I needed a loud head for my band, gigging, recording etc...First I went with the Marshall Origin series 50 watt all tube head and loved the tones it produced however, after one full use, (about an hour and a half of playing at band volume) one of the power tubes blew. No biggie I thought, guitar center has a pretty fair return policy so I took it back, explaining that this must've been a fluke and I'd like a replacement, which they did without question. (Even got me free 2 day shipping direct from Marshall) So I happily took the new head, brand spanking new in the box to band practice, plugged it in a Marshall 4x12 cab and immediately the amp began cracking and popping the same as it did when one of the power tubes went out in the previous floor model....soooo, I went back to the drawing board and at this point was about a minute away from just saying screw it and getting the Orange CR120 head as I'd seen rave reviews on it, despite it bu.ming me out that I'd have to, in my eyes, do the walk of shame showing up for practice with a solid state amp instead of my preferred method of being loud by cooking vacuum tubes. I decided to just take a peek at the preowned section and I immediately took notice of the compact sized all tube head branded with the Electro Harmonix logo...I was confused as I'd never even heard of an EHX amp, I knew their pedal game was on point, but I did have the knowledge of their hand in the Russian brands of Vacuum tubes and that peaked my interest even more...long story short, my regular salesperson at guitar center gave me the lowdown on this particular amp and after a few minutes and a half dozen types of guitars plugged into it, I was sold. On sheer volume alone. The tones were very crisp and clear through the 4x12 I was testing it through and I decided this would be a good bet. I'm so glad I chose this over the CR120, not that the Orange is a bad amp by any means, but I believe I found a gem that as luck would have it, had just been traded in right before I arrived. Must've been meant to be. Anyway, for this demo I'm running the head through a 1x12 Celestion Vintage 30 housed in my blues junior as my 4x12 is in the band room. First guitar is a butterscotch Fender 52 Telecaster, second is a surf green 57 Fender Stratocaster, and lastly is a 59 Gibson Les Paul Standard. All reissues obviously, I'm not a millionaire. I might give a more in depth review after I've really put it through its paces and get the tubes cooking but I think this is an outstanding, no bullshit, robust and tonally sweet sounding rig and would HIGHLY recommend it for anyone looking for an obscenely loud and clean pedal platform.
2 окт 2024
