Katastrophe
August 27th, 2007, 07:24 PM
Went to a couple of different places today for amph shopping. One stop was at Guitar Center, and the other was Ray and Shane Hennig's Heart of Texas Music. SRV fans may recognize this as the music store where SRV was reported to have acquired the now famous "Number 1."
Ray Hennig was there, and the place oozed mojo out of every nook and cranny. They had just about every conceivable model of Strat hanging on the wall, from MIMs to Custom Shop models. Simply incredible place, with tons of Austin vibe to go around. They will get all my guitar repair/setup business from here on out.
My budget is going to limit me mainly to solid state amphs. My main focus here is on a half stack. Combos are awesome, but I really miss the "WHUMP" factor that my old Marshall cab had. There's just something about 4 - 12" speakers inside a closed cab that just sounds right. Is it excessive? Absofreekinlutely. But hey, that's rock n' roll, my friends.
First up, the Fender FM 100 watt head, played through a Behringer cab. Fender really does know how to dial in a clean tone here, folks. All kinds of sparkly goodness. The "drive" channel was good, too. For solid state, a good, solid, inexpensive choice.
Behringer V-Tone head through a Behringer cab. WOW! This is an analog modeling head that is extremely flexible. Everything I played on it sounded great, and the effects were clear and top notch. Insanely affordable price. I've read reviews questioning the reliability and volume of the unit. No volume worries here. Definitely up there on my list of good sound, affordability and looks good, too.
The Behringer cab is great, too. Totally clean when it needs to be, and misbehaves in the right way when distorted. A good cab for not alotta dough, IMO.
I worked the salesman at GC hard today. We first tried out a Line 6 Spider III HD 150 with a corresponding Line 6 cab, loaded with Celestions. You may remember a previous review where I called some of the settings muddy. This head, with this cab and Celestion speakers, was outstanding. I was playing a Strat quite similar to my own, with the HSS setup. The closed back cab does wonders for tightening the lows and was excellent. I spent a good chunk of time just tweaking tones, and having a ball with what came out. Line 6 engineers really worked on the mids for the Spider III series, and it shows. The models were very convincing, and the amph was LOUD. So far, it's a showdown between Behringer and Line 6.
Next was a Marshall MG100HDFX. My response to this amph was "eh..." It had a rather convincing Marshall tone and was plenty loud enough to gig with. The cleans were good, and the effects sounded good, too. The amph just kinda fell flat after the Line 6. I did not expect this to happen.
Just for grins, I tried a B-52 100 watt AT100 tube amph. Now I understand what all the fuss is about in reference to tubes. There were tons of subtle overtones and harmonics in every note that sounded so much richer than the average solid state. Great amph, but out of my price range at $999.00.
The salesman brought out two brand new B-52 solid state heads and one semi-closed back 4x12 cab to try those out. B-52 wasn't on my radar, but they are now. I didn't record the model names, but one was their value model with a gold front plate, and the other was a bit more expensive with a silver colored front plate. The silver one was set up almost exactly like it's tube brother, but was all solid state. I was floored how close the two sounded. Excellent sounding amph head. The value model was great, too, but the silver one was very responsive. The semi-open back cab was good, too.
Before I left, I tried out one of the new Crate Flexwave 120 H heads with on board effects. I've been playing Crate combo amphs exclusively for the last oh, 10 years or so (for what that's worth). This head, hands down, was the best Crate solid state amph I have ever played on. The effects were good, too.
So, surprisingly, it's a fight between the B-52 (with the silver face), the Line 6, the Behringer, and the Crate. I had a blast today!
I also played a number of guitars today, and that'll go in another part of the forum.
Sorry if this post was too long...
Ray Hennig was there, and the place oozed mojo out of every nook and cranny. They had just about every conceivable model of Strat hanging on the wall, from MIMs to Custom Shop models. Simply incredible place, with tons of Austin vibe to go around. They will get all my guitar repair/setup business from here on out.
My budget is going to limit me mainly to solid state amphs. My main focus here is on a half stack. Combos are awesome, but I really miss the "WHUMP" factor that my old Marshall cab had. There's just something about 4 - 12" speakers inside a closed cab that just sounds right. Is it excessive? Absofreekinlutely. But hey, that's rock n' roll, my friends.
First up, the Fender FM 100 watt head, played through a Behringer cab. Fender really does know how to dial in a clean tone here, folks. All kinds of sparkly goodness. The "drive" channel was good, too. For solid state, a good, solid, inexpensive choice.
Behringer V-Tone head through a Behringer cab. WOW! This is an analog modeling head that is extremely flexible. Everything I played on it sounded great, and the effects were clear and top notch. Insanely affordable price. I've read reviews questioning the reliability and volume of the unit. No volume worries here. Definitely up there on my list of good sound, affordability and looks good, too.
The Behringer cab is great, too. Totally clean when it needs to be, and misbehaves in the right way when distorted. A good cab for not alotta dough, IMO.
I worked the salesman at GC hard today. We first tried out a Line 6 Spider III HD 150 with a corresponding Line 6 cab, loaded with Celestions. You may remember a previous review where I called some of the settings muddy. This head, with this cab and Celestion speakers, was outstanding. I was playing a Strat quite similar to my own, with the HSS setup. The closed back cab does wonders for tightening the lows and was excellent. I spent a good chunk of time just tweaking tones, and having a ball with what came out. Line 6 engineers really worked on the mids for the Spider III series, and it shows. The models were very convincing, and the amph was LOUD. So far, it's a showdown between Behringer and Line 6.
Next was a Marshall MG100HDFX. My response to this amph was "eh..." It had a rather convincing Marshall tone and was plenty loud enough to gig with. The cleans were good, and the effects sounded good, too. The amph just kinda fell flat after the Line 6. I did not expect this to happen.
Just for grins, I tried a B-52 100 watt AT100 tube amph. Now I understand what all the fuss is about in reference to tubes. There were tons of subtle overtones and harmonics in every note that sounded so much richer than the average solid state. Great amph, but out of my price range at $999.00.
The salesman brought out two brand new B-52 solid state heads and one semi-closed back 4x12 cab to try those out. B-52 wasn't on my radar, but they are now. I didn't record the model names, but one was their value model with a gold front plate, and the other was a bit more expensive with a silver colored front plate. The silver one was set up almost exactly like it's tube brother, but was all solid state. I was floored how close the two sounded. Excellent sounding amph head. The value model was great, too, but the silver one was very responsive. The semi-open back cab was good, too.
Before I left, I tried out one of the new Crate Flexwave 120 H heads with on board effects. I've been playing Crate combo amphs exclusively for the last oh, 10 years or so (for what that's worth). This head, hands down, was the best Crate solid state amph I have ever played on. The effects were good, too.
So, surprisingly, it's a fight between the B-52 (with the silver face), the Line 6, the Behringer, and the Crate. I had a blast today!
I also played a number of guitars today, and that'll go in another part of the forum.
Sorry if this post was too long...