Cheers guys!
Ok, back from cranking it up for a bit. Well, 2 on the volumes anyway :lol:
Through my Zilla Fatboy oversized 2x12 with V30 the tone can be described as 'full'. It's a very full sound, bass needs cranking compared to Mid and Treble in order to round out the top end a little but other than that it's great.
Whereas my Splawn is more compressed and slightly smoother overall, the SLO is a bit brasher, not quite as tight and dry feeling as the Splawn but still a joy to play. Alot of people don't like the Splawns because of this but it seems to work for me.
The normal channel in clean mode is perfectly useable, nothing outstanding but good enough for what I need. I'd say it may be ever so slightly more useful than the cleans on the Splawn, but the fact it's a more open type of tone probably helps this. The normal channel in Crunch mode though is what really does it for me (so to speak) :lol:
The main thing that jumped out at me when I 1st tried Tonys own SLO was this Crunch mode. A lower gain crunchy OD tone is 1 thing I really miss when using my Quick Rod, and the SLO provides it in spades. I've found that by cranking the gain of the crunch mode and hitting it with a Tubescreamer, I can get close to Gary Moores sound on the Blues Alive album, which is good as it's a tone I've always liked (even managed the 30 second held sustained note he does). Without the OD to boost it this crunch mode gives a great 70s hard rock style crunch that cleans up really well from the volume control. To give an idea of levels of gain this channel has: with the gain at 10/11 in crunch mode and with a Strat with vintage style pickups the tone is very reminicent of Richie Blackmores tone on 'Since You've Been Gone' by Rainbow. The gain level went up (obviously) when I switched to my LP with Mules but it still wasn't what you'd call high gain.
The lead channel though is what most people use these amps for and it doesnt disappoint in anyway. With the gain at 3/11 it's about as much gain as I'd ever need for the 70s Rock stuff I tend to play. 80s stuff could do with a bit more, but nothing OTT. This isn't an amp you need to peg the gain at 11/11 to get alot of distortion from.
It's a very clear, articulate sounding amp that I think will pair up very well with my Splawn on recordings as each fill in something that the other is slightly missing.
All in all I'm extremely happy with the amp and am also in awe at just how great these amps are to say Tony builds them in his kitchen :D That's a compliment by the way!
