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Old 04-12-2017, 02:29 AM
maxtheaxe maxtheaxe is offline
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Default How's that Supro Titan?

A couple months back, someone posted a PSA about a deal at Sweetwater for a Supro Titan combo amp. I believe several AGF-ers jumped on that bandwagon, myself included. I just thought it might be nice to check in on those and compare notes.

My main gigging amp for many years has been a Tubeworks TD-752 (which works great with an old 1st gen POD). Not any more.

I'm almost completely stoked by this Supro amp! The amp lacks a lot of what we consider to be modern features, like robust EQ, FX loops, master volume or channel switching. The Titan is stone basic, and it is virtually all clean head room. OK, you can get it to grind...give you some distortion, but you will not want to be in the same room with it if you're hitting it hard enough to overdrive. This thing is a BEAST. Little amp will HURT you if you try to max it out anywhere but a large theater or a stadium. I tried that and my ears were numb for a couple of days after cranking it for like 10 minutes. This "little" guy is also heavy...very heavy. It's size is smaller than my 1x12 TD-752 but it weighs all of 60 lbs. Of course, there is a very good reason for this.

The amp is a TANK, with massive power & output transformers. The inside of the cabinet is very crowded...not sure how they fit it all in there. The tone from this thing is nothing short of amazing, once you get it warmed up and the speaker working. The first time I tried it out, I was, frankly, disappointed. The tone was way too honky, midrangey, lacking depth or dimension. It actually took a few tries with this before it began to reveal itself to me.

I'm still using the old POD as a front-end and I didn't think there was any room for improvement with this old tech. I was way wrong about that. The old POD through the Supro is giving me completely convincing tones. The models coupled with the way this amp handles signal is just mind-blowingly dimensional, tactile, chewy and delicious in a way that I never heard through the TD-752. No doubt about it...the Titan is now my NUMERO UNO. I will moan and complain about the weight but when its in action I will bliss.

I'm running an extension cab with this...a 1x12 Avatar Vintage style with a Celestion Vintage 30. My only small quibble with this amp is that the eminence hemp-cone speaker is still a bit hot in the midrange for my tastes, but it seems to have a very high sensitivity rating, because it absolutely downs out the V30 in the extension cab. I know the V30 is there, somewhere, probably filling in the extreme lows and highs, but I find myself wishing that the internal speaker wasn't hard-wired to the amp so I could unplug it and compare, or just use the extension cab.

I'm considering swapping out the Eminence for a Celestion 10" Vintage Series, but it appears that I'd have to completely remove the amp chassis to get at it. Honestly, I'm not sure...has anyone dug into one of these? It kind of depends on how the speaker is mounted to the baffle, because it looks like one could take the front grill off. Is the speaker flange on the inside or the outside of the baffle? I haven't looked at this as yet. I also have to wonder if the midrange bump I hear is typical of the hemp-cone design/material or if it's due to something like a too-large voice coil. Any ideas on that?

Overall, I'm thrilled with this amp. The tone is nothing short of delicious in spite of the midrange issue. It does actually smooth out after playing for a half-hour or so.The only thing I regret is that I didn't get two of them!

I think I'm going to use this for gigs going forward, and maybe use one of the TD-752 amps backstage in a stereo hookup, since the POD has stereo outputs...Supro amp and Avatar cab in my backline...TD-752 sitting offstage someplace, adding a spatial effect. YeeHaw!
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  #2  
Old 04-12-2017, 08:37 AM
muscmp muscmp is offline
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kevwind i believe it was. nice looking setup.

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Old 04-12-2017, 09:15 AM
FrankHudson FrankHudson is offline
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I did what you're doing for years (an old Pod 2.0 in front of a simple tube amp with decent clean headroom). This is of course "The wrong way to do this", but like you I found the results better/more flexible than either alone.

