First off, I set all the tone knobs at 12 o'clock, and gave both channels a go over like that. Surprisingly, both channels sounded great just like that. But, being the tone whore that I am, I couldn't leave things alone lol.
The clean channel is VERY nice! It's got all the tube warmth you could want, and it really lets your guitar shine through. Crank the volume and turn the texture knob to 12 o'clock, and you're in blues heaven. Roll the volume back a little and turn the texture knob to the A/B side, and you've got some nice smooth crystal clear cleans. It also has a "Bright" switch, which can make things nice and spakling, but not too piercing. This is great for darker sounding guitars
The overdrive channel is quite versatile. This channel seems like it's somewhere between the rhythm(crunch on) and lead channels of my 5150 combo, but it also has hints of the Triple XXX and Classic 50. It has a gain boost and volume boost. The gain boost makes it a bit tighter and obviously boosts the gain lol. I can see this channel being great for classic rock, southern rock, hard rock, and 80's and 90's metal. It might not suit you super high gain scooped mids modern metal heads, but for those who know tone, it's great! Don't get me wrong, it can do the scooped thing, but why on earth would you want to do that anyway :confused:
Now for the things I didn't like... It's a channel switching amp, but doesn't come stock with a footswitch.. WTF!?! No biggie, I've got several Peavey footswitches laying around that work with it. The reverb sounds a bit steril, but it's not so bad that it's useless. It's also not switchable, just has a level control. The stock speaker and tubes are crap! I've got some JJ and Ruby tubes, and a Wizard and a Governor speaker laying around that I plan on tying out this weekend, though.
Overall I'd say that this amp is definitely worth it. I've played much more expensive amps that didn't even think about coming close to this bad boy :cool:
I made a little soundclip of the amp that you can check out >HERE<. I used a Yamaha AES620 guitar straight into the amp. Mic'd it with an SM57 off center. There was no post processing whatsoever done. It's an extremely dry clip, as it's just one guitar track, and nothing else, but I wanted to show you what it sounds like on it's own. I'm not that great at mic'ing an amp, but I think it'll give you a close approxamation of what the amp sounds like.
0-56 is the dirty channel with the gain boost on
56-1:33 is the dirty channel with the gain boost off (same gain setting, just without the gain boost)
1:33-end is the clean channel with different pickup combinations.
And here's a pick of this little beast:
{Edit: Once I've had some more time with it, and tried a different speaker and tubes, I'll write a propper review and place it in the Gear Review section}
