What I like about this is that it gives a "real" Blues tone, not the overly rounded off, caricature of a tube sound, SRV run through an averaging filter kind of vibe you'll hear a lot of around the place, it's jagged and fuzzy and textured like a BD2, Matamp and a busted up old modded 5E3 in a tonal blunt rotation. This is the sort of tone I prefer from "Tube" amps. Would be great for shoegaze and stoner rock. Reminds me a bit of my AC4TV which I loved quite a bit but ended up selling as it couldn't take pedals at all.
Love this! You’re spot on, it’s an awesome tribute to the low wattage amps of that era. I don’t mind the other side of tube amp tone, but like you said it’s over represented for sure. I recently restored an old widowmaker type amp and it took to a fuzz pedal I have really well. With the ss circuit it could clean up and keep volume, the tone knob cutting a lot of lows gave it a lot more useable breakup options too They’re really fun but be ready to plug it into something else to get the most out of it’s tone for sure. Maybe a waza amp expander would be fun to try on this?
That was a really useful review for me. I picked one up a while ago and needed a good run down of what to expect and how to get the best from it. Thank you!
Nice! You’re gonna love it I personally like it best hooked into a 12” alnico speakers for that sorta.. i just call it a “simple tube amp type tone”; but, you can see it covers some ground. Some recommended replacing the original speaker but.. I’ll be ok using other cabs when I need a fuller tone
I love my Gretas! They’re great little dirt machines! I use mine for low volume practice and also for living room jams. I often use it when playing lead with acoustic guitars and maybe cajon. I often connect it to a larger speaker cabinet as well.
I have one and I do love it. Basically it is my main practice amp. I run it into a cabinet with a 10 inch Jensen Mod speaker. The little amp takes pedals well and is good at levels in my home. The amp is around 10 years old, and the cabinet is actually an old practice amp cabinet, (reused since the old amplifier in it went out) and a speaker I bought years ago for replacement but did not ever use. I suppose this speaker cabinet was pretty inexpensive for me. I can definitely say that this setup works very well for my practice needs. Bottom line: Very nice little practice amp, that I would recommend to a friend.
Thank you for watching and the comment! I couldn’t agree more, I took this out to a friend’s place in a pinch recently and it held up amazingly well. Your summation here mirrors my thoughts for sure. Jensen speakers definitely make this amp shine 🤩 I recently did a little cleaning house and at no point was this on the chopping block, guess that says something about what I feel about it. To me, it’s a spot on tribute to the low wattage amps of yesteryear. Oh man... it is about a decade old now isn’t it? Time flies 😅
Great overview. The Visaton r10s speaker upgrade gives the amp a little more volume making the clean more usable. The amp has a lot of distortion from the speaker.
You're totally right, if I was to upgrade the amp that'd be the first thing I do. All these demos were done DI tho, to say none of the distortion came from the speaker this time. I always wondered what speaker I should use, I'm gonna check the Visatron out, why did you like them?
@@TheQShow I tried the Visaton speaker, but I didn’t like it much because it’s response isn’t meant for guitar. It’s meant to be a relatively “hi-fi” speaker, not a guitar speaker. The Visaton does have it’s fans though. I found a speaker specifically designed for guitar box amps that wasn’t bad, but I eventually ended up with the original speaker back in it. I use it a lot with an extension speaker loaded with an Eminence Reignmaker and it sounds great, and gives me a lot of flexibility with the volume. I can get “relatively” high volume cleans (with some grit), and pretty low volume dirt as well.
If you want the Greta cleaned up, it's easy to just swap out the 12ax7 for a 12at7 or even a lower gain 12au7 (affects volume)? The clean sound is really nice when you play it through a 2x12. Even turned almost all the way up with the external cab it stays clean, and sounds full, even with the 12ax7.