"If it sounds good, it is good" is the golden rule there.
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Old 04-12-2017, 10:08 AM
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Got the Titan and love it. I paired it with another new Supro, a 24 watt Supro Dual-Tone. These sound amazing together, and thanks to the person who originally posted this deal.
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Old 04-12-2017, 10:53 AM
Steve DeRosa Steve DeRosa is offline
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Kev was the one who got the Titan first (at my urging, BTW... ) and last I heard he's also using it as his main rig; a few comments based on some of my conversations with him:
  • You've got it 100% right when you describe the Titan as "stone basic," and IMO that's its whole raison d'etre; except for the plaster-cracking power these are the kinds of amps most of us older players grew up on back in the early/mid-60's - "big clean" that lets both your guitar's natural tone and your individual technique (for better or worse) shine through. Had the late Everett Hull not had such an aversion to rock music I firmly believe an amp of this type would have found its way into the Ampeg lineup in '64-65, as an uber-Jet in a 1x12" combo cab - which leads me to:
  • The hemp-cone speaker is TMK a variation on the Lil' Buddy 10" that's a regular part of the Eminence lineup, modified for higher power handling and less cone breakup; IME hemp-cones take somewhat longer to loosen up and break in, and you'll need to push it a bit over an extended period (weeks/months depending on how often you play) until it really comes into its own - the fact that you say it starts to loosen up after about a half-hour of playing tells me you're on the right track. I'm not being facetious here, but I'd recommend getting a pair of machinists'/shooters' earmuffs at your local home-supply or sporting-goods store, waiting for your S.O. to go out shopping for the day, and cranking that little sucker for all it's worth a couple hours at a time; it'll pay big dividends in tone - and the corollary is:
  • IMO the one thing you don't want in this amp is a Celestion; TMK they don't have a 10" speaker capable of handling the output power, and by my reckoning the sonic results are going to be less than optimum (I'd tend to think Bruce Zinky knew what he was doing when he commissioned the special-order speaker that's in there now). These little boxes are all about vintage American clean tone, plain and simple - one of the reasons it works so well with your POD - and if you're looking to beef up your highs/lows I'd recommend a high-power/high-efficiency American-voiced 12" speaker to complement what you've already got; TMK the dedicated Supro Titan extension cabinet used a proprietary version of the Eminence Swamp Thang - same speaker I've been using for the last five years in my Bugera V22 BTW, with excellent results - and IME installing one of these in your extension cab will give you the added frequency range and sonic impact you're after. Be aware. though, that the Swamp Thang will take a similarly long time to properly break in - mine took 75-100 hours to really come around - so plan on doing some heavy-duty woodshedding with the full rig...
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Old 04-12-2017, 01:31 PM
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Yes Indeed I jumped on "the deal " after Steve D. posted notification of it and his encouragement . And also his suggestion of the "deal" on the matching Supro 1 x 12 extension Cab. Both with the "POT" cones
And Steve was so enthusiastic the he would get one if not already covered, that I decided what the heck jump in the deep end and sink or swim ....so far things are going swimmingly

Now in full disclosure I have no kind of hands on experience with any other guitar amps to compare it to.

That said: I am completely thrilled with it. So far I have played it and the extension together (other than having taken just the amp to my place in Wyoming for a month while up there skiing).

Again with virtually no comparative experience, I continue to like the tone I am getting. The combo amp/cab produces clean powerful bass all the way through (for lack of a better term) chimey sorta bell like highs (depending on the pic up selection on my PRS 24 CE)

And max is correct this thing is amazingly loud. In my very live great room I have only gotten it above about 9:00 o'clock on the volume knob a time or two just to try it . (The Ear Protection idea of Steve's is a great idea) and the warm weather is coming so I will be hauling her out on the front deck on some days when nobody else is home .

What I did also was get a pretty nice analog overdrive pedal called "Soul Driven" from Xotic, to get some overdrive at lower volume
And yes it is my main rig (which I suppose I can say if somewhat sheepishly) because I also have an Orange Crush 20 RT as a practice amp w/ headphone jack and speaker cut out, for when I want to play but people are home.

So here is the setup so far in the great room

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Last edited by KevWind; 08-06-2018 at 12:34 PM.
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Old 04-12-2017, 04:00 PM
Watt Watt is offline
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Sweetwater had another. I just relieved them of it. Impossible to resist.

