that needs to save their back and do what they lover, yet look just as cool doing it. 

Why doesn't everyone have a kemper? Because they play with one channel amps and run pedals into them, the kempers don't look cool, and there are too many options. PROBLEM SOLVED

I picked up a Twin on Saturday, or should I say FAILED to pick up a twin on Saturday. LOL 

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16 hours ago, joshoowah said:

Fender's proven for the better part of 30 years that they aren't as good as the rest of the industry at getting good Fender tones from new amps. 

The expectation that Fender could possibly get it right is stronger than the experience of disappointment.  However, they might have done it this time.  Since the software can be updated there is hope. 

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16 hours ago, crunchee said:

Thoughts?

I’d give it a whirl at a store to see how good it is. My guess is it is probably fairly convincing. I like the weight aspect, and damn it all if DRs and TRs don’t just sound great and love dirt pedals. I also like the idea that it replicates the overdriven tubes when the volume is pushed. My first amp was a Kustom ala John Fogerty special (solid state of course) I got in ‘75, made in ‘69. It is still kicking ass and taking names at a friend’s house. Not a penny spent on tubes, or  troubleshooting and repairs. 

 

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I would have to hear it, I wouldn't dismiss it just because it's solid state. I've been playing my Teles recently through my Harke HyDrive 2x10 solid state bass amp lately and I have been very pleasantly surprised. I have also unfortunately become the owner of a couple of other combos which have EVM12's in them and while they sound great,  they are best left exactly where they are! :) A small, great sounding LIGHT amp would be worth a listen (says the guy working a deal on a Super Reverb...). A combo that weighed less than 75 lbs might be nice for a change :)

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Seems like a good idea. I liked Deluxes and clones when I was in a band with a drummer and used pedals for dirt. I don't see myself turning away from my Fractal now that I'm used to running it into a PA, but were I still playing with my old drummer I'd give this a try for sure.

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5 hours ago, Studio Custom said:

With options like the Helix and such I can't see the point.  By the time you put a few pedals in front of this you are nearly at the same price point. 

Plenty of guys already have pedal, they want to use their pedals, and giving them all these options they won't use or don't need is pointless in itself. 

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This takes me back to when I bought my first really nice guitar, a G&L semihollow ASAT Classic. I started trying out several amps at the music store where I bought it. It quickly became apparent to me that solid state amps with attractive cabinetry from the likes of Fender and Ampeg for $600-ish were a bad deal--sterile tone, very circuit board-dependent (this makes maintenance and repairs either expensive or impossible) and there were better deals around

As for the better deals, I was lucky: Top Hat Amplification had just started up, and I bonded with their Club Deluxe, PTP hand-wired with a Fender Deluxe-styled amplifier (twin 6V6GTs) powering a 12" Celestion Greenback. No reverb, no trem, but pure magic for an introductory price of $590, $60 less than Fender's newly introduced--and rather sterile-- Blues Deluxe. That was 1997. I still have the Top Hat.

When I first got into guitar, I thought the sonic reputation of all-tube, PTP construction was a myth. After all, as a high end audio enthusiast, I had heard plenty of well-reviewed, great-sounding rigs that were powered by solid state, circuit-board-based electronics.

Then in 2012 I had the opportunity to pick up up a PTP handwired line stage from an audio buddy at an attractive price. I was impressed by the audition, but I was unprepared for its effect of my living room stereo. Because it's a line stag e, every source went through it--FM radio, CD, computer-based YouTube, and turntable-based vinyl. EVERYTHING sounded better. I was sold, and thanked my lucky stars for a fidgety audiobuddy who couldn't leave well enough alone. I was all too happy to help him on his way to his next big thing.

A couple years later he called and asked me if I'd be interested in the matching phono preamp, also all-tube, handwired PTP for just $575. Hell yes, I would. This is a phono preamp sonically compared in online forums with this phono stage (https://www.needledoctor.com/Manley-Labs-Steelhead-RC-Phono-Preamp. Granted, the Steelhead has more gain and versatility, but for $7825 less, I could live with the one I got.

