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- Cornford Harlequin
- Princeton 65 RI
- Supro Blues King 12
- Tone King Falcon
- Tone King Gremlin
- Yamaha THR10c x 3
I can safely say that the Tonemaster Deluxe sounds better at any home friendly volume and a million times better than any of the above attenuated right down. It sounds like a real amp.Thousands on a big amp AND attenuator. Only works out really if you’re buying an amp to play out and want to get some mileage from it at home too. Otherwise for home if you’ve got anyone to be considerate of (family, adjoining neighbours) the reality is often that even a champ with an 8 inch speaker is too loud if you want any grit from the amp. My TMDR on 0.2w mode though is a decent sound. Dipping my toe into pedals and it’s a good sound. 0.5w getting into the be considerate level but sounds better.
I’ll be straight up, I love my 1974X, love the Marshall sound and can just run straight into it no drama, feed it a treble booster if I’m getting crazy. It’s considered quieter than it would be with an inefficient speaker but it wants to be turned up and is still loud as piss. It’s hooked up to an attenuator and it’s a good enough sound that way, but 12 months of home play only and with the TMDR as competition it’s played less and less. Feels like a waste of tube life almost switching it on to be cranked right down. A bit like having a Ferrari just to nip to the shop down the road for bits and bobs but telling yourself you’ll give it a proper run at the weekend. As much as I love it, if you told me I had to sell some gear tomorrow the TMDR would be the last amp out.
They have a room of valve amps that they can crank up to their hearts content and people who can do that are surely not the target market.
No substitute for dialling it in yourself. But if you did want a video where someone does like it, has plenty of Deluxe Reverb experience etc. and is just giving their thoughts:
The Revenge of the Fender Tone Master Deluxe Reverb Blonde - Ask Zac 70 - YouTube
I’ve used it for home practice, recording and playing it up nice and loud with a full band, it’s great. It’s useful at home and fantastic loud. The light weight is a bonus though my drummer nearly threw it when he picked it up expecting something much heavier!
Agree it didn’t sound that great on TPS but it does on several other videos, Andy Demos did a good one I recall and @chrisv for Guitar Magazine.
I for one have found my Tone Master Deluxe Reverb to be a fantastic purchase, but I haven’t played outside the home for 18 months, so that may all change in due course.
Generally prefer (good) valve amps at gig vol, but Blues Cube - while missing that last 10% of in the room 3D presence - is light, reliable, good-sounding/feeling, versatile...and thus does most of the gigs. Suspect TM will be similar. If the DI is good, it might even sound better than a mic'd valve amp that has been murdered by a crap soundman.
The feature set a looks good; my only concern would be reliability (too many horrors of broken down Blues Jr's, HRDLxes).
But iirc in that video they just went "they're both set to XYZ and here's how they sound", whereas I would have taken more effort to get them sounding the same then mention the differences between their settings.
In any case, I'm with Waz - the only sensible recommendation is "don't discount one without trying it first" - assuming the feature set appeals, of course. If you never leave the house and can play at full chat whenever you like then by all means for the traditional all valve version.
What does the TM have to justify the fact you are paying much more for much less (in simplistic terms)? Other than the admittedly lovely looks...
Or if we're honest, are we loving it because of its looks?
A big part of the accuracy is the convolution spring reverb. Not just the reverb itself, which sounds springy and drippy and all of those other adjectives we attribute to a great sounding spring reverb, but also where it's placed within the amp model.
Most Deluxe Reverb models (including the one in the GTX) doesn't include the reverb which sits between the virtual preamp and poweramps. It sums into the signal path exactly where it supposed to on the schematic. This is important because the poweramp is where the mojo happens. Driving the reverb into an overdriven poweramp sounds completely different than simply putting a reverb after the entire amp model.
But yeah, it does look really great too though, doesn't it?
So called "versatile" modellers pretend to model mic'ed up amps from a 1x8 Champ to an 8x12 Mesa stack, and anyone who's actually used those amps knows it's a laughable concept - those sounds are just so obviously impossible to achieve in the same combo.
I've never tried a Tonemaster, but to me the principle is a sound one as speaker, cab and mic modelling are where most combo-style modellers fall flat on their face, and the Tonemaster totally bypasses that problem by using real ones.
I'll probably snap one up when the used prices reflect their inherently disposable nature, I'm not really interested in things I can't repair unless they're a couple of hundred or less.
I just about have the space to keep both, but it seemed a waste. Sold via here.
As already mentioned, Tonemasters make great home amps with the attenuator and genuinely sound lovely.
If I didn’t have the Deville, it wouldn’t have gone anywhere. I’d happily have another if circs changed.
I also don’t buy digital meaning less reliable. But that could be me working in IT. We have some kit that has an uptime of years that has been in service for decades and some of it barely had faults register over that time. Depends on what the kit is asked to do and environment it’s in etc. But when kit does fail there’s no reason objectively why you can’t repair - there’s probably not a part in an industrial level server I haven’t been involved in replacement of - it’s just down to the economics of such a repair and the practicality (mainly I can’t imagine the actual software being easy to get if it needed to be reinstalled after components were replaced)
I totally get that it doesn’t sound as good as a real deluxe for louder than TV volumes but it’s bloody close.
If you switch your amp on for an hour at a time and it’s a bit of fun at reasonable volumes, then again the real one is probably better for you.
I’ve also already used mine at a few gigs where carrying a valve one wouldn’t be possible, city centres where you can’t park close or festivals that don’t let you drive to the stage.
Id take this any day over a pedal into a PA.
That brings me to my last point, the DI out sounds REALLY good and is better at Fender tones than I’ve got out of Helix or Strymon Iridium.
So I view the amp as a better tool for people who need all these things like I do than for someone who just wants to play for fun at home for an hour here or there.