As you all probably know, I've been looking for a new amp the last few months.
I wanted something with a similar sound and quality to my jcm800 2203, with a boost pedal in front, but with a solo boost or lead channel.
I've tried -
Mesa Stiletto
JCM800 2210
Marshall jvm
Mesa rectifier solo 50
Laney irt60
blackstar artisan 30
Peavey XXL:
Friedman runt 50
My 3 favourites were the mesa stiletto, the , mesa rectifier solo 50 and the friedman.
I decided that as good as the friedman was, there's no solo boost or lead channel. It was also a little dark, but maybe that was the guitar I tested it with.
I loved the mesas, the recto was great but I felt that the best sound was the clean "pushed" channel, which didn't quite have enough gain, and I found that the voicing on the 2nd channel needed extreme eqing to get it sounding as good as the 1st channel.The amp had just the right balance between features and simplicity.
The Mesa Stiletto definately had the sound I was looking for, and the features I needed, but was very feature heavy (i.e complicated!!!) by comparison. So far its my favourite tonally, I'm just a little unsure about all the swicthes and knobs. Too complicated for me?? More to go wrong when gigging and touring??
I've been told to try the blackstar series one by a guitar dealer who knows what I'm after (and had the artisan and recto in stock that I tried) as that could well suit me.
And the DSL100 is cheap and plentiful 2nd hand but never tried or owned one.
Anyone any thoughts on this one??!
Comments
I think @Cirrus uses the Stiletto.
I've had a Mesa Roadster (Dual Rec) and a Blackstar Series 1 104EL34. I've also owned the IRT120H.
The best channel on the Blackstar IMO is crunch/super crunch. It will probably do the sound you want but will be a bit tighter and darker than the Marshall. The cleans are pretty nice.
The OD1 and OD2 I found a bit frustrating, as they share EQ but don't quite work on the same settings for my tastes. So you can either use OD1, which works nicely as a fat lead channel, or OD2, which works best as a more aggressive high gain rhythm channel IMO. As far as I feel about it, it's a 3 channel amp with two options for the high gain channel but YMMV. Either way it should do what you need so it'd be worth a try.
The most annoying thing about it is that the weight is all on one side, and it's quite heavy. Not the end of the world but it would've been nicer to be more balanced.
The main downside is the volume mismatch between green and blue (which share controls). There are ways around this but none are straight forward - you either have to mod the amp or you have to use some kind of pedal to compensate for the volume differences.
If you're not using a clean channel at all though it might work
If that is where your sound lives, don't worry about apparent complexity - it is not. An easy amp to use and dial in, which loves pedals. From what I can see of the used market, they are great value as well. Only thing I would do is a total re-valve (assuming the amp is in good condition), and you're set
says about it....
One day Blackstar will realise that they're seriously short of overweight middle aged blokes who play mediocre guitar in pub rock covers bands on their artist endorsement roster and offer to build me a signature amp. I'll get them to build me a version of my Series 1 with the OD1/2 channel pair replaced with a duplicate of the warm/bright/crunch/supercrunch channel pair and an extra pair of handles at the ends AC30 style. It will be fab!
Definitely give one a go.
Teble-9
Mid-3
Bass-1
lead bright switch on.
those settings give me a very thick mid heavy tone, which I scoop further with a heavy 'smile' eq curve.
I dont care what the settings look like, it sounds phenomenal.
Bandcamp
Spotify, Apple et al
So if you imagine those settings on a Fender, only dogs would be able to hear you.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Ignore the extra knobs and switches. "Feature heavy" means nothing if you leave the features alone and never change them.
I had a Recto Reborn with loads of wattage and drive type switches too. I had a good old play around on the first day, and then left them where they were forever.
And only OCD people care where the tone knobs are pointing if it sounds good. You'll be trying to line up your tuning pegs next.
https://soundcertified.com/speaker-ohms-calculator/
stiletto is the one, DSL is decent and cheap, I never suffered reliability problems that some report and I've had a lot of those amps.
id also be trying a 5150 and a jcm900 slx if you can find one
Have you told them? They are pretty open to client feedback. I do agree about the out of balance top strap! I can only conclude that it was put in the middle for "cosmetic" reasons and if so daft!
Dave.
The isf is a bit weird though, I thought it was the wrong way around.
I liked the cleans on it a lot too, but the od1 and od2 were a bit meh. I later bought a blackstar ht metal pedal which had a much more pleasing lead tone into a clean amp, and had a brilliant heavy rhythm crunch tone.
I'm not saying ditch your plans and get a clean amp for a ht metal pedal but it sounds like the mesa stiletto would do the lot for you. Ignore the knob settings. And if you fancy a different flavour of rhythm or lead sound, try the blackstar ht metal into it - you might find it works out really well.
I've never heard anyone say the stiletto distortion is not good though, so I'd think that's unlikely