One again I was unprepared for what it brought to the party. I'm a bit of a big band fan, and a few days after acquiring this phono stage, I put on a Count Basie Big Band album I picked up at a thrift shop for $2.99.

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Basie often starts out a chart with a low key groove, propelled by rhythm guitar, subtle drumming, walking bass, and some minimalist piano chords plinking along. This is then followed by a big blast, where he calls on the whole brass section to engage the room with a sharp-ninth chord which makes everybody sit up and take notice. With my new phono stage I was unprepared for the blast. It really took over the room and reproduced the sensation of the live experience.

I'd never heard that LP sound that way before and it took me a few days to realize that this was the first time I'd played that record through my newly acquired all-tube handwired PTP phono stage with military surplus NOS tubes. You'll never convince me it doesn't make a difference, and it explains my "meh" reaction when I hear music through solid state PCB electronics, whether it's guitar amps or audio equipment. I think the handwired PTP also makes a difference because the components aren't soldered onto a PCB shared with transformers and capacitors.

 

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7 hours ago, gtrdaddy said:

I’d give it a whirl at a store to see how good it is. My guess is it is probably fairly convincing. I like the weight aspect, and damn it all if DRs and TRs don’t just sound great and love dirt pedals. I also like the idea that it replicates the overdriven tubes when the volume is pushed. My first amp was a Kustom ala John Fogerty special (solid state of course) I got in ‘75, made in ‘69. It is still kicking ass and taking names at a friend’s house. Not a penny spent on tubes, or  troubleshooting and repairs. 

 

This may run counter to my previous post, but ... The Kustom amps were notable for being able to do that with a solid state constuction. You make a good point. You don't really know until you try it, and some things fly in the face of conventional wisdom. John Fogerty sure knew how to make pinch harmonics into a Kustom rig (e.g., extended solo in "Suzie Q."

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I'd at least give one a spin.  I mostly live in clean to a little bit o' dirt country and have pedals for the rest, so the clean tone and dynamics are important to me.  I've been happy/impressed with the Super Champ XD's, but they have a tube power section and both of mine have had the necessary tweaks to take them from pretty good to really good.  I've always maintained that the feel of an amp is in the power section, so I'm a bit skeptical.

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I was reading through the ad for this amp, it's £799 at one of the cheapest places in the UK or $986.55 at today' s exchange rate, so it'll probably cost even more in parts of continental Europe.   One of the reasons it's light is because the cabinet is made of 'solid' Pine, i.e. softwood instead of the more traditional hardwood-derived marine ply, known for it's strength & durability and used in the manufacture of most guitar amp head/combo & speaker enclosures since just about forever.   Could the marketing people have been sprinkling their magic pixie dust again? (I'm with Bill Hicks when it comes to marketing people btw) saying in the ad that Pine is somehow  'more musical';  it's got absolutely definitely nothing to do with cost-cutting or increasing profit, not one bit.  I guess it should be OK for a 1x12 cabinet but I'm seeing it as another reason not to buy.  I wonder if it'll smell 'piney fresh' when the transformer and the power transistors heat up?  BTW I'm not a 'valve fundamentalist',  I used an H||H 'VS muscian' 100W combo for 9 years between the ages of 14-23. It was a very good amp, but every Marshall I've owned since then has been better.

 

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1 hour ago, Mr. Dave said:

I was reading through the ad for this amp, it's £799 at one of the cheapest places in the UK or $986.55 at today' s exchange rate, so it'll probably cost even more in parts of continental Europe.   One of the reasons it's light is because the cabinet is made of 'solid' Pine, i.e. softwood instead of the more traditional hardwood-derived marine ply, known for it's strength & durability and used in the manufacture of most guitar amp head/combo & speaker enclosures since just about forever.   Could the marketing people have been sprinkling their magic pixie dust again? (I'm with Bill Hicks when it comes to marketing people btw) saying in the ad that Pine is somehow  'more musical';  it's got absolutely definitely nothing to do with cost-cutting or increasing profit, not one bit.  I guess it should be OK for a 1x12 cabinet but I'm seeing it as another reason not to buy.  I wonder if it'll smell 'piney fresh' when the transformer and the power transistors heat up?  BTW I'm not a 'valve fundamentalist',  I used an H||H 'VS muscian' 100W combo for 9 years between the ages of 14-23. It was a very good amp, but every Marshall I've owned since then has been better.

