I've just had a look at those Peters amps. They don't look any more 'special' than an MJW to me. Are they just a nice two-channel Marshall type, or am I missing something?
Marshall type is relative. The Halo is a really great clean and the second channel can be very brootal too, depending on the design you chose. To me the Chimaira clips I heard sound nothing like a Marshall to me, more like between an Uebershall and an EVH stype setup. So yeah, Marshall very remotely. I don't think the Orion can have as much gain as the Gryphon or Chimaira and stay tight and transparent, but prove me wrong.
One thing that is special are also his tricks, switches and controls to get a very complex fine tuning to make the amp sound big at any volume. And then of course his designs have a very transparent and powerful loop, external bias points etc.
He also uses top notch components. All these add to the price.
Yeah, there are many aspects of Peters that are appealing to me
- Fine tuned meticulously and obsessively to be transparent, responsive, dynamic
metal amps (partly with the gryphon, largely with the hydra and completely with the chimera: the polaris looks more marshall, maybe the gryphon too (but I’ve heard A/B clips of a gryphon KILL a JCM800, so idk).
- Power section controls tuned to get as good a sound as possible at low volume
- They can take any power tube
- The clips sound awesome. Even the ones with rubbish camera mics placed randomly sound great. The chimera sounds most to me like channel 3 of a VH4, actually, but….not: its got a throaty, vicious snarl, punishing, tight low end and high attack to it but is still organic, unlike the VH4 (from the clips, of course) and sounds like it can be dialled in to have much more chime and shimmer if you want it to (as some have it and some don’t). It doesn’t sound anything like a marshall to me. The polaris is moderately JCM800 territory, though, from the clips. I think even the gryphon steps outside marshall levels of metal (save maybe the JVM).
- Doesn’t cost the earth (to me at least; in keeping with the thread, 2k is an amount I’m happy to pay for an amp that I really like, I just can't
really know that I like it unless I’ve played through it!)
Martin, the idea of a custom build metal amp that I can help design (or at least bitch and whine about the sound until its changed to such a point that I like it) is very appealing indeed, but I’m not sure we’re on the same page here – I’m talking about a metal amp; something I gather you’re dead set against building? If that’s not the case, and if you aren’t kidding about it being an iterative job with tuning to my tastes, then I’d be interested in that yes and may have to have a word with you. But you should know that I don’t like marshalls :lol: ;)
