I’ve been slowly becoming more and more interested in the various Brunetti line of amps. These are a little less known here in the US, and I’m not sure how popular they are in Europe either - I was actually in Italy this summer and stopped by a couple of music stores and never saw any Brunetti products (or amp heads in general, actually).
This amp is nearly identical to my XL Revo II, but comes in a very cool purple headshell that lacks the 1U rack space that the standard model includes. The most obvious difference at first glance is the pair of 6550/KT88 power tubes, bringing this amp to roughly 70 watts. That’s a little louder in theory compared to my 50w XL Revo, but this amp also gains a 15w mode on the front panel. Otherwise, the controls front and back are identical - as are the features, and likely the circuit itself (besides accommodating the different power tubes).
It’s a 3-channel amp, with a very nice clean channel with a bright control (rather than a switch, making it very versatile). The “Boost” channel does a great 800-style crunch but can get a little bit gainier and bassier than a 2203 circuit. The real kick comes from the XLEAD channel, which gets nice and saturated. The voicing of the XLEAD channel is a bit different from Boost as well, adding a bit more bass and treble with the additional gain. That gives the impression of it being “scooped” but it really isn’t, and can be dialed very similarly to the boost channel if desired. It’s smooth and mean sounding, and stands out very nicely in the mix to my ear - great sounding amp all around. If I had to pick a comparison, it feels more Soldano-like to me than something like a Fireball, which has a similar amount of gain but voiced differently.
Awesome amp to add to the collection here, and these really deserve more attention. I’m not as familiar with the current product lineup (Pleximan, Mercury) but there is a Mille! preamp available brand new right now. The Mille was Brunetti’s original preamp design and is essentially the preamp circuit from the original XL. While I haven’t played one myself, I’d hazard a guess that it probably sounds incredible paired with a good power amp, and for $1k new I think it’s a huge value.
Of course, I’m still looking for an original XL myself, and go ahead and add the tube-mix Pirata 141 (which allows for a mixing between two sets of power tubes) to the wanted list as well. I’d love to hear a different take on this than the Egnater Renegade, which I just couldn’t get along with. I love the power tube switch on my Kasha Rockmod but that’s not a mix, it simply switches from one pair to another pair.