Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Guitars, Amps and Effects => Topic started by: Dmoney on March 31, 2009, 10:34:42 AM
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SO!
I get back from work this morning (night shifts) and I get home JUST before my new amp arrives. I'm sure most people read the story that led to me getting this, and most people are aware of my beef with Sounds Great in Manc.
this is my new Soldano Avenger 100w with EL34 power stage
So yeah, this time round, i decided to take some photo's of the unboxing process.
(http://c3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/111/l_5df607b7f0e3416bbfc84f80ea4d2752.jpg)
(http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/112/l_900c0227b1fd4e74bb1916a6dfa6d5f8.jpg)
(http://c3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/91/l_fa493d4d30c449b9ac9d2dee11bf3eea.jpg)
(http://c3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/78/l_8d5c24892c0b4f77b7ffb05cb0b5ec66.jpg)
(http://c4.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/87/l_c89acd0740404a67938a729cba2b09b7.jpg)
(http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/108/l_5673399638b54a65a4977c398e4955c1.jpg)
I plugged this baby in and let it warm up. took it off stand by and i was WORRIED! even with the volume up is was super quiet and fizzy. I slowly turned up the preamp gain and JUST as the preamp reached 1 on the dial, BOOM! this thing burst into life and blew my face off!!!! same thing with the master volume, if you have either control lower than 1 the volume drops right off, that means you can actually get some nice cleans from this amp with careful settings!
I got the gain up to about 5 then 6 then 7, sounded awesome, a bit like my mesa but tighter. then i played with the eq, and the presence and depth alter the character so much! i thought it was going to stick being one sounded then as i turned the presence nob it just went through so many colours it was amazing.
It also has a purple light on it!
i played my MM loaded LTD through it, later on when i wake up im gonna blast the RY les paul custom through.
now all i need is some better speakers then the G12T-75's in my cab.
im thinking vintage 30, or maybe even Jensen electric lightning. im going to change one of my cabs wiring and speakers and get it re-covered to match my orange soldano.
if you wanna hear this live, my band is playing london on friday. although if you come don't tell me cos ill be embarressed. forget i said anything.!
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Very happy for you mate! It looks pretty!
You could always get an Orange 4x12, they are V30 loaded, already Orange, and built like tanks.
After the saga you went through getting it I really hope it gives you the sound you are looking for! And even if not, it's a custom build! Can't be bad.
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true!
Orange cabs are one line of cabs ive never used. ive used some trace elliot, mesa rectcifier 4x12, peavey 5150 4x12, various marshall's w/ V30's or G12T's at some point.
I know i like an angled cab. I can get a 1960A re covered, thats not a problem. but im now thinking of changing the speaker wiring to 14 gauge wire or something, and hard wiring speakers in 4ohm or 16ohm mono, to match my other cab. take out the stereo option. since i don't use it. im thinking about mixing 2xV30's in with the G12T's, or going 4xV30's, or 4xElectric Lightnings, or G12T's and Eminence Govenors. Governors + Wizards.
so many ideas.
i emailed hotroxuk about some jensen ideas, and they suggested 4x12 loaded with 12" Blackbirds, 100watt Alnico speakers! pretty expensive!
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I've got a Diezel on order and the new rear loaded cabs come with Tone Tubby Hempcone speakers, which they seem to be making a lot of fuss about. Might all be hot air though :)
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Great great great! Avengers rule!!
I think mix of Greenback and G12H30 for this one.
I saw that combination on the Bogner Alchemist, and although dB ratings would recommend against a match of these 2 speakers, as I had them lying around I put these in my Heritage 2x12 cab to give it a try.
Wow, I am impressed, it's a great tone. I have these speakers in the cab since 3 weeks now and meanwhile I prefer it to the Bogner 4x12 (which is supposed to be the best cab made by man).
Especially on higher gain patches, with Diezel or Engl models on my Axe, it adds that kind of evil dark midrange that is lacking on those tones with Vintage 30s.
