2018 Splawn Streetrod

Overview

I picked this amp up after falling in love with my 2008 Quickrod head, with which this amp shares the same preamp circuit but a smaller output section of 50 watts. This amp dating from 2018 has a newer revision of the circuit and sounds clearly different. This new circuit came out in 2012, so all Splawn Quickrod and Streetrod amps should have this overdrive voicing, which is substantially brighter and cutting, closer to my 2006 Quickrod head (an earlier version than my 08’s circuit). I’ve done a comparison video between the different Splawn circuits so you can hear for yourself. While it shares that brighter overall tone, similar to the 06, this Street Rod has substantially deeper bass range, and looses just a little bit of the growl of the 06, but it’s an excellent compromise and likely satisfies a lot more players than the fairly particular 06 and 08 circuit revisions, which are much more single-purpose in their design.

Unlike the full size Quickrod head, this Streetrod is missing one control - clean channel gain. However, it’s not something I miss much, and the clean channel on this amp is perfectly usable with plenty of headroom and good sparkle, but discerning clean fans will probably find it a bit limiting. Then again, this is not an amp you buy for the clean channel.

The overdrive channels are full of modded Marshall goodness, with Scott Splawn’s take on voicing and gain structure which is very unique as far as other builders go - I can pick out a Splawn quite clearly compared to most other modded Marshall type circuits due to the “honky” mids, for lack of a better term. I like this voicing myself, but it can be a bit polarizing, with some players loving the amp and others finding it to feel too congested, although this latest voicing does alleviate that somewhat. The overdrive channel also has 3 gears, which ramp up in gain and bring more lows into the voicing, and many enjoy first gear with low gain settings. It also has OD1 and OD2 modes, but this is only accessible via footswitch, and by default the amp is always in OD2 mode. I hear a relatively small difference in gain, but otherwise not much in noticeable change between those two modes, compared to the gears which have a much stronger impact on the sound. OD1 and OD2 can be used in any gear. When the amp is connected with a 4-button footswitch, the gears can also be footswitched, but only from either 1st to 2nd, or 3rd to 2nd. It’s a very useful feature, but it’s a shame you can’t jump from 1st to 3rd gear, because that would offer near 3-channel amp versatility, but then again the shared gain, volume, and EQ would limit you there anyway. There is also a footswitchable second master volume, or solo boost, which helps a lot for that kind of thing too.

I moved this amp in my great combo-amp purge, but it was absolutely one of my best sounding amps at the time and difficult to part with. The factory speaker was also very nice, a Celestion G12M-65 “Creamback,” which is one of my favorite sounding speakers.