New Amp: 2004 Soldano Avenger

I’ve been wanting an Avenger for a while, and though I was tempted by a few Hot Rod’s that came up for sale recently, I’m glad I waited. The Avenger is the higher gain version of that amp, theoretically the same or very similar circuit as the flagship SLO100’s lead channel with a few voicing changes. This early revision Avenger is equipped with Mercury Magnetics transformers, as opposed to the DeYoung transformers of the SLO100 or Onetics that some very early metal-panel Avengers had.

A previous owner looks to have added a few holes to the amp - 3 on the front panel, and 3 on the rear panel, as well as two holes in the top of the chassis that had tube sockets mounted in them at one point. Based on the position of one of them, it looks like a tube buffered effects loop was added, but I’m not really sure what the 3 holes in the front with that tube were for… maybe a tube overdrive with gain/volume/tone controls? Either way, all of these mods have been reversed and I checked over the amp meticulously, and it’s completely restored to stock Avenger values.

Normally I’d be a bit annoyed about the extra holes, but I have to say this amp sounds absolutely fantastic. It’s crystal clear even under high gain, although it never gets metal saturated on its own - very unlike the Splawn Nitro from the previous post. However, this has to be one of the best amps I have ever played for taking a boost. Almost any boost I throw at it provides a great sound, using the Avenger tone as the basis and the pedal for texture. My favorite reliable Ibanez TS7 is great here, with the gain set around 6-7 on the Avenger and all other controls at noon and it’s already a killer high gain tone. Tweaking the bass and depth helps tighten up for very low tunings, or dipping the mids down for chording in standard just sounds great. Consider me very impressed.

More photos here

New Amp: 2015 Splawn Nitro... Another Shipping Mishap

I’ve been wanting to try a Nitro out for a while to compare to my other Splawns, and from what I understand they follow the same Splawn voicing - pretty dark from introduction up until 2012, then brighter and more aggressive after that. I was particularly excited to compare the Nitro with its quad of KT88/6550 power tubes with my 2005 ProMod, which also has the same power tube arrangement but is a much different amp design.

Sadly, it arrived packed in a very oversized box, with poor packing material around it. This means it had a lot of room to move around inside the box and took quite a few knocks in shipping, and because the Splawn head shell cabinets are not finger jointed and just glued (I’ve had 3 Splawn heads with this same shipping damage out of the 6 I’ve owned, so that’s not ideal), this head got really smashed up.

The good news is that electronically, the amp still works, so I was able to demo how it sounds at least. I’m not sure quite what I expected, but now that I’ve played it, I’d really just describe it as a QuickRod if it had a 4th gear. It’s got more bass than the 3rd gear of a QR, and a hair more gain - but not a ton more. Still plenty enough to get very saturated even without a boost, easily up to 5150 III Red channel levels of gain despite having fewer stages from what I can figure from the design.

All that said, I do really like the way it sounds. It is easy to play on, thumps really well without getting lost, and doesn’t have any brittle frequencies that I can find so far. The Nitros don’t have gears, instead that hole on the chassis is used for a power amp resonance control, and the 6550 power section does lend itself to very clear reproduction of low notes. I can definitely see why someone would want this amp, even someone not necessarily the heavy metal player this is aimed at. I personally don’t find a Quickrod’s 1st or 2nd gear to be that great, there are other amps I’d prefer for a crunch tone, so I usually use them in 3rd gear anyway most of the time. With the Nitro, I can just keep that high gain sound plus I get extra control over the low end of the power amp, which feels like a pretty good trade for my style.

This particular model being from 2015 has the later voicing as well as a set of Classic Tone transformers, as opposed to the Heyboer or Mercury transformers of the earlier ones.

Now to wait and see what happens with the shipping/insurance claim, but I won’t hold my breath. Last time I had major amp damage like this, the Bogner Twin Jet, I waited almost 60 days before I finally got fed up waiting for a refund and returned the whole unit. In the meantime though, I’ll enjoy this Nitro and it’ll definitely be on my list to find again if this one doesn’t work out.

Update July 2024: I contacted Splawn and got a quote for a replacement head shell. GC was willing to give a partial refund in that amount, so I took it. For the time being, I’ve glued/clamped to original headshell. It’s ugly, but functional. However, now the clean channel occasionally makes no sound - so back to the bench for this one. Sometimes the clean channel comes back after moving the amp around - probably a loose/cracked solder joint somewhere, so I’ll re-flow anything that looks to be part of that circuit.

