2006 Splawn Quickrod

Overview

This is my favorite Splawn amp, and despite its battered condition is one of my most regularly played heads. This amp was badly wounded in shipping, snapping the headshell off at the corners on the bottom edge. I’ve repaired this by gluing and clamping, and the repair seems to be holding well enough for my uses. Interestingly, this amp is already on its second head shell, as Scott Splawn informed me that it was already taken in for a replacement shell a few years ago, where it also got the Loop Master volume installed (but otherwise the 2006-era circuit is untouched).

One of the most important things to know about any Splawn is the specific year and circuit version of the amp. These 2005-2006 amps have a much brighter, cutting tone. Since it doesn’t have a dedicated tube for the clean channel, the gain setting on the overdrive channel also affects how the clean channel sounds - there are no crystal clear cleans to be had on this amp most of the time, so there’s always going to be some fuzz on your cleans. The nice thing is the clean channel does have a middle EQ control, while later Splawns just have treble and bass (but add a gain control to the cleans).

Like any Splawn, it can do extreme high gain settings while remaining super tight and punchy even with low tuned guitars. The Overdrive channel has a footswitchable OD1/OD2 mode, by default it’s always in OD2 so that’s the sound I expect to hear out of it but it’s a nice feature either way. If you use a 4-button footswitch, you can also switch from Gear 1->2 or Gear 2->3 (but not Gear 1->3) which adds to some versatility, but I usually treat this like a single channel amp anyway. High gain sounds are downright stunning on this amp, and now that I’ve also added a Diezel Herbert to the collection I actually feel there are some similarities, some shared ground when dialing these two amps in, despite their difference audiences.

It’s hard to understate how great this amp is, and there’s a reason why the latest Splawn amps can be optioned with a New/Old switch that specifically tweaks the circuit of those to match the 2006 year Quick Rods. This is the real deal 2006 model, and I’m very glad I was able to salvage it (from the shipping damage) - it’s become a crucial amp in my collection.