Quote:
Originally Posted by Dru Edwards
Anyone ever play any boutique electric guitar amps? Something like Friedman, Suhr, Soldano, etc? I never have but I'd be up for the experience. What about you?
|
Dru,
I have no experience with the ones you mention, but I can give you my impressions on the few that I have owned.
My first boutique amp was a 65 Amps Li'l Elvis. I loved the tone but even with the volume scaling I had a hard time getting it down to true apartment volume levels with the best tone, and as I lived in an apartment at the time, that was a problem.
I had a Carr Mercury and a Carr Raleigh, along with a Tone King Falcon; none of them really fired me up, though the Mercury had very usable low volume tones. Carr has substantially changed the Mercury since. I also had a Swart Space Tone which I was never able to bond with.
I owned a Reinhardt 18 for a good while; it sounded great on both channels and was indeed usable at lower volumes, but it had a buzz somewhere that I simply could not find or fix (it wasn't an electronic buzz; something somewhere was loose). I traded it back to the dealer for a Carol-Ann OD3r which I really liked; being a head & cabinet setup it had a large footprint, but it had great tones clean and dirty even at lower volumes. Carol-Ann has among the best volume scaling I have heard. I had it for several years, but I fell out of love with the 6L6 tone, and with 6V6 tubes it just lacked something (the tubes can be switched without biasing).
What I have had now for the last couple of years is a Vintage Sound Amps 22sc ("single channel") - basically, the tremolo/reverb channel of a Deluxe Reverb with a few additions, like a mids control, a reverb dwell control, and a switch to "snip" the bright cap. It has the classic Fender cleans without the classic Fender noise, takes pedals very well, and cranked (which I can now do, living in a house without very close neighbors) it sounds awesome. I play a McCarty 594 with coil-splitting, and it sounds great with both. What is more, as handmade, point-to-point wired Fender clones go it is relatively inexpensive - but it still ain't cheap.
These are my tastes; what appeals to you will likely be different. I hope this helps nonetheless.