I will try to not bore you with detail of my Amp GAS affliction but as far as I have established over my 56 years I love the sound of Fender blackface/silverface amps and/or Voxy AC type jangley/chimey amps. I also just love reverb and a throbby tremolo. I only want/need one clean channel and it has to work at low home volumes.
My musical tastes are Americana/Country, blues, a bit of jazz, and traditional old school rock.
I have no need for any extreme metal/distortion and achieve overdrive at polite volumes with a Line 6 HX effects which I must say I am very impressed with.
At the moment I have a 65 re-issue Princeton reverb with an alnico speaker (love) and a ToneKing Imperial II which is superb but probably far more than I need.
I have become intrigued by Magnatone amps - Both the Twilighter 1x12 or the Panoramic stereo 2x10. They both look that they may be perfect for my tastes/needs.
However:
- I have no personal knowledge or experience of either.
- Coda who appear to be the only stockists in the UK don't currently have both in stock and when I contacted them they said they weren't currently planning on ordering any more as due to exchange and pricing they are too expensive and would struggle to sell them at the price-point.
- A very trusted and knowledgeable friend in the business advised me to not bother with Magnatone, specifically saying that the ToneKing was a far better put together and better sounding amp.
Anyone have any knowledge or observations please?
Comments
The break up on the Magnatone is much nicer too.
Plus, you can't ignore the switchable vibrato / tremolo on the Magnatones - the vibrato is pretty much unique and sounds glorious. I actually prefer it in the mono amps to the stereo ones, it just seems a bit more musical.
As for build quality, they seem pretty close to each other. That said, two of Magnatones ended up being returned because they developed faults, and I never saw one again (a Single V head that I loved) because they couldn't repair it and discontinued it soon afterwards.
Even disregarding the vibrato and tremolo circuits I'd choose a Magnatone over a Tone King every time. The Twilighter is one of my all-time favourite combos, I think they're pretty magical amps.
Really useful insight . Thanks @StuartMac290.
Would the Magnatone work at home volumes i.e Woefully quiet! What is the noise floor like at such volumes?
Jim.
Richards?
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Kind Regards
Jim.
The reverb is exceptional too, if that's of interest.
Keef has indeed been using them in the studio, and Ronnie uses them live. I think they're using Single Vs though, which are based on one of Neil Young's Tweed Pros (his tech worked with Magnatone to nail the sound exactly). The Single V is a tremendous amp, one of my favourite "big tweed" amps (as opposed to Tweed Deluxe types) and to be honest I'm a bit gutted I no longer have one.
Neil Young himself has been using a pair of Twilighter 1x12s live.
Helpful.
Not too worried about the overdriven sound.Just require a sublime clean. Happy to use pedals for overdriven sounds. Although I suppose an attenuator would be useful.
A low noise floor? Will it work at home volumes?
It replaced my Lazy J40, because it sounded a lot clearer and less woody, but not sterile either. A quality amp.