This is another amp from my early days of playing that I haven’t had the chance to try out in almost a decade. While looking for some small parts in my local Sam Ash, I spotted this head tucked away in a corner for a very reasonable price (and always nice to buy locally - no shipping costs).
Since I was so disappointed by the Egnater Renegade, and already owned the Marshall JCM800 I thought would cover the same ground as this amp, I decided I should really play it to find out if it’s as good as I remembered.
Well, it’s definitely no slouch! I remember only being interested in the HT-100 and HT-60 models back then, because the HT-40 and smaller models did not have the crunch channel (OD1). That channel alone is really great - and both OD1 and OD2 channels have a “voicing” switch that adds a lot of brightness and it feels like a little gain too. I think OD1 with the voicing switch out is a really great classic rock tone, pop on the voicing switch and the brightness really kicks in and it gets a bit more modern and grittier. OD2 is fantastic through and through, even if lacking a little clarity on top, adding the voicing switch brings some of that back in.
The digital reverb is very nice quality, and the ISF control seems less useful than I remember but it is still a cool feature to combine with the traditional 3-band EQ. I find there is one area where I think it sounds best for all channels, but for recording purposes the ISF can be used to dial in a pretty wide variety of tones, as long as you also adjust the 3-band to compensate appropriately.
These amps have a classic Marshall type design of 3 preamp tubes, and in this case 4x EL34 power tubes. The Mark II version of this amp only has 2 preamp tubes, so I’m not sure why kind of magic is going on there - tube gain stages replaced by transistors, or PI converted to solid state etc., but I’m happy with this 3-tube setup. It’s very difficult to find concrete answers as to the signal path of this amp, and now it’s been a whole decade since they were so popular it’ll probably be tough to really find out. I did find a schematic but this one is a bit more complicated than I’m used to, with a lot of op-amps and other things I haven’t learned the functions of yet, but a cursory glance shows a couple of tube gain stages and a few diodes, but I’m not sure if the diodes are used for overdrive or not. If I find out, I will update this post.
Op-amps, diodes, or not, it’s a great sounding amp and deceptively good - I paid under $400 for this amp and I feel it holds up very well to amps that cost 3x or 4x its price. A winner for sure - and no surprise these were all the rage when they came out, and why the HT5 and HT20 models still sell well today.
