Jack you have a way of bringing out the best in all the amps you demo. As always excellent playing and tasty riffs. Thanks to all at Peach for putting together this wonderful overview of the DR.Z line.
These are main stage amps! The headroom really comes through, illuminating the personality of each individual circuit. With Jack playing, I like them all! For me, and what kind of music I’m doing these days, the NOVA leapt out at me, but I really liked the Z-lux, EZG, and EMS for their clarity and punch. Amazing to hear the difference between the “small” Z’s and these! Would have loved to hear the Z-Wreck in that mix? Rock and ROLL DREAM MACHINES
If I could only have one amp, it would have to be the Maz 38. That was my first Z, and still just so versatile! That EMS though!!! Great playing as always Jack!
Z Lux is my favorite. That thing sounds beautiful especially the cleans. The EZG is a tie for me. I liked the overdriven tone. Of course the MAZ is also killer.
I'm on my second dr. Z Maz 18 jr. And I can't sing enough praise about them! The first Maz 18 jr. I owned was the non Reverb model with a celestion g12m, the blue alnico speaker. The one I own now is a 2007 model with the Reverb and two 10-inch speakers. First off, the one without the Reverb, in my opinion has a sweeter, higher gain structure. And with that 12 inch celestion that amp really sang. The one that I own now with the two 10-inch speakers, I have to say while it sounds amazing, the Reverb is nowhere near the lush or deep sounding as a Fender style Reverb and the gain structure is not as edgy. To sum it up, I liked my first one better. Although the one I own now, I put some NOS early 1960s mullard el84 and the combination of Mullard and RCA preamp tubes. I also swapped one of the speakers out for a celestion gold alnico 10-inch speaker. Kind of like the Matchless deal where they had two different manufacturer speakers in some of their amps. I have to say it really woke this amplifier up. So now I'm my rig for both recording and live shows, that is as soon as covid goes away, I have a 2007 Tone king imperial Mark 1 that's all stock with the exception of NOS RCA tubes throughout the amp and I run that in stereo with my doctor Z Maz 18 jr. And it is the gravy of the Gods!! I also have a Tweed Blues Junior with the gold back Jensen that I had modded here locally in Seattle by John frommel and that app sounds closer to a deluxe Reverb or Princeton than a blues Junior. You can find John frommel on RU-vid and I highly recommend his mods! So I basically have 3 amps running through that's sweet but not overdone pedal board and I couldn't be happier!
I do t feel that Im all that great of a guitar player with that being said, they all sound so good I thought any of them would make me sound grea, but then I thought because these amps sound so good I would no longer have an excuse for sounding bad.....lol........Great demo!!!!!!!
All great amps. Probably worth a mention that the MAZ and Z-Lux have Dr Z's variable-boost, which is achieved by bypassing the eq section of the amps. I don't think Jack had that feature engaged. Lovely playing, as always.
I urge all to try one yourself in a shop or other, the sound I have been getting from my MAZ Mk ii has been face meltingly good, half the magic is the WGS et65 speaker. I was on the fence for years because of the simplicity, turns out the simplicity is has a complexity to it too.
Hey rossco, thanks for your comment! We totally agree, the MKII's are really something special! Anybody who hasn't tried one really needs to, it's well worth the journey!
Tough choice. You made them all sound groovy. I'd probably go Z-lux for clean with its richer bottom. You put "clean" on both its sections. I think the 2nd part was a bit overdriven, but it's hard to compare the single notes to the chording in the other demos. I suspect I'd probably like it for that too. The EMS was probably the best for 80s hair rock.
