I was scouring the Guitar Center used listings and I spotted a picture of a KSR Juno for a ridiculous price - $1250. The listing title said Ares but lets face it, Guitar Center’s listing titles and pictures are both equally unreliable, so I figured I’d risk it. I already have an Orthos 2 which is a very good amp, but the Juno is appealing to me with the separate EQ’s for the two lead channel modes. Once my order shipped and I saw that the package was only 31lbs, I knew it was going to be an Ares to my disappointment.
Of course, that’s not to say this isn’t a great amp. In this space of smaller amps, although this doesn’t quite count as a “lunchbox” amp, it’s very appealing. It’s kind of like a slightly more serious portable amp, sporting a full 50w power rating and very large transformers, with a choke, and high end components.
This particular amp is technically an Ares “II,” although I don’t think that is an official name. The difference is that this version of the amp has the two 6-way “feel” controls in place of the earlier version which just had 3-position “fat” switches like the Colossus. The Lead channel is the standard KSR/Rhodes style drive, which is gainy and saturated, but extremely polished and I’d say polite sounding, perhaps too smooth. I had the same critique of the Orthos, I felt like the amp was going for an “already mastered” type sound and lacked a little bit of personality and character. Still, these are superb amps if that’s the sound you are after.
This amp basically has the Lead section lifted right out of the Orthos, with a switchable effects loop and two master volumes. When you engage the 2nd master, it also uses the bottom row of voicing configurations, so that does add some versatility to the amp.
One of the biggest gripes I have about this amp (and the Orthos) is that the Master 1 mode has a crunch switch which heavily reduces the gain of the amp, and wow does it sound like absolute garbage. I don’t know what is going on behind the scenes here, but it really feels like it just chops the gain off about halfway between two stages and doesn’t do any other shaping. It’s not really usable to me, the bass is all cut to voice the amp for metal, so the crunch mode is incredible thin and bright sounding, but it also never gets clean sounding or dynamic with the guitar volume like I’d expect from an amp more dedicated to mid-gain tones. Obviously this is not the focus of the amp so I won’t complain too much. I did notice that on the KSR website, you can select a “clean mod” for an extra $250 which makes the crunch switch knock the amp down to an even lower gain level, so I really wonder how effective that actually is.
While I’m complaining, I also did a lot of A/B testing of this amp against my Orthos 2, which is the 100w version. They both have nearly identical core tones, as expected, both get plenty gainy and overall sound very good for heavier styles, almost akin to a 5150/6505 but with less grit. However, through the same cab and at the same volume level (measured by dB meter), the Orthos is just so much wider sounding. The Orthos has more extended lows and highs, so in contrast the Ares sounds a little… less than it could be. I was surprised because the Ares is pretty heavy for a small amp with plenty large transformers. For someone like me who doesn’t mind playing a 50w+ full size amp at home, I’d rather have the Orthos here, and if I wanted a lunchbox style amp, the Ares is still too large and high wattage. Again, I know I’m being too particular here and I’m sure this amp has its fans, but it just doesn’t speak to me.
Money is a little tight right now so I think this one will have to be returned to GC. Too bad it wasn’t the Juno, now I’m wondering how the 50w Juno would compare with the 100w Orthos…