100% agree with the 2x12 comment. I mentioned alnico but I’m a sucker for those 80w ceramic Celestions (I think the modern ones are called super leads, just a personal thing I like). And they sound so great with this! To me, having a little wattage power amp is just a really nice way to get that open amp sound and volume that is practical in the current year. I do love my big amps tho.. Swapping the first tube for a T or U type would lower the gain going in, and the gain boost into the 2nd stage which would definitely clean it up a bit, you may even be able to get away with making the 2nd one a 12AX7 to get some volume back. But I’d suspect the noise floor may go up a little. I’ll give it a try and follow up here 🤩 Most of my guitars are medium-high gain, I suspect that’s a pretty significant factor in my struggle to get a truly clean sound out of the amp (not having a low end roll off going in doesn’t help either, but that’s the amps design character and I love it)
@@TheQShow I’ve been playing mine with a open back 1x12 with an Eminence Reignmaker, with adjustable sensitivity (96-102 dB?). It sounds amazing (it’s been different, but really nice with every cab I’ve plugged in) and being able to adjust the sensitivity is a bonus. Crank the speaker and turn the amp and guitar down a bit and get good cleans that will breakup if you pick hard. Crank the speaker down and the amp up to get more dirt at lower volume.
If you want to clean up the sound just detach the Voltmeter. It’s sucking most of the power and if you detach it the amp will have much more headroom and will sound absolutly beautiful. If you crank it you will still get some great dirt!
Wow! I have never heard this. I’ll have to try it out and see. Most people just use a more efficient speaker or swap out the 12AX7 for a lower gain tube in V1. I don’t really try to do cleans with it, but occasionally I want a bit more headroom. Thanks for the tip!
I use mine for low volume practice (apartment life) and as a preamp into a class d power amp.... its glorious as a tube preamp. My only complaint is the 4 inch speaker never turns off.
It was an old DOD bifet preamp, but any combo of gain reduction and low end reduction will get you there :) Keep in mind tho it’s rather low volume used this way; just a case study in how to get some other sounds out of these sorts of amps :)
What I like about this is that it gives a "real" Blues tone, not the overly rounded off, caricature of a tube sound, SRV run through an averaging filter kind of vibe you'll hear a lot of around the place, it's jagged and fuzzy and textured like a BD2, Matamp and a busted up old modded 5E3 in a tonal blunt rotation. This is the sort of tone I prefer from "Tube" amps. Would be great for shoegaze and stoner rock. Reminds me a bit of my AC4TV which I loved quite a bit but ended up selling as it couldn't take pedals at all.
they have one of these in a local shop - seriously thinking about getting one now
Love this! You’re spot on, it’s an awesome tribute to the low wattage amps of that era. I don’t mind the other side of tube amp tone, but like you said it’s over represented for sure.
I recently restored an old widowmaker type amp and it took to a fuzz pedal I have really well. With the ss circuit it could clean up and keep volume, the tone knob cutting a lot of lows gave it a lot more useable breakup options too
They’re really fun but be ready to plug it into something else to get the most out of it’s tone for sure. Maybe a waza amp expander would be fun to try on this?
That was a really useful review for me. I picked one up a while ago and needed a good run down of what to expect and how to get the best from it. Thank you!
Nice! You’re gonna love it
I personally like it best hooked into a 12” alnico speakers for that sorta.. i just call it a “simple tube amp type tone”; but, you can see it covers some ground.
Some recommended replacing the original speaker but.. I’ll be ok using other cabs when I need a fuller tone
I love my Gretas! They’re great little dirt machines!
I use mine for low volume practice and also for living room jams. I often use it when playing lead with acoustic guitars and maybe cajon.
I often connect it to a larger speaker cabinet as well.
I have one and I do love it. Basically it is my main practice amp. I run it into a cabinet with a 10 inch Jensen Mod speaker. The little amp takes pedals well and is good at levels in my home. The amp is around 10 years old, and the cabinet is actually an old practice amp cabinet, (reused since the old amplifier in it went out) and a speaker I bought years ago for replacement but did not ever use. I suppose this speaker cabinet was pretty inexpensive for me. I can definitely say that this setup works very well for my practice needs. Bottom line: Very nice little practice amp, that I would recommend to a friend.