New Guitar: '83 Kramer Pacer Deluxe, Rosewood on Black

Picked this very nice mid-C plate Pacer recently. The lower Floyd stud is in great shape which is always a good sign on these, and it arrived with a pair of Dimarzio Area 58 single coils and an 80s-era (but not original) Seymour Duncan JBL humbucker. This came from Guitar Center of course, and I guess no one played it before they shipped it out because the bridge pickup was ungrounded and it made all sorts of noise - unplayable plugged in. That’s ok though, because I wanted to put this old Dimarzio Tone Zone in something, and since the singles are Dimarzios it made sense - it’s back to sounding great again with new wiring.

Overall it is in extremely good condition, with barely any fret wear and no major damage to the body or neck. There is some slight scratching on the edges of the headstock and some swirls on the body from being wiped off but nothing I wouldn’t expect to see on a guitar that is now over 40 years old.

The case is also pretty cool, covered in stickers from the western USA. I find it hard to believe this was someone’s gigging guitar considering the shape it is in, but perhaps it was a backup… even then, the case is in top shape too besides the stickers.

This era of Pacer has the smaller upper horn side body shape, which is very unique feeling to play. The story goes that bodies in this era were made by ESP, but hand shaped - either at ESP or possibly re-shaped a little in the Neptune NJ factory once they came stateside. The easiest way to see this is to look at the rear pictures of a couple around this serial number and compare it to an earlier one. Look at the upper (low E string side) horn where the body contour meets, and you’ll some of them the contour comes right up to the horn with almost no gap. Earlier bodies with the larger upper horn have more space there, and other bodies have varying amounts. It’s a bit of a useless detail, but interesting either way - see the comparison image below:

New Guitar and Amp: Kramer Pacer Melaga Purple and Fender Prosonic

In a rare but exciting double whammy day, I picked up a new amp and a new guitar today.

First, the guitar - it’s a 1982 Kramer Pacer Imperial. Exciting, but I already have quite a few, but this one is unique. This is a very cool color, “melaga purple.” These aren’t too common and it’s a color I’ve had my eye out for a long time, so when a friend posted this for sale on facebook, I immediately sent a message saying I’d take it. I had it paid and he shipped within a few hours, and I got it before the end of the week - awesome.

Pictured in its original hard shell case.

This paint is very interesting. There is a tiny crack in the finish by the floyd post that reveals a red undercoat, but the top is a very soft, pastel purple. However, this purple fades away with time - I’ve seen quite a few faded nearly all the way. Luckily this one is still mainly purple, but you can see a handful of spots where it has worn, either from sunlight or handling, to a sky blue color. This is certainly one that will get the “white glove treatment” here - no hanging on the wall, no leaving it out on the stand by the window, no putting it away wet or dirty. I want to preserve that finish as long as reasonably possible, because it’s not exactly a color you could get in a refinish.

The fade to blue is very visible here, with a few marks on the face of the body as well as on the forearm contour.

More photos here: 1982 Kramer Pacer Imperial Melaga Purple

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Next is the amp, a 1997, Bruce Zinky designed Fender Prosonic. This amp came about around the same time as the Tone-Master head (released 1994), predating the current Super-Sonic which seems to follow a similar lineage (released 2010). Like those amps, the Prosonic has a two-channel layout unique for most Fenders, pairing a clean channel with an overdrive channel. To be specific, the Prosonic first came out in 1996.

I find the clean channel to be excellent, although it is extremely loud - louder than I expected from a 60w amp. It’s not that it gets louder than other amps of the same power, but the volume is all there from basically “1” up on the knob, so it’s a bit difficult to tame for lower volumes - although a volume box in the effects loop solves that easily. The clean channel only uses the volume, treble, bass, and middle controls, so it’s very simple and classic Fender, just with the addition of the mids control in the EQ.

The overdrive channel is really hard to understate, and I am absolutely blown away after my first sitting with this amp. I expected something much more tame, lower gain, less aggressive. I’d argue this amp’s gain channel is better for metal or heavier rock than even the modern Super-Sonic amp, it’s voiced to be much more open, and the EQ just works wonderfully. While on the overdrive channel, the master volume helps control the output although it’s still a loud amp, and in addition to the 3-band EQ, there are two gain controls.