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Old 04-12-2017, 04:37 PM
maxtheaxe maxtheaxe is offline
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QUOTE "IMO the one thing you don't want in this amp is a Celestion; TMK they don't have a 10" speaker capable of handling the output power, and by my reckoning the sonic results are going to be less than optimum (I'd tend to think Bruce Zinky knew what he was doing when he commissioned the special-order speaker that's in there now). These little boxes are all about vintage American clean tone, plain and simple - one of the reasons it works so well with your POD - and if you're looking to beef up your highs/lows I'd recommend a high-power/high-efficiency American-voiced 12" speaker to complement what you've already got; TMK the dedicated Supro Titan extension cabinet used a proprietary version of the Eminence Swamp Thang - same speaker I've been using for the last five years in my Bugera V22 BTW, with excellent results - and IME installing one of these in your extension cab will give you the added frequency range and sonic impact you're after. Be aware. though, that the Swamp Thang will take a similarly long time to properly break in - mine took 75-100 hours to really come around - so plan on doing some heavy-duty woodshedding with the full rig..."
UNQUOTE


Actually, the Celestion G10 Vintage is kind of their 10" version of the G12 V30, and is rated at 60 watts. I am comparing my experience using an Eminence Patriot 12" that I had in the TD-752 for a while. It was a great sounding speaker, once warmed up, but at 150 watts and over 100db sensitivity, it was just too darn loud...couldn't get it to sound good at anything like a sane volume. My sound vastly improved when I swapped it again for a V30 and that's what's in there to this day...actually, I have the V30 in one of my TD-752s and the newer 'V-series' in the other one.

I'm kind of projecting here that I might get similar results using the G10 Vintage in place of the Eminence in the Supro. I haven't yet played an actual gig with it, so I'm not going to rush into the swap...I want to give this thing a chance, but overall my experience has been that I prefer the sound of the Celestions to the Eminence. No dig against the Eminence speakers here...they're great speakers but I just prefer the easier cone break-up of the Celestions. I also wonder about the comparative size of the voice coils...as a general rule I seem to prefer those speakers with smaller diameter coils.

I guess I'll have to take the grill off the Supro and see how the speaker is mounted, and whether I think it is worth the trouble to do a swap in the first place.

BTW, this is the set-up:

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Last edited by maxtheaxe; 04-12-2017 at 07:38 PM.
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Old 04-13-2017, 08:07 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by maxtheaxe View Post

BTW, this is the set-up:

Which PRS is that ?
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Old 04-13-2017, 10:56 AM
maxtheaxe maxtheaxe is offline
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That's the PRS "Studio". They had an earlier iteration of this...mine is the later version, from around 2012, I think. This one has 57/08 pups. It has a ten-top and the color is called "Santana Yellow".
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Old 04-13-2017, 11:12 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by maxtheaxe View Post
That's the PRS "Studio". They had an earlier iteration of this...mine is the later version, from around 2012, I think. This one has 57/08 pups. It has a ten-top and the color is called "Santana Yellow".
Nice ........
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Old 04-13-2017, 11:23 AM
muscmp muscmp is offline
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I guess I'll have to take the grill off the Supro and see how the speaker is mounted, and whether I think it is worth the trouble to do a swap in the first place.

BTW, this is the set-up:

[/QUOTE]

depending upon how thick the grill is, you can probably shine a flashlight thru to see how the speaker is mounted and the size of the voice coil. it must be front mounted if you are planning to take the grill off for that aspect. i use the flashlight when i'm placing my mic(s) so that i know exactly where the mic is aimed.

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Old 04-13-2017, 02:16 PM
maxtheaxe maxtheaxe is offline
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Yes, since there are eight screws in the front it should be fairly easy to remove. I'm just wondering if it's just the grill that comes out or if it's the whole baffle with the speaker and all attached.

If the latter, that would certainly simplify any speaker swap I might decide on. If I had to do it from the back, I might have to remove the entire chassis to get at it...I would rather not deal with that.
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Last edited by maxtheaxe; 04-13-2017 at 09:47 PM.
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