Hi,
I have a Diamond Spec Op coupled with a Dragoon 2x12 cabinet equipped with Celestion Century cones.
First of all forget all the clips and youtube vids, I would have never bought this amp if it sounded like any of the examples on the internet; the ones on youtube are horrible and even the ones on the official Diamond web site are not good enough imho.
Somebody wrote that it is like a Marshall on steroids, which is not true and reductive.
Before testing the head I thought about it as a high gain amp, only capable of heavily distorted sounds and a nice enough clean sound, but I was wrong: if I set the gain knob at 8;00 o’clock and the channel volume at noon I can play with a clean sound when I pick lightly, with a crunch sound when I pick with normal strenght and with a hard rock sound when I pick with strenght.
Even with a heavy metal distortion if I back up the guitar volume the sond cleans up very very well.
With this amp it is very important to learn how volume and gain interact, as the distortion is enough for any extreme metal player; to give you an idea if you set the gain knob at noon you will get a Slipknot distortion type. You should not set the gain beyond 2,00 o’clock, as the manual states.
The sound is so defined that it highlights the real sound of guitars and effects hooked to it and if you use cr@ppy stuff you will not be able to hide it.
You also will not be able to hide the performance mistakes, but this is not a bad thing at all, as it taught me to set my hand and fingers in the right way if I wanted to sound good; I found my paying improved in a short time.
It’s an “in your face” amp, with frequences studied to avoid that a guitar player will disappear in a band mix.
I brutalized the Mesa Rectifier head of the other giutar player of my band, just to give you an idea.
The clean sound is very nice, it's kind of a Fender tone on the modern side (I don't know how to explain it well)
You have to know how the amp works, the manual is very well made and explains perfectly how the knobs work, giving precious suggestions.
If you set the knobs in the same way you are used to do with the other amps the risk is to be very disappointed by the sound that comes out of it.
The bass frequences are abundant, I set the knob at 9,00-10,00 o’clock, the middle knob is very effective, higher settings of the treble knob will result in a harsher sound, while the presence knob give acts like a bright control.
You understand that if you have 10 minutes to test this amp and can’t read the manual you can be very disappointed, especially if you think about how much it costs, but if you learn how to deal with it can satisfy you more than the great majority of the amps in the market and you will get a sound that is not the usual one that everybody has.
If you have any question I'll be happy to answer