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I just finished nights and my brain is fried... are you saying you put both a greenback and a g12h30 into your 2x12?
what head are you using with that?
yo ailean ive also been hearing things about hemp cones, but not very much. although this is really my first venture onto the world of speakers
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Congratulations, That certainly looks a monster ! I like the simple layout ( and purple lamp ).
Regarding speakers, if going higher £££, I love the Electrovoice EVM12Ls, rated at 200watts each. I have a pair of the 'Classics' but there are also the 'Black Label' 300watt version to consider too of course .
My only concern for you ( needing 4 speakers ) - is cost. At much lower cost - Twinfan really impressed me with his Celestion ' Hot 100 ' speakers . :)
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I just finished nights and my brain is fried... are you saying you put both a greenback and a g12h30 into your 2x12?
what head are you using with that?
yo ailean ive also been hearing things about hemp cones, but not very much. although this is really my first venture onto the world of speakers
I use both a Bogner Shiva and then a rack with Axe-FX and VHT2502.
The Avenger should sound great with any good cab, I would take a day off and visit music shops, taking the head along, to get better idea for the flavour.
As you have G12T75s, might be worth trying to mix those with Vintage30s, like Bogner do on the Ubercab: http://www.bogneramplification.com/customshop/4x12Info.php
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I would deffo go for.an orange cab, they sound amazing and the aesthetics are right. What kind of sound are you going for in. The cab?
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I'd vote for the Eminence Governors- the top end isn't harsh at all, and the mids just push right through... loads of bass if you need it too (and that's using it in an open backed cab, i can't wait to try them in a closed cab).
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Regarding speakers, if going higher £££, I love the Electrovoice EVM12Ls, rated at 200watts each. I have a pair of the 'Classics' but there are also the 'Black Label' 300watt version to consider too of course .
I looked at electro voice, but the EVM12L's are discontinued. they only seem to do the Black Label, which looks a touch over spec'd for me. 300watt! 4 of those in a cab sounds like crazy talk.
As you have G12T75s, might be worth trying to mix those with Vintage30s, like Bogner do on the Ubercab: http://www.bogneramplification.com/customshop/4x12Info.php
i didnt know bogner did this. i heard Randall had a cab with this speaker config. i think that combo is probably going to be the cheapest one to use as an experiment. just changing 2 speakers. I could cart the head around london, but id like to put some interesting speakers in their, denmark street has a lack of interesting cabs i think. once place does have a Diamond Amplification cab. buts mostly various peavey, marshall and hiwatt. i cant remember if some places have the odd randall or orange. i keep reading names like jensen, scumback, fane, weber, etc... soooo many. I guess the vintage 30 is a safe option that sounds good with almost anything. party the reason why i looked at jensen electric lightnings, i think they are comparable to a V30. but im only gonna be able to try a lot of these things if i buy them first. which is the gamble/trial and error element of speaker browsing.
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amazing!!! have a lot fun with you new amp
cheers
exoslime
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Regarding speakers, if going higher £££, I love the Electrovoice EVM12Ls, rated at 200watts each.
My only concern for you ( needing 4 speakers ) - is cost.
My concern would be for his back when lifting the cab - EVs are stupidly heavy
My Rivera 2x12 had EVMs in and took 2 people to lift and it was tough going
I swapped them out for Celestion Sidewinders - same sensitivity , 150w each, great clarity with a celestion smoothness
Sadlty discontinued :(
Ask Will about them - he buys them on ebay
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Lovely new amp !!!!!
Looking forward to the gig report of it, after friday.
As for speakers, and cabs, it comes down so much (like anything tonal) to personal taste.
Personally, I wouldn't countenance playing with just a single straight 4x12, as I wouldn't feel I would hear myself enough. Closed back cabs are just so directional and , until I get ear grafts on my legs, I want at least some sound pointing a little bit upwards at my head. That's definately a bad mark in the Orange 4x12's book for me. THey should consider doing an angled cab too !
