As a bit of a Splawn fan, I’ve made it my goal to try out all of the various circuits that Scott and his team have offered over the years. One of the harder ones to find are very early high/low input models, made from late 2004 to 2005, such as this one:
These early amps have two channels and no “gears” like later models. The clean channel is controlled with a simple volume knob only, and has no EQ or other frills. Still, it’s a very nice, usable and bright clean channel, and it doesn’t seem to be affected by the preamp gain setting on the overdrive channel - this is in contrast to the 2006 QuickRod where the clean is much dirtier when using higher gain settings.
This particular amp is actually a “Pro Mod,” which is identical to the Quick Rod except it sports a quad of KT88/6550 power tubes instead of the QR’s quad of EL34’s. This amp predates the KT88 equipped “Nitro” models, and documents from the era seem to imply that the Pro Mod is aimed a little more at louder, more aggressive styles and players. However, this is no super high gain metal monster - it has far less gain than Splawns 2006 and newer. The tone is a very open, less bright than a 2203, with a tad more gain and fullness - a bit more of a classic “modded Marshall” tone, while still staying faithful to the original sound. It is less congested in the mids than my other Splawns and really lends itself well to taking a boost in front, which really adds to its versatility.
It’s also interesting that this amp predates the more modern Splawn cabinet construction, and came in a shell that is much more similar to a Marshall 1959 type. While I’m a big fan of Splawn amps, I do think their head cabinets are their weakest point, based on how many I’ve received damaged in shipping, and this finger-jointed cabinet seems much more resilient.
These amps use Magnetic Components transformers (prior to the Classic Tone branding), although it has a Mercury Magnetics choke installed. By the next year, these transformers would be Heyboers instead, before eventually returning to Magnetic Components again.
Now I’m only missing two amps in the lineage. First, for a short time in late 2005, there were some QuickRod/ProMod models that had the high/low inputs, no gears, but the clean channel had a separate 3-band EQ. The other is a current production QR with the new/old and drop B+ switches - I’ve had a recent Street Rod (nearly the same as the QR preamp) but without those switches - I’d love to compare a current model in old mode against my original 2006 QR, which supposedly that mode is based on.