 

Lots of boo-teek cab makers boast of being solid wood (usually birch) and not MDF. I dunno which is stronger, but pine's sure going to be lighter, which I'd like. They really said it was more musical? Gawd...

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On 9/25/2019 at 10:40 AM, jim777 said:

I would have to hear it, I wouldn't dismiss it just because it's solid state. I've been playing my Teles recently through my Harke HyDrive 2x10 solid state bass amp lately and I have been very pleasantly surprised. I have also unfortunately become the owner of a couple of other combos which have EVM12's in them and while they sound great,  they are best left exactly where they are! :) A small, great sounding LIGHT amp would be worth a listen (says the guy working a deal on a Super Reverb...). A combo that weighed less than 75 lbs might be nice for a change :)

I hated the tone of the Peavey Backstage 1x10 solid state combo amp that I had as my 1st amp as a teenager. I wish I knew and bought a Fender Super Champ or a silverface Champ or Princeton tube combo amp instead. I'm not a fan of solid state combo amps and struggled with that sound. Once I got my Peavey VTM 120 or 60 amp heads & matching 4x12 cab with the Celestion G12K-85 speakers, at least I had a tube amp although it was louder & heavier than what I really needed. I also own a 1992 Marshall 6101 combo amp with the EVM 12L speaker. Portable, great high gain & clean tones with MIDI control, but still heavy with a speaker that weighs 20lbs on its own. I feel your pain on that one which was one of the reasons that I own a Rock N' Roller Mutli-Cart. 

  I own & use a Reverend Goblin 1x12 combo (custom Mojotone combo cab) and a Reverend Kingsnake 1x12 combo amp. Both amps weigh under 40 lbs., is portable & lightweight to carry, and has a Jensen Neo 12-100 speaker that is lightweight & sounds good whether you're playing clean or dirty with none of the raspiness of the typical Jensen guitar speaker. Both of these amps are in my current gigging amps due to the sound that I need from them for the cover bands that I work with and the portability & weight of the amps. There are lightweight tube combo amps out there. That being said, weight isn't a factor for me, it's the sound of a good tube amp that sounds warm, breaks up nicely, compresses, and has a smooth overdriven tone when you turn up the gain. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Guitar George

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Not wishing to sound curmudgeonly but ply and MDF are two very different things.  MDF is often chosen for higher-end speaker cabs in stereo systems as the denser & thicker grades of MDF are acoustically 'dead', or neutral so the sound of the speakers will remain uncoloured by the speaker cabinet material.  Often a thin hardwood veneer is added for cosmetic purposes only.  I once owned an expensive pair of stereo speakers, the cabs were made from 1" MDF and they were horribly heavy, but sounded excellent.

 

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I'd at least try them - I gigged a DRRI for the last few years and never got above 4 on the volume knob using dirt pedals.  Lighter wouldn't be a bad idea (a bad idea is probably the Emi Hempdog that I just picked up for it - that's gonna make the amp heavier and louder so maybe not my best idea).  I had a TRRI with a 15" for about 2 hours before it went back to GC and that was heavy enough to not want to keep, but a lighter Twin might be a nice tele/pedal steel amp and a little more portable than the 15 version.

I think some of the original tweed Fender amps were pine cabs, and my tweed Champ and Deluxe both have a nice little thump to them. Leo used pine because it was cheap lol but now it's boo-tiki. I think the first tele protos (the snakeheads) were pine made out the wood used for amp cabs iirc.  I do like pine teles, but they can vary in weight like any other wood.

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