Somewhat uniquely, you can set the Gain 2 control to zero and the amp still sounds fantastic - most amps with two gain controls, if you set the second one to zero the amp makes no sound (such as the Marshall SLX, or Ceriatone Yeti/Chupa/KingKong). Dialing up the Gain 2 control adds more compression and thickness in the low notes, making the amp feel looser and squishier, but not adding a lot more in terms of gain or attack. Gain 1 is downright aggressive by only “3” on the knob, and into metal territory by 7 or 8 - even without a boost. I think this amp would catch a lot of people off guard. Dial up the amount of looseness or sag you want with the Gain 2 for solos and you have an extremely versatile amp. If I had a complaint at all, it’s that I’d like a little more taper on the Gain 1 control, so I could dial in a more tame crunch tone instead of trying to find that sweet spot between 1-3 where it hits that more classic soft crunch tone - but those tones are definitely in there, just have to make tiny adjustments to that control.

Speaking of feel, this amp also has a switchable tube rectifier, a GZ34 type that actually is attached to a 3-way rotary switch on the rear panel. It can select a solid state rectifier with the power amp in push-pull class AB, the tube rectifier in AB, or even the tube rectifier in “class A” mode, which is simply a cathode bias configuration (like a Vox AC30 or Orange Rocker 30). Class A mode makes the amp a hair louder, at least at middle volume settings, and a little punchier to my ear - I really like it. The trade off is that the noise floor is a bit higher on that setting, but still very usable.

In terms of other features, it has a 1/4 jack for a 1-button footswitch, which allows you to switch between the clean and drive channels on the fly. The combo version of the amp has a built in spring reverb tank, so a 2-button footswitch can be used on that model to turn on/off the reverb. I do wish the head version had the reverb tank, I’m a big fan of built-in spring reverbs. It also has a simple series effects loop that does its job perfectly well. There is no presence or depth control, but the EQ seems to perfectly balanced it doesn’t feel like a big loss. Even setting a nice scooped clean tone still sounds great on the drive channel without getting too anemic.

I expected to like this amp, but I’m really shocked at how much I like it. At some point I’d like to pick up a Tone-Master head and do a comparison between all three of these similar Fender amps, and see which one really speaks to me.

More photos here: 1997 Fender Prosonic

New Amp: 1982 Marshall JCM800 2210 - Early Circuit

I have been wanting to do a video on my favorite Marshall amps - the split channel 800 series - for some time. My 2205 made a short appearance as a comparison to the 2555X in my first video, but I never went into the details.

One of the main reasons I haven’t done a video on those amps yet is because both of the ones I own - an ‘85 2205 and a an ‘86 2210 - are the “later” circuit design. This may seem like a minor thing, but the earlier circuit, such as the one used on this 1982 model 2210, is much larger than many realize. I finally got my hands on an early model amp in good condition, with a complete recap job to boot, so it’s in tip-top shape.

Despite sharing the exact same controls, markings, and model number, these may as well be two different amps! This isn’t like comparing two different revisions of Mesa Rectifiers - a value change here and there - these split channel 800’s have completely different signal paths.

Both amps share the same tube complement, as well as a long spring reverb tank, tube buffered effects loop, and Marshall’s first ever channel switching capability via a two button footswitch (one button for channel, the other for reverb on/off). There is a master volume, presence, and reverb control that affects both channels, and the “normal” channel can be kept relatively clean (still a “Marshall” clean) with a two-band EQ, and the “boost” channel has both a gain and a channel volume control, as well as a more standard 3-band EQ, for more drive.

The ‘82 amp’s clipping diode array is visible towards the top right, located between the VR5 and VR6 pots.

However, there are some pretty important differences in the details. This early amp has a post phase inverter master volume, a very odd design that uses a dual-gang pot, one on each half of the phase inverter signal. Later 2210’s had a standard pot, pre-PI master. There are also differences in the guitar signal path itself, with early amps sporting a quad of 1N4007 diodes arranged to clip the signal and add overdrive, situated just after a cathode follower on V2B and before the boost channel volume control - the later design retains some diode clipping, but uses two diodes located in different areas of the circuit, and the cathode follower is gone completely. The last major divergence is the earlier design placing the 3-band EQ just before the gain control, right after the input gain stage - not too different from something like a Mesa Mark series amp. The later design moves the EQ to the more standard Marshall location, after 3 tube gain stages, although lacking the cathode follower/tone stack driver that amps like the 2203 or 1959 use.

The ‘82 amp’s six filter capacitors visible

Also as somewhat expected for 1982, this amp carries a large array of 6 filter caps, just like an early 2203 would have. My later 2210 has only 3 filter caps, which follows the same sort of trend, as a 1986 year 2203 would also only have 3 filter caps. It’s hard to say what effect this has on the sound exactly though, since the other circuit differences make it hard to compare, unlike the 2203 which is still the same basic circuit in 1986 as it was in 1982 (besides HT voltages).

Now that I have this amp, I look forward to working on a video explaining these differences and importantly, doing an A/B comparison between both circuit revisions.