I really like std 1960a cabs, but with different speakers. I think the notion of swapping out two of the G12T-75's for V30's is a very good idea, and then definately get the V30 mic'ed at gigs (I assume everything goes through FoH). It's a pretty cheapish option for you too.
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Nice one on the amp - I'm so glad it worked out ok in the end :D
Looks like a beast - nice layout, even I could probably understand the controls :lol:
And it's got a purple light!!! Nuff said... :lol:
Can't help on the speakers though...
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I have a 5150 cab loaded with 2 x Celestion G12K-100s and 2 x EVM-12L black labels. Yes, it is heavy (oh my lord it's heavy!), but I can lift it into and out of the back of a Renault Clio (lip at the back which isn't too helpful!!) on my own.
If you fancy hearing how it sounds, we're playing in Oxford on the 9th of April and The Barfly in Camden on the 19th of April (Charity gig which I shall be spamming these forums about in due course!)
I can thoroughly recommend both the Celestion G12K-100 and the EVM 12L black (although the latter are VERY expensive, they do retain all the bass frequencies with unbelievable clarity at high volume).
Roo
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In a clio? :O How does the back bumber like kissing the road? :lol:
Then again.. I manage to get a Laney VC100 into the back of a C1 haha (I'm 18 and not that butch .. so doing it too often does kind of kill me :( )
Have you considered the Celestion Century and Century Vintage?
Nice and light and combined they apparently make a great combo (2 of both in one 4x12).
They have a sh*tload of extra volume too, but the downside is extra treble.. in the Century that is, combined with the Vintage I hear they are perfectly balanced. :)
edit: Oh and btw, that is a bitchin' amp man! :D I'm colourblind so the blue light will do for me haha
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that is awesome. :D the purple light just makes it more so.
the fact they sound great doesn't hurt either... :lol: i agree that there's a pretty big range of tones available from the avenger (at least there was from the one i tried). :)
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1 problem with cabs and speakers for me is that where i play can vary so much.
I can play shows where ill be pushed right up against my cab or ever stood behind my cab, thats happened once or twice. in those situations im going to struggle to hear a lot of things, which is why i prefer angled to straight cabs. it just makes things a little easier to here. thats one reason ive never really pursued orange cabs.
Roo your cab sounds like the heaviest thing ever, in musical terms i mean!
when considering speakers i looked at cost, then what i could experiment with on the cheap, then different versions of those speakers and some variants. id love to be able to get a BUNCH of speakers and break them all in and test em all out, but that would cost serious money.
SO! my current plan is this.
re-cover a cab orange, put in 2 V30's in the X setup a la Ubercab, wire it for 4ohm or 16ohm mono (since i don't use stereo ever) replaced the wires with good quality speaker wire and throw out the 1960A pcd mounted sockets and switch.
all im buying then is the V30's. I MIGHT experiment with using some diffusers, since i do find my cab as it is at the moment pretty directional. I also read somewhere that the ubercab has some 'poly-fibre batting' in the back of it. not sure how that effects ubercab tone. ive never played an ubercab but from what i understand it has a good reputation.
Dave, the range of sounds seems even better than the first 5881 Avenger i had! maybe thats psychological, but id like to think it isn't!
haha
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The amp looks great-enjoy.
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I use an uberkab
It makes marshall cabs sound like toys.
Awesome sound out of it - very heavy, but very clear (thats a requisite to be part of my setup!), and pretty tight. Not front-loaded tight, but tighter than any other rearloaded I've heard.
Only complaint - its very beamy. Very beamy indeed.
Oh, happy new amp day. I keep meaning to try one of those.
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Good stuff mate - hope it proves to be worth the wait!
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SO! my current plan is this.
re-cover a cab orange, put in 2 V30's in the X setup a la Ubercab, wire it for 4ohm or 16ohm mono (since i don't use stereo ever) replaced the wires with good quality speaker wire and throw out the 1960A pcd mounted sockets and switch.
all im buying then is the V30's. I MIGHT experiment with using some diffusers, since i do find my cab as it is at the moment pretty directional. I also read somewhere that the ubercab has some 'poly-fibre batting' in the back of it. not sure how that effects ubercab tone. ive never played an ubercab but from what i understand it has a good reputation.
