This'll teach ya to ask questions :lol: :
First (and probably lasting) impression is that its the best amp I've ever played. Maybe not for some people but it suits me down to the ground. Froglord was right in that other thread about Matamps sounding 'thick and crisp', that about sums up the clean sound really. I took the amp back home before coming back to college and even my mum said it has 'depth', and she's never before commented at all on any sound I've got out of any amp ever!
Obviously there's virtually no pre-amp overdrive whatsoever. Being 15 watts though, I believe I'll be able to run it in a band as I did my old 15ish watt Seymour Duncan, i.e. really bloody hard. I did most of my playing on it at the factory with the vol. on 10, at which it's pretty crunchy on it's own. Proper crunchy btw, not 'this dual rectifier does a good crunch tone with the gain backed off to 9' type of crunch.
I tried the stock KT77s first but they had loads more gain than the original 6L6s (which the amp isn't actually designed for!), too much with the amp running hard, and it didn't sound like the Chino I know and loved, so the 6L6s went back in. I was really surprised at just how good the 6L6s sounded when overdriven. Plus in it's new lower gain state I could roll the guitar's volume back and get instant clean without losing a lot of volume.
Also worth noting is that we put an ECC83 instead of an '82 in the v2 preamp position.
With the OCD switched in the amp went mental in a spectacularly usable way. With the amp already being on 10 there wasn't much of a volume hike, but it thickened up a lot (and I mean a lot), went a bit compressed which I wasn't expecting out of a Matamp but is great 'cos I like a bit of amp compression, and with every note you could hear good-feedback-type overtones from the moment you hit the string. One of my favourite lead tones ever is Clapton's on the first Cream album (Spoonful especially) and in my mind the amp was on a par with that.
Strangely the power transformer was starting to overheat by this point :twisted: ...........ok actually it was just faulty, so Hayden (who looks nothing like his avatar btw!) kindly changed that out for one of a higher spec. Also he changed a resistor in the reverb circuit for me, which is another can of worms....
The reverb is strange. Aparently all Matamp's are like this, but I've never noticed it before on any of the amps 'cos I don't usually play with any reverb. Basically as you turn the amp volume up, the reverb level decreases. And because I use my guitar's volume pot so much, that screwed with it as well. Hayden will have to describe how it works for you, I can't remember exactly. To me it's a bit of a pain, though I'm sure if you knew what you were doing you could use that trait to your advantage. As for the reverb tone it's pretty good, maybe not as good as that on my 'Duncan, that's all I can say really. BTW the reverb you hear in my original Players section clip isn't the amp's reverb, it was reverb on the recording programme that we couldn't get rid of. The amp's is much better!
Speakers wise I stuck with the G12M. G12H was too bassy and 'not very good' sounding, Vintage 30 wasn't as nice with lead tones or cleans (I liked it for in-between sounds though), Alnico Blue wouldn't take the power, Hot 100 was surprisingly thin-sounding. Speaker's are though, like anything, up to personal taste.
That's about it for now :) I might put some clips up in a couple of weeks, but strangely I've gone off my Organic a bit and started using my stock old Pacifica..............(everybody immediately discounts all tone info above)............!
Right must be off, I've got 2000 words to write for tomorrow, and that's ^ not any of them!