Thank you for watching and the comment! I couldn’t agree more, I took this out to a friend’s place in a pinch recently and it held up amazingly well. Your summation here mirrors
my thoughts for sure. Jensen speakers definitely make this amp shine 🤩
I recently did a little cleaning house and at no point was this on the chopping block, guess that says something about what I feel about it. To me, it’s a spot on tribute to the low wattage amps of yesteryear.
Oh man... it is about a decade old now isn’t it? Time flies 😅
Great overview. The Visaton r10s speaker upgrade gives the amp a little more volume making the clean more usable. The amp has a lot of distortion from the speaker.
You're totally right, if I was to upgrade the amp that'd be the first thing I do. All these demos were done DI tho, to say none of the distortion came from the speaker this time.
I always wondered what speaker I should use, I'm gonna check the Visatron out, why did you like them?
@@TheQShow It was the known to work solution, and cheap ($10). I actually ordered the R10SC by mistake and had to trim back the chassis with a dremel.
@@TheQShow I tried the Visaton speaker, but I didn’t like it much because it’s response isn’t meant for guitar. It’s meant to be a relatively “hi-fi” speaker, not a guitar speaker. The Visaton does have it’s fans though.
I found a speaker specifically designed for guitar box amps that wasn’t bad, but I eventually ended up with the original speaker back in it.
I use it a lot with an extension speaker loaded with an Eminence Reignmaker and it sounds great, and gives me a lot of flexibility with the volume.
I can get “relatively” high volume cleans (with some grit), and pretty low volume dirt as well.
If you want the Greta cleaned up, it's easy to just swap out the 12ax7 for a 12at7 or even a lower gain 12au7 (affects volume)? The clean sound is really nice when you play it through a 2x12. Even turned almost all the way up with the external cab it stays clean, and sounds full, even with the 12ax7.
100% agree with the 2x12 comment. I mentioned alnico but I’m a sucker for those 80w ceramic Celestions (I think the modern ones are called super leads, just a personal thing I like). And they sound so great with this!
To me, having a little wattage power amp is just a really nice way to get that open amp sound and volume that is practical in the current year. I do love my big amps tho..
Swapping the first tube for a T or U type would lower the gain going in, and the gain boost into the 2nd stage which would definitely clean it up a bit, you may even be able to get away with making the 2nd one a 12AX7 to get some volume back. But I’d suspect the noise floor may go up a little. I’ll give it a try and follow up here 🤩
Most of my guitars are medium-high gain, I suspect that’s a pretty significant factor in my struggle to get a truly clean sound out of the amp (not having a low end roll off going in doesn’t help either, but that’s the amps design character and I love it)
@@TheQShow I’ve been playing mine with a open back 1x12 with an Eminence Reignmaker, with adjustable sensitivity (96-102 dB?). It sounds amazing (it’s been different, but really nice with every cab I’ve plugged in) and being able to adjust the sensitivity is a bonus.
Crank the speaker and turn the amp and guitar down a bit and get good cleans that will breakup if you pick hard. Crank the speaker down and the amp up to get more dirt at lower volume.
If you want to clean up the sound just detach the Voltmeter. It’s sucking most of the power and if you detach it the amp will have much more headroom and will sound absolutly beautiful. If you crank it you will still get some great dirt!
Wow! I have never heard this. I’ll have to try it out and see. Most people just use a more efficient speaker or swap out the 12AX7 for a lower gain tube in V1.
I don’t really try to do cleans with it, but occasionally I want a bit more headroom. Thanks for the tip!
I use mine for low volume practice (apartment life) and as a preamp into a class d power amp.... its glorious as a tube preamp. My only complaint is the 4 inch speaker never turns off.
Nice info. Thanks
Which pedal did you use to clean it up?
It was an old DOD bifet preamp, but any combo of gain reduction and low end reduction will get you there :)
Keep in mind tho it’s rather low volume used this way; just a case study in how to get some other sounds out of these sorts of amps :)