Sounds like a good plan to me. I would wait with the tolex until I am happy tone wise. In case you sell the cab, it might sell better in black.
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I use an uberkab
It makes marshall cabs sound like toys.
Awesome sound out of it - very heavy, but very clear (thats a requisite to be part of my setup!), and pretty tight. Not front-loaded tight, but tighter than any other rearloaded I've heard.
Only complaint - its very beamy. Very beamy indeed.
Oh, happy new amp day. I keep meaning to try one of those.
if its beamy maybe it would be cool if i went for the same setup to try diffusers. I guess id have to remove them for recording, but i play live more than i record. I do find my cabs pretty directional too. if im not stood perpendicular to the speaker cones then im getting different tones, once i get 45 degrees away (depeding on how close im stood) its muffles up pretty quick.
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My concern would be for his back when lifting the cab - EVs are stupidly heavy
My Rivera 2x12 had EVMs in and took 2 people to lift and it was tough going
I swapped them out for Celestion Sidewinders - same sensitivity , 150w each, great clarity with a celestion smoothness
Sadlty discontinued :(
Ask Will about them - he buys them on ebay
Looking at EV's they are the same sensitivity as v30's (which were presumably high when they were released?)
And I haven't bought any in about 10 months for the record :)
http://www.commsandsound.com/electro-voice-evm12l-8-guitar-speaker-classic-13787-0.html I think the classic is basically a reissue, same factory so in theory not worse than originals
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I use an uberkab
It makes marshall cabs sound like toys.
Awesome sound out of it - very heavy, but very clear (thats a requisite to be part of my setup!), and pretty tight. Not front-loaded tight, but tighter than any other rearloaded I've heard.
Only complaint - its very beamy. Very beamy indeed.
Oh, happy new amp day. I keep meaning to try one of those.
if its beamy maybe it would be cool if i went for the same setup to try diffusers. I guess id have to remove them for recording, but i play live more than i record. I do find my cabs pretty directional too. if im not stood perpendicular to the speaker cones then im getting different tones, once i get 45 degrees away (depeding on how close im stood) its muffles up pretty quick.
Diffusers (like Weber beam Blockers) DO NOT work the way they are explained to. They also cause all sorts of weird phase effects. If you really want to get into this, then read - http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?t=470956 . Sorry. it's a monstrous thread, but with outstanding information in it, and a relatively cheap (but much better) alternative to beam blockers.
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awesome! i'll check it out when i get into work in a bit.
if you watch the BBC tonight, think of me... haha.
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Glad you finally got it, looks sexy!
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careful, dont want sounds great to see pictures of it sitting on a chair, theyll claim that its not designed for that and it puts unnecessary strain on the output transformer :lol:
have a look for one of the old mesa cabs like this
(http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/ee282/muzz989/DSC03472.jpg)
2 evl's in the bottom and 2 celestion black shadow 90w's in the top. ive seen them go for reasonably cheap sometimes. Probably to cover the cost of the necessary back surgery after owning one for too long
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thats the meanest looking cab ive seen!
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Dave, the range of sounds seems even better than the first 5881 Avenger i had! maybe thats psychological, but id like to think it isn't!
haha
haha! I'm not sure which one i tried, to be honest. i'd assume the 5881 version, but you never know. :)
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Dave, the range of sounds seems even better than the first 5881 Avenger i had! maybe thats psychological, but id like to think it isn't!
haha
haha! I'm not sure which one i tried, to be honest. i'd assume the 5881 version, but you never know. :)
probably was, apparently my EL34 power stage was put in as a favour, it would usually cost more and it isnt an avaible optnio anymore. it was all part of the Soldano customer service to make up for all the trouble.
