Recently I rejoined a group of friends in a band after a 1.5 year break from playing with them. During my absence they recorded a second CD. With our first CD I was looking for a sort of classic rock sound. In the 27 years that I have been playing I have always used tube amps but I needed an amp that would fit a variety of styles. For live use I originally used my Line 6 for versatility but it lost definition and sustain at high volumes. I decided on a Peavey JSX since I was a satch fan and it was a 3 channel amp. I then discovered that the Bugera 333xl was a really affordable copy of the JSX so I purchased that. It was actually a good sounding high gain amp but it didnt get the good low gain sound I wanted for this project. I did use a JJ gain reduction tube in the preamp section and changed the EL34's to KT77's. That made it closer but it still wasnt right. With all the reported quality issues with Bugera I was concerned but I used this amp on the road, live for over a year without any issues. To record our first album I tried the Bugera but in the studio, everything I hated about the amp was magnified such as a wierd mid range that I could not eq out and the lack of warm overdrive that i tried to compensat by cranking the bass and inserting a eq pedal with a 250k boost. It only made it muddy. For the majority of the cd I used a Line 6 live floor board using the plexi for most of it but did alot of mixing such as plexi plus Rectifier and Twin Reverb. I was actually very happy with the sound on the final recording.
During my absence the band recorded another CD which was a more driving and straight ahead rock oriented sound so once again I was tasked with finding an amp that could cover the sonic ground of the first and second CD's.
I realised that the tone I was hearing in my head and I used for the majority of the first CD was the Marshall Plexi. This started a month of amp buying trials that ultimately has a very happy ending. I was fortunate to be able to test all these amps live, in the real world so that I could make an accurate assessment.
Bugera 1960 : This amp has every feature you could ever want in a plexi and is too good to be true with the price. Plugged it in, jumped the channels and wow I really liked what I was hearing. The master volume was nice to control the base sound at lower levels. 5 minutes in to playing it, the volume began to fade out to nothing. It died. It could have been a tube. I dont know what happened but it made me think twice about everything I have been hearing about Bugera quality. I packed it back up a sent it back for a refund.
Marshall 50watt Plexi: Really liked the sound. Much fatter and warmer than the Bugera plexi but didnt have any of the features. I found the sweet spot though and was excited about using it at the gig that night. First couple songs of the set everything sounded good. Then the club owner asks us to turn down. I couldnt find the sweet spot between the two jumpered channels at low volume and it sounded like crap. I happened to have a Vox Saturator on my board to add gain just in case this happened. It saved the night. I returned the Plexi. As much as I wanted it to work it was just too much work and additional gear(attenuator) to be functional.
I needed a simpler but more versatile amp.
Carvin Legacy II: Vai's amp so it should sound great. All the you tube clips did. It ended up sounding just like some of the comments suggested; like a blanket over the speakers. It didnt matter what pickups or speakers were used it still sounded the same. I even duplicated Vai's setup; an Ibanez with Evo II into Vintage 30 cab.Only made it to practice and then returned.
Jet City 100 : Drove 1.5 hours to Philly guitar center 8 at night to get this in time for show the next day. I was desperate at this point and the you tube clips sounded great plus Keith Urbans guitar player is using one of these in his rig. Next morning plugged it in and it didnt sound bad but it didnt have any low end and was kind of ice picky. A greenback cab helped with this but it was not going to cut it. I read that the newer version has a deep switch that helps with the low end.
Orange Rockerverb 100: The gain on this thing sounded incredible. I could not get a clean sound that I was happy with and very few of my pedals worked well with it. My boost pedals such as EP booster and RC drive worked great to get me more gain when needed. We sound checked at the show and I thought this was the best I ever sounded with the group. The sound man came up to me, pointed at the amp and said that thing sounds amazing. I like to hear things like that. It even looked great sitting on top of my Avatar oversized cab. That night I realised that the Orange sounded amazing with that one sound it had but i need several sounds and I have a pretty extensive pedalboard so there has to be something better suited to my style(s).
Bogner Shiva 25th Anniv: This is ridiculous but I found it used. I have been wanting a Bogner Ecstacy for years ever since I read that Dann Huff was recommending them for their sound and versatility. But the price is ridiculous. Some actually liked the Shiva more than the Ecstacy so I had to give it a shot. It sounded good with all my cabs and guitars. Had a great clean channel. There was something about the KT66 power tubes that I did not like. Couldnt really dig in to the notes and there seemed to be a lack of sustain. For the price and all the hype, I was expecting more. I decided to return it.
Marshall DSL100: While returning the Bogner at Guitar Center, I noticed a used Marshall DSL100. I was really curious how it sounded so I decided to just buy it and try it out at home. I did some online research before playing the amp. I downloaded the manual and realised that this amp was produced to get plexi/JCM800 and hotrodded JCM800 tones. If this is true then this is the ultimate amplifier. Finally I plugged into it and thought it sounded great on the clean and crunch channel. The high gain channel sounded kind of thin. I decided to run the Orange against the Marshall in a shootout at tonights show. First set Orange. Wow it had alot of clarity and smooth overdrive. Second set Marshall. That amp filled the stage. I didnt realise how much low end and balls the Orange was lacking till I ran them together like that. The Marshall was much fuller and had the sound I was looking for. Returned the Orange when we stopped to play New Jersey. I have returned amps scattered all over the East coast. I then realised that the high gain channel sounds great when its cranked and the bass is turned up but then the other channels are too bassy. I have been reading about mods such as the bright cap removal from the high gain channel to balance the channels. I will be trying that shortly. For now I am running the crunch channel at low gain and using a Timmy to get a Full overdrive. I am using a TC Nova Drive to get Tube Screamer and Rat style OD and distortion and it sounds really good. Not sure why so many people dislike the Marshall DSL but I think it sounds great.
I will add pedal reviews soon.