You can review photos of the internals of both amps here:

Early Amp - 1982 JCM800 2210

Later Amp - 1986 JCM800 2210

Early and Later schematics:

New Amp: ADA MP-1 Classic

I’ve had, and loved, an ADA MP-1 for a long time now - it was only my 2nd tube amp, and I used to run it into the FX Return of my Marshall TSL all the time for a change of pace. Later I picked up an MP2, which I still intend to spend some more time with - it sounds great, but the interface is a bit complicated so it takes a long time to program in the sounds I like.

The MP-1 Classic is the last one I’m missing, so when I spotted this damaged one online, I figured I’d try my hand at repairing it and getting it working. The MP-1 Classic was the last preamp ADA released before going under, and ran concurrently with the MP-2 for a little while in the 90s. In short, once the original MP-1 was discontinued, the MP-2 didn’t sell so well and the MP-1 still had a good reputation, so rather than release the same MP-1 again, the “Classic” was created, which has a handful of improvements over the original in terms of interface, but theoretically has the same core sound and simple programming.

I was able to get the Clean SS and Tube Distortion modes working, and in my brief play test, it does sound extremely similar to my original MP-1 at the same settings, but I haven’t spent a lot of time dialing it as I still have repair work to do. The MP-1 Classic has the same Tube Clean voice as before, but adds a new voicing called “Tube Brown,” which I’m very interested to try out.

Hopefully the repairs don’t take too long and I’ll get to put this through its paces soon. I also have a Yamaha SPX90 just aching to get used again on something, and this seems like the perfect combo (not that the built-in ADA chorus is any slouch).

New Guitar: Another Bent Pipes Pacer

Saw this one online for a fair price, and as I’m a big fan of this graphic I went for it. It’s very similar to my other “Bent Pipes” graphic pacer, except this one is an early Pacer Special model - single humbucker, and the input jack on the face of the body. This one is also equipped with a Rockinger tremolo, which was an early locking bridge design originally marketed as the “EVH Tremolo,” which he used for a while. Apparently it didn’t stay in tune that well, which led to the creation of the double locking Floyd Rose which is still common equipment even on modern guitars. Personally, I don’t mind the Rockinger but I’m not a heavy whammy bar user, and I’m glad this one wasn’t too heavily modified.

It has been modified though, mainly the Rockinger locking nut is gone, along with the original brass string trees. Instead, three roller string trees are installed, one using the screw hole from the rockinger’s locking nut. I may return this to stock at some point, but I will say these trees do keep it in tune very nicely and the strings feel very nice and slinky without the lock (as compared to my other Rockinger-equipped Pacer). It also has lost its original Schaller humbucker at some point, replaced with a Seymour Duncan JB.

New Guitar: 1984 Kramer Pacer Imperial

Picked up this ‘84ish Pacer Imperial sight unseen, but based on a description from a sales clerk at Guitar Center. I’ve had my ups and downs with GC, but this was an excellent experience - gave me the serial number, a good description of the condition and details, and made sure the case came with it too - the original for this era, with black piping.

Of course, when ordering any banana-headstocked Kramer, I was a bit worried about the condition of the scarf joint and I’m pleased to say it’s very good, with only the slightest feel of the joint and no signs of slippage. On top of that, the guitar is otherwise in really superb shape - hardly any rust or grime, frets have plenty of life, even the body seems barely used besides a few polishing swirls on the front and back. The original hardware is all present, from the floyd, tuners, and the schaller humbuckers - awesome. I usually don’t love R5 nuts, most of the other Kramers I have with these wide necks are not my preference, but something about this one feels much more natural. Action was a little high on arrival, but apparently it wasn’t played for years before being traded in - I can believe that, but a few tweaks to the floyd height and everything fell right into place.

It’s also extremely heavy, with a hard maple body, which has a subtle grain on the top and back but looking at the sides, you can see that tell-tale “squares” pattern of a quartersawn piece of maple - very unique, although the weight could be a bit fatiguing for some. Unplugged tone is bright and snappy, and for a heavy body it resonates really well, and the schallers sound great through my amps, no surprise there as I’ve always really liked these pickups.

New Amp: ENGL Special Edition E670

This top of the line ENGL Amp has always eluded me, but when I found this one online at Guitar Center I pulled the trigger. Sadly, the order was cancelled - I called the store, and apparently someone else had bought it first. Damn.

Lucky for me, it popped up, returned, at another GC several states away from its origin in Texas. I’m not sure why it was returned, but I ordered it again and it arrived a few days later in very good condition.