I just ordered 2 Vintage 30's
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yeah. the one i tried was second-hand... and it was a while ago i tried it too, so it wouldn't be completely impossible that it was the el34 version, but very unlikely, i'd have thought. :)
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Lovely looking Amp Dmoney!
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thanks johnny!
next projects are the cab + speakers to go with it.
and my parapedal clone.
im going all out on making the parapedal look good.
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I'd definitely recommend looking at the G12K-100s, Dmoney, they're cheap but glorious speakers, and others at the gear page have mentioned G12K + V30s in an X pattern in a 4 x 12 sounding good (I'd imagine they would but haven't tested this myself!)
They have a wonderful clean sound, and their low grind under high gain is superb. High power handling, too, so you won't get that horrible mush when you turn up :)
Roo
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yeah man, i read a little bit about them last night.
I have 2 4x12's so i might experiment with a few things, keep an eye on ebay.
the easiest and cheapest combo to go for was the ubercab g12t-75 + v30. since that only really meant getting hold of 2 V30's. I've felt G12T's are a little under rated, but the G12K's do read like some sweet speakers.
i feel like the world of speakers has been opened up to me for some serious experimentation!
im actually really excited!!!!!!
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I'd definitely recommend looking at the G12K-100s, Dmoney, they're cheap but glorious speakers, and others at the gear page have mentioned G12K + V30s in an X pattern in a 4 x 12 sounding good (I'd imagine they would but haven't tested this myself!)
They have a wonderful clean sound, and their low grind under high gain is superb. High power handling, too, so you won't get that horrible mush when you turn up :)
+1
I have 2 K100s in my 4x12" (with 2 Classic Lead 80s, wired in a vertical pattern) & they are GREAT speakers.
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I've got 3 of the Peavey5150 sheffield 1200 speakers that came out of my 5150 cab when I swapped the G12K and EVM blacks in there, so if you're interested in buying a couple of them off me, I'm sure we could come to some arrangement! I'm not specifically looking to sell them, but equally I don't have a specific use for them and so would happily sell 2 of them to a good home for not too many of your dirty notes! :)
The reason I say this is that I think I probably underrated them initially. The new speakers, don't get me wrong, are fantastic, but the sheffield speakers are actually quite nicely voiced, very efficient and have a pretty full sound to them. They'd probably pair very well with V30s or even much less coloured speakers such as EVMs, but of course the only way to find out is to test!
Roo
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yo!
i got my Vintage 30 / G12T-75 combo in, just breaking them in by playing some noise through em.
I have a stock 1960A too, so i can compare side by side.
my adventure into the world of speakers is looking exciting!
I'm playing a show tonight in london so hopefully i can have a run out with the head at least!
in other news, i asked sounds great if the old head would be for sale cheap, apparently some Manc band is using it in a studio, it got new sovtek 5881's and a rebias, and its being "used in anger to make sure everything is OK – which so far it is." I don't if this is again, suggesting i made up the whole fault, and the issue with the repair job i had. I really really really don't feel like sounds great have any reprimand for treating me like sh*t...
...im very bitter.
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G12-65 X Pattern w/ G12T75
Is a great combination for high gain and cleans.
You get all the power handling, great high end from the T75 and all the bottom end plus the majorly sweet mid range from the 12-65 filling out the middle.
This also works with T75/V30 but not quite as nice it's a little pokey still.
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ah!
thanks for the tip! and to roo for the G12K-100 idea.
i found this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mze7-zhkx-4&feature=related
which (apart from using water to clean your cab) seems fairly interesting.
I'd really like to try some stuff out of the Jensen Jets range of speakers.
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...im very bitter.
Dude, get over it! There is no benefit in raving on and on about what happened and what xyz said. The only thing that counts is: you have a great amp/cab/tone and can give a shite about those noobs.
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...im very bitter.
Dude, get over it! There is no benefit in raving on and on about what happened and what xyz said. The only thing that counts is: you have a great amp/cab/tone and can give a shitee about those noobs.
soz lar!