Had to do it. I was so impressed with the soundclips that Philip posted of his hotrodded Rat 5 watt Blackheart, that I got in touch with the bloke selling them. He does a dual valve version - EL84 and a 6V6/6L6, switchable between the 2, plus powerscaling for £280 - seemed like a bargain to me! I was desperate for a low power valve amp, as my Orange is just riddiculous as it's stuck in my spare room unable to be turned up past 0.5..!
Sooo...
I've been playing with it for an hour... definitely impressed. There are places you don't want to go. The powerscaling is good, but not perfect. You can use it to take the edge of the volume (or rather the loudness), but things start to get fizzy too low down. Also, with the master all the way up I found a real sweet spot for the volume, just before half way, where it gets beautiful. And that's just what I was after - on that setting, it's a perfect, just breaking up valve amp.
The thing can also be switched between a valve and a solud state rectifier... only run with the valve so far.
And then I kicked in the HT Dual!!! Whoa!!! The green channel was kicking out some biting AD\DC, and the red channel had this superb saturation. Really very good indeed.
Incidentally, I was playing mostly with my newly acquired Yam SG, and it's amazing. With no pedals, and in that sweetspot, it's got a killer bright, bluesy tone.
Will post clips, but there are 3 more links in the chain waiting to arrive - BKPs for the SG, a Framus 2x12, and an SM57 - the Samson mic I'm using to record stuff is seriously rubbish.
Mark.
