greengriff
Active Member
- Joined
- Jan 10, 2011
- Messages
- 168
- Reaction score
- 101
I've been curious about these for ages, but the price was too crazy to consider. I saw one offered (new) at a much, much more realistic price, so I snapped it up. Here's my random thoughts, and some setting tips to save wasted time for anyone who gets to check one out:
Fit and finish is excellent. Some nice touches (proper metal knobs, the textured metal faceplate etc.) The faux carbon wrap is a bit of an odd finish choice but it's well applied and looks good. The head is still heavy like a valve amp, which seems a bit silly.
2 channels share 1 EQ, which is irritating. It's quite easy to get a bad sound out of it, especially with misuse of the speaker cabinet resonance control. Oddly the 'vintage' setting doesn't always work well with more 'vintage' amp voicings. Leave it on modern if you can't be bothered to fiddle with it. High gain settings have hiss levels similar to valve amps.
The internal amp:
Lead 1 *IS* a 2203 up on through to a hot rodded 2203. Using a low output humbucker guitar, with the gain set to one quarter of the way up, all EQs half way up, and the vintage cab resonance selected, the tone is absolutely identical to that of AC/DCs Powerage album, including that almost intangible seething 2203 through greenbacks presence. Turn the cab resonance back to 'modern', add the boost of your choice, or just turn up the gain, and every delicious 2203 tone you wanted is there. It's amazing.
Lead 2 I don't really like. I think it's meant to be like an old dual rec, in that it's gainy, flabby and fizzy, but I don't really know as it's been 20 years or more since I played one. It actually sounds good for open distorted chords, but not chugging. Add a TS9 though and it does shape up really nicely. I still prefer Lead 1.
Crunch: This was hard work to get right. It sounds hideous with the vintage cabinet setting, which is kind of backwards to what you'd think, but after some tweaking it sounds good with the modern cab setting. It took me plugging in my own plexi, cranking it up (and then attenuating it back down!!!) and tweaking the Boss side by side until I got close. I'm still fiddling, but the best setting so far is EQs around 2 o'clock, Presence around 10 o'clock, gain about half way.
Clean: Since it shares an EQ with the crunch channel I left the EQ settings as above, which yields a very nice, Marshally clean. If you turn up the gain it goes nicely into that 'amp is falling apart' kind of JTM overdrive, which I don't really like, but is a classic sound nonetheless.
The 'Waza Brown' amp: It's really as the above but a bit thicker and richer, shifitng the tonal centre down a little. It's very usable and can, not surprisingly, Lead 1 can nail the early VH tone.
The cab: Boss have done an excellent job with the speakers. They sound like the Heritage G12M but a little more 'raunchy' and less 'muted' and 'smooth' in the top end. I'm not a massive fan of the Heritage G12M (I prefer the regular reissue), but this speaker is a slight improvement and I'm confident that if you like the Heritage then you will really love this speaker. Plus it handles 80 watts! Good job Boss. The amp has definitely been voice to be paired with this speaker, although some of the tones sounded great through a regular Marshall 1960 with 75s.
It also sounds fantastic through good headphones.
The power control works subtly on the sense of 'power amp compression' and more obviously on overall volume.
Bottom line: Some really, really great tones. God knows how they did it without valves or digital modelling. The shared EQ between channels is unnacceptable on a 'high end' multi channel amp. If you like Marshall tone and early VH tone and can get both the amp and cab for a sensible price, snap it up.
Fit and finish is excellent. Some nice touches (proper metal knobs, the textured metal faceplate etc.) The faux carbon wrap is a bit of an odd finish choice but it's well applied and looks good. The head is still heavy like a valve amp, which seems a bit silly.
2 channels share 1 EQ, which is irritating. It's quite easy to get a bad sound out of it, especially with misuse of the speaker cabinet resonance control. Oddly the 'vintage' setting doesn't always work well with more 'vintage' amp voicings. Leave it on modern if you can't be bothered to fiddle with it. High gain settings have hiss levels similar to valve amps.
The internal amp:
Lead 1 *IS* a 2203 up on through to a hot rodded 2203. Using a low output humbucker guitar, with the gain set to one quarter of the way up, all EQs half way up, and the vintage cab resonance selected, the tone is absolutely identical to that of AC/DCs Powerage album, including that almost intangible seething 2203 through greenbacks presence. Turn the cab resonance back to 'modern', add the boost of your choice, or just turn up the gain, and every delicious 2203 tone you wanted is there. It's amazing.
Lead 2 I don't really like. I think it's meant to be like an old dual rec, in that it's gainy, flabby and fizzy, but I don't really know as it's been 20 years or more since I played one. It actually sounds good for open distorted chords, but not chugging. Add a TS9 though and it does shape up really nicely. I still prefer Lead 1.
Crunch: This was hard work to get right. It sounds hideous with the vintage cabinet setting, which is kind of backwards to what you'd think, but after some tweaking it sounds good with the modern cab setting. It took me plugging in my own plexi, cranking it up (and then attenuating it back down!!!) and tweaking the Boss side by side until I got close. I'm still fiddling, but the best setting so far is EQs around 2 o'clock, Presence around 10 o'clock, gain about half way.
Clean: Since it shares an EQ with the crunch channel I left the EQ settings as above, which yields a very nice, Marshally clean. If you turn up the gain it goes nicely into that 'amp is falling apart' kind of JTM overdrive, which I don't really like, but is a classic sound nonetheless.
The 'Waza Brown' amp: It's really as the above but a bit thicker and richer, shifitng the tonal centre down a little. It's very usable and can, not surprisingly, Lead 1 can nail the early VH tone.
The cab: Boss have done an excellent job with the speakers. They sound like the Heritage G12M but a little more 'raunchy' and less 'muted' and 'smooth' in the top end. I'm not a massive fan of the Heritage G12M (I prefer the regular reissue), but this speaker is a slight improvement and I'm confident that if you like the Heritage then you will really love this speaker. Plus it handles 80 watts! Good job Boss. The amp has definitely been voice to be paired with this speaker, although some of the tones sounded great through a regular Marshall 1960 with 75s.
It also sounds fantastic through good headphones.
The power control works subtly on the sense of 'power amp compression' and more obviously on overall volume.
Bottom line: Some really, really great tones. God knows how they did it without valves or digital modelling. The shared EQ between channels is unnacceptable on a 'high end' multi channel amp. If you like Marshall tone and early VH tone and can get both the amp and cab for a sensible price, snap it up.
