Epiphone SoCal 50w Halfstack

[oldguy]

I drove to Musician's Friend and picked it up last week. That story will be a different thread, however.

Here's the short review:
$500. 50watt/w 25w switch on back of head. Good EQ setup. Needs FX loop.
I've owned it for a week. No comment on reliability. Nice build quality visually.
Good-to-great cleans/headroom-good old-school blues/rock breakup.
Higher gain settings not for me.
Reverb's in there....somewhere....can get really cavernous, just won't "come out and play"...

Here's the long version:

I've played the Strat and Switch through it now, and I like the clean side, and the gain channel if it's "just enough" to get some breakup with the guitar volume dimed, so when it's backed off ,it cleans up.

The weak spots....

The high-gain (gain knob maxxed) sound...
Out of the box, with the crappy tubes they stick in these things, I don't care for the gain when it's maxxed out.... Sorry, Epiphone, nice try, but I can't lie. OK, brother and sister Fretter's, you know I'll be upgrading tubes and sending for a schematic trying to figure this one out, but the gain knob cranked, to me, doesn't have the smooth upper harmonic overtones it should. It's OK for some chunky rhythm or single line lead, but I think it could be lots better.
To my ears is has a nasty out-of-phase odd order harmonics at full gain. And this could be a tube bias issue as well, an amph biased too cold can sound similar to this, and quite nasty. Curious, because the amph seems voiced quite nicely until you crank the gain......
I know what reviews, articles, etc. said, and it can be tweaked, at full gain, to sound decent, but NOTHING like my Traynor YCV40. Then again the Traynor's been re-tubed with JJ's, but I digress.

The reverb.... how do I describe this? The reverb is "in there", as in you hear it, and it gets deep pretty quickly when you turn the knob, but it sounds like it's somewhere in the background, not in your face, even when the 'verb is cranked, very long-tailed and cavernous, it sounds muffled somehow, as though you threw a blanket over it. May be (again) a cheap 12AX7 in there, but nowhere near as good as (again) my Traynor. (NO, this isn't a plug for Traynor, just an opinion.)
I mention these two things first for a reason. I played this amp, and it is not a Fender Super Reverb or a Marshall Vintage Modern, no matter what you may read in other reviews, unless I got a really different SoCal than what other people bought. It's a $500 half-stack. And a good one, considering the price. A $2000 head would no doubt sound better, coupled with a $1000 greenback-loaded cab. As would a vintage Plexi or Super Reverb.
With some good tubes and a little tweaking I may change my mind, but these two things are the amps weak points,IMO. Tubes: Two EL-34's and five 12AX7's... by then it'll be a $600 half-stack.

No effects loop... would've been really nice......oh, well.

And finally......

The weight... OK, this one's not as bad as it sounds, but at 42lbs. for the head and around 70lbs. for the cab, it's something to consider, especially if you have lower back or other health issues. I don't plan on moving this around every weekend or hauling it around often.

The good stuff.....

Clean headroom. At either setting, 25 or 50 watts, on the clean channel, this amp has a VERY nice, balanced sound, and clean as a pin even cranked to LOUD, LOUD levels.

The EQ, when set to "interactive", (if you increase the treble control, it also decreases bass, vice-versa, turn up the bass, it cuts treble frequency), really works. I found it real easy to dial up a good sound with both guitars, HB's or single coils. And the "contour" control on the gain channel adds thickness and grit as you dial up, as well as increasing apparent volume.

A good blues, old-school rock sound. If you crank the gain channel just a little, this amp will get a good breakup w/ some controlled feedback as you turn it up, and the sound changes depending on which setting (25/50w) you choose, and both sound good. This amp does have "tone".

The 4x12 cab loaded w/ Eminence "Lady Luck" speakers. 16 ohm.

I'm sure these are far from Eminence's top-dollar speakers, but this cabinet's sound is absolutely killer. Like all closed-back 4x12's, the forward projection is great. The sound is clear, punchy, balanced, and LOUD! I'll be A/B'ing it with my 2x12 Avatar cab loaded w/ Celestions later, to see if the SoCal head sounds as good, but this 4x12 is the shezizzle in this pkg, IMO.

The SoCal takes pedals nicely, but there IS a caveat.......and it's this-
there is no effects loop, and when you get enough (inexpensive) pedals chained together in front of it (as in 7 Danelectros), it gets noisy.
Not noticeable until you stop playing, then it really stands out (hums).

Go down to 1 or 2 pedals, no noise. $200 pedals might solve this.

As I play w/ this amph more, I'll keep anyone that's interested posted.... but for now I'd say this about it..... it seems like a good amph half-stack for the money, the build quality looks good, everything is tight, no sloppy handwork I can find. If you read reviews about it saying "sounds as good or better than my Marshall JCM (insert number here)", or, "reverb deep, lush, sparkling, as good as my Fender (insert name here)", I would say BULLSH!!!!T. That's not the amp I got, anyway. But it is a loud, clear, and very clean- to old rock/blues breakup amp, and does it nicely. I stuck the PB&J delay and CB reverb in front of it, and it sounds great to my ears.
I would love to run a Radial Tonebone through it to see if it can mimic a Plexi, but my B-day's over and past now...
I'll try and get some clips or video or something later so folks can decide for themselves.
Summary:
I bought this for the sound, as well as the price, knowing it's limitations.
I figured on using some pedals when I bought it. The high-gain and reverb do not do the amp justice, IMO. Great clean-to-mild OD bluesy sound. Not a metal amp.

[Robert****]

Thanks for the review. I played it briefly once, it seemed like a heavy rock amp to me.

[oldguy]

You're right about that, no doubt.
It may be more than a "one trick pony", but I'm not sure yet.........

I always seem to need a little time to evaluate an amp, sometimes they surprise me, and sometimes they don't.
The Valve Jr. head surprised me.
Maybe that's what I'm expecting from the SoCal......

[Tone2TheBone]

That's nice looking OG. Stick a whole set of new JJs in there it should sound much better.

[oldguy]

Thanks, Tone, I plan on doing just that later. Refresh my memory, what was the preamp tube substitution you did to your Silver Jubilee?
Wasn't it one of the 12AX7's to smooth out the grind?
Another thing, do you (or does anyone) know anybody that has substituted JJ's KT77's for EL34's? They're supposed to be a drop in sub w/ a different flavor. Just curious....