This was another amp I remember testing out and enjoying around 2009 or 2010 when I was new to guitar. The idea of being able to blend power tube types was genius at the time - and still sounds appetizing today. These are very inexpensive online, and I spotted this one at a very low price on Reverb and grabbed it.
The clean channel is extremely full and thick sounding, I’d wager it’s one of the best clean channels I’ve ever heard really. The digital reverb is also fantastic sounding and can get really over the top. I found this channel best with the gain maxed out (don’t worry, it still stays clean) and the tweakable bright/deep switches can add some nice variation to the tone. I preferred this one turned all the way to 6L6 mode.
The drive channel is a bit underwhelming. Obviously my ear for tone has improved greatly over the years. I prefer it turned all the way to EL34, and with the gain around half it does a very good Marshall low-mid gain impression with good grit. However, keep turning the gain up and the amp becomes very flubby even to the point where when hitting an E chord for example, the upper strings cancel completely out and you can’t hear them at all because the bass takes over the whole sound. In hindsight, I understand this has to do with the voicing of the amp itself, so perhaps a few modifications to the circuit could open this up more to be more useful. The problem is even worse with high output pickups.
So it’s not what I dreamed of - an amp that would do the classic 6L6 high gain sound as well as the EL34 modded Marshall tones - but those expectations were probably unreasonable to begin with. What it does do is a pretty killer clean tone, maybe even a Twin Reverb impression, couple with a nice mid gain rock tone that allows the character of both tube types to come through.
