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  #1  
Old 12-02-2019, 01:30 PM
robj144 robj144 is offline
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Default New Amp - Yamaha THR 30ii (short impressions)

So, I actually bought a THR 30ii a couple weeks ago and I've been fooling around with it quite a bit. I also have an older THR 10c which I love. Out of the box, I was extremely disappointed. The older 10c sounds much better with the default presets with the EQs at about noon or halfway (tweaking the EQ just a bit from time to time.) The new THR 30ii sounded pretty boxy and muddy with less headroom dynamics (meaning the difference between a clean and overdriven sound by playing harder on the same setting wasn't much).

However, after really playing around with it, it can sound very good. Many of the default cabinets paired with each preset add a lot of mids which muddy the sound. The new amp is very sensitive to both EQ and cabinets. On every preset, you either have to change the EQ a lot or change the cabinet with the app (or both). It's a little annoying and hopefully the default IRs can be changed a bit to clean them up. The app and amp also needs to be updated because when the you change a cabinet, leave it on the same setting, and say, use the tuner, or turn it off, it resets back to the default cab which is annoying.

So, it definitely needs a few firmware updates, but it does have a greater variety of sounds than the old THR's and the bluetooth connectivity is a big improvement.

Overall, it's pretty good, but at this point, I'm not sure if I like it any better than the old THR when the pros and cons are weighed. However, with a few simple firmware fixes, it should be better than the old model eventually.
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Last edited by robj144; 12-02-2019 at 02:14 PM.
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  #2  
Old 12-02-2019, 05:30 PM
Song Song is offline
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Congratulations on your new amp!
Hopefully you'll get it tweaked to satisfaction...
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  #3  
Old 12-02-2019, 06:46 PM
robj144 robj144 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Song View Post
Congratulations on your new amp!
Hopefully you'll get it tweaked to satisfaction...
Thanks. These battery powered amps are amazing though. You can take them wherever.
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Old 12-02-2019, 07:18 PM
Dru Edwards Dru Edwards is offline
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Hey Rob - any chance you can return the amp? No guarantees that a firmware update will improve what you're hearing.

It has a built in speaker? Any chance you have a bum speaker? Can you plug it into another speaker/cab?
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Old 12-02-2019, 07:25 PM
robj144 robj144 is offline
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Originally Posted by Dru Edwards View Post
Hey Rob - any chance you can return the amp? No guarantees that a firmware update will improve what you're hearing.

It has a built in speaker? Any chance you have a bum speaker? Can you plug it into another speaker/cab?
Thanks for the rec. Dru. The fact that I can get good sounds out of it if I play with it makes me believe it's not the speaker. And, it sounds pretty similar through headphones.

I'm on another forum and there's a Yamaha engineer on that forum and they are said they are going to release a firmware update soon to fix some issues.

The first generation apparently also didn't sound well out of the box, but was corrected with a firmware update.
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Old 12-02-2019, 07:47 PM
Aspiring Aspiring is offline
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How much might also be speaker break in? My thr5a definitely improved over the first couple of weeks.
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Old 12-02-2019, 08:18 PM
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Quote:
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How much might also be speaker break in? My thr5a definitely improved over the first couple of weeks.
Thanks. Yes, I believe that's a factor too.
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Old 12-03-2019, 07:38 PM
Dru Edwards Dru Edwards is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by robj144 View Post
Thanks for the rec. Dru. The fact that I can get good sounds out of it if I play with it makes me believe it's not the speaker. And, it sounds pretty similar through headphones.

I'm on another forum and there's a Yamaha engineer on that forum and they are said they are going to release a firmware update soon to fix some issues.

The first generation apparently also didn't sound well out of the box, but was corrected with a firmware update.
That's good news. Looking forward to your review post-firmware release. In the meantime, enjoy your new amp. Sounds like you did find some good tones. Just write down the settings
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Old 12-03-2019, 09:50 PM
Aspiring Aspiring is offline
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Out of curiosity how much more volume can you get from the 30 vs your 10?
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Old 12-05-2019, 08:33 AM
Marley Marley is offline
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Interesting that it would not sound the best. I have a THR5 which sounded amazing out of the gate. I then bought a THR100HD full sized amp which I love. I love these Yamaha amps.
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Old 12-05-2019, 09:51 AM
robj144 robj144 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Aspiring View Post
Out of curiosity how much more volume can you get from the 30 vs your 10?
Didn't test it and my 10 is at my office now. But, I really can't test it because I live in a condo and it's one of the reasons I have these. I got the 30 because it has a physical switch to switch the amp type. It can only be done in the other models with the app. Also, the 30 has wireless for the guitar builtin too which I might take advantage of later. I didn't buy the 30 because it's louder, I bought it for those features.
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Old 12-05-2019, 09:52 AM
robj144 robj144 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Marley View Post
Interesting that it would not sound the best. I have a THR5 which sounded amazing out of the gate. I then bought a THR100HD full sized amp which I love. I love these Yamaha amps.
Again, if I tweak it a lot, it can sound really good like the old amps. But, by default, unlike the older models, it didn't sound that good.
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Old 12-05-2019, 09:57 AM
mr. beaumont mr. beaumont is offline
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Good to hear the review. I'm getting one of these for Christmas (I'm gonna go with the 10ii)--had a chance to mess around with one a few weeks ago and was really impressed, particularly with the quality of the sound of a backing track played with the bluetooth. Will be great for practice.
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  #14  
Old 12-05-2019, 10:07 AM
robj144 robj144 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mr. beaumont View Post
Good to hear the review. I'm getting one of these for Christmas (I'm gonna go with the 10ii)--had a chance to mess around with one a few weeks ago and was really impressed, particularly with the quality of the sound of a backing track played with the bluetooth. Will be great for practice.
It's anecdotal, but there are a lot of people who seem to like the 10ii more than the 30ii. It could be because the 10 is the same size as the old models and the 30 is larger and they might need to tweak the EQ in a firmware update for the 30 to account for it.

That's cool though.
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  #15  
Old 04-18-2020, 01:06 AM
robj144 robj144 is offline
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Just an update... I think it's a combination of getting used to the amp and the amp breaking in, but I really like the sound of most of the presets now too. And, with a few pedals in front of it, I can really tweak the sounds.

It's pretty sweet.
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