I’m still trying to wrap my head around why this was returned - it was expensive, but quite a deal compared to other E670’s on the market, and far cheaper than the new E670FE Founder’s Edition amps (effectively, a reissue of this amp with a few circuit tweaks).

Speaking of the newer E670FE, and maybe this is confirmation bias, but I’m glad I have this earlier amp - it’s a little bit more feature heavy. The new FE version does not have the high/low power mode (disables two power tubes, knocking the amp down to 50w), the cable tester on the rear panel, or the switchable output section. This original E670 can actually be connected to two different speaker cabinets, with different impedences, and you can set which channels, or which patches, use speaker output A or B. This means if you want to run your cleans through a cabinet with Jensens, and your drive channels through a cabinet with Celestions, you can do that! Super cool feature, but maybe underutilized or underappreciated in the real world.

There are other differences between the FE and SE, but they are harder to quantify - supposedly it has been revoiced, and the clean/crunch channels on the FE have a mid shift and bright switch, while the SE has a bright and ultra bright switch. However, based on my knowledge of other ENGL stuff, I think it’s more likely these switches do the same things on both amps and have simply be renamed - perhaps the exact value of the resistor or capacitor it puts into the circuit has changed, but it’s still going to be effectively the same function.

Ok, features aside, I am absolutely thrilled with how this amp sounds. All of the channels are absolutely superb - I can see how someone could get this amp and replace an entire collection of other amps - I very rarely feel that way about channel switchers, and looking at my collection of course in most cases I’d rather have multiple single channel amps than one channel switcher - so that’s especially high praise coming from me. Both of the lead channels are nearly the same, in a good way, with Lead II having a hair more gain, but a separate treble control which is very useful. The clean/crunch channels share the same layout, with shared bass and mid controls but separate treble controls. Even the “bypass” channel, which is just a raw tube drive with no shaping designed more as a straight through power amp channel, sounds great - and can be enabled with or without the EQ. It’s hard not to talk about the features at the same time - all four of these channels have a high and low gain mode and multiple switches that can color the tone - and even better, all of these switches can be controlled via saving the setting on the footswitch or midi controller. It really feels like you could do anything you desire with a nice 10 button midi switch and this amp, from all ranges of gain, voicing, power amp settings (there are 2 presence controls and 2 master volumes to switch between as well, plus depth and low punch, and more).

Some might think well, this amp isn’t for me - too much tweaking, and that’s fine - especially in contrast to the 3rd Power HLH100 I picked up last month, two amps with completely opposite design philosophies. However, I have to say, I spent about 2 hours dialing in this amp and saving 10 really great sounds to the Z9 footswitch, and I don’t think I’ll ever touch another control on the amp again besides the power and standby switches. Yes there’s tons of tweakability, but if you find some great tones you can just save them - probably an exciting new concept when this amp was introduced in 2008 but these days we’re a bit spoiled by digital modeling which accomplishes a similar goal… but this amp keeps the real tubes cooking. Definitely a winner in my book, I’ll have to compare it to my favorite ENGL (the Savage 120 MK1).

New Amp: VHT Pittbull 50CL with Graphic EQ

This is actually my second Pittbull 50CL from nearly the same time frame - this is a 2005 model, and I already had a 2003. However my 2003 has a spring reverb tank, and no graphic EQ - the classic early Pittbull CL voicing, a bit dark, but just a killer sound. Easily one of my all time favorite amps. So when the opportunity to buy what is essentially the same amp, but trading the spring reverb for a built-in 6-band graphic EQ, I jumped on it.

I’ve already done some extensive A/B testing between the two, and they definitely have the same core tone and feel. However I do feel the GEQ model has a bit less gain, and a little more brightness as well. The EQ is exactly as I’d expect - it can take the dryer, tighter feel of the amp from reserved to extremely aggressive and it works fantastically. I do occasionally miss the spring reverb, but I’m also perfectly happy to use a reverb pedal in the effects loop.

The interesting thing about the non-EQ Pittbull is that the feel of the amp is a little bit sloshier, a little more saturated. I love the way lead lines and gainy palm mutes jump out of that amp, and the “voicing” switch adds a little more highs and lows to fill out the spectrum more without sounding too aggressive - something about it still really speaks to me. The EQ model needs the gain up a little higher to achieve the same effect, although I suppose the tubes are a factor here too, but the ability to customize the tone with the EQ adds far more versatility than the on/off voicing switch. The EQ is also footswitchable, and there's not a huge volume difference on or off which is perfect the way I use it. It’d be impossible to pick a favorite between the two, that’s for sure.