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Matamp Roadster  Price paid: $1625, Price new: ???? Year Manufactured: ???? Specs: - 120W amp head (4 x EL34 power tubes) - single channel - Controls for Pre Gain, Bass Boost, Drive, Bass, Treble, Presence, and Master volume - 2 parallel speaker outputs with 4, 8, and 16ohm settings - non-adjustable slave output - no effects loop - two inputs, the Direct input bypassing one of the gain stages completely Sound: 7.5/10. This is something I can see some rating 3/10 and some rating 10/10, easily. The Roadsters had a couple of known design issues. They are basically a 70s Matamp GT120 hot rodded with a 3rd 12AX7 preamp tube mounted to a circuit board inside that is controlled by the Pre-Gain knob up front. Those big, burly transformers were apparently made for a 2-power-tube setup instead of the 4 they wired them for in this amp (Matamp USA would modify these for 2 x KT88 power tubes if you wanted which apparently makes them sound even better). Some have tested these as putting out 80W, not the 120W as advertised. With the Drive and Pre-Gain both turned up past about the 2 o'clock positions, there is a really, really odd square-wave sounding harsh compression / bloom thing on the attack. Back off the Drive and Pre-Gain a bit, though, and you get this wonderfully huge, thick, syrupy saturation. The gain is a wooly, buzzsaw like sound typical of the "Green" era Matamps but even warmer sounding. Some don't like that. Some adore it. Rolled off high end that isn't harsh, huge mid range honk, extensive low end that shakes the room. The Bass-Boost knob doesn't work exactly as you'd expect and seems to shape the sound more than just being a linear boost in the low end. If you really turn up the master volume and just start to bring in the Drive and Pre-Gain controls a little bit at a time, you can get very thick, beautiful clean tones from it which surprised me. You can also plug into the Direct input to bypass the internal 12AX7's gain stages entirely for a change in clean tone at the sacrifice of some volume. The sound of this amp can be heard on Electric Wizard's "Let Us Prey" album since they used a Roadster to record that one. One last bit.. if you plug in a boost pedal in front of it, you can actually get enough gain out of it to play something fast like thrash metal. Shocking for a Matamp and a pleasant surprise. Equipment Quality: 9/10 Atypical of some of the 90s and early 2000s Matamps, the Roadsters were built to seriously high standards. The chassis it's built on is an old early 70s Orange/Matamp chassis made of thick steel. The transformers are also apparently new-old-stock, huge, high quality pieces. The wooden head shell is bombproof. It gets a point knocked off for its internals. The all circuit board internals aren't top notch and I had concerns about the power tube sockets for long term reliability. Otherwise excellent. Usefullness: 7/10 Another one I find hard to rate. If you play in a stoner/doom metal band, this is a 10/10. If not, it's not going to rate that high. It's one channel so the sound isn't as flexible as channel switching amps during a live performance. Using a boost pedal, you can set the amp up for lower gain and use the boost for a higher gain switch if needed, though. Overall Value: 9/10 Matamps are not cheap, even used. Their rarity means they hold their value very well, too. That said, after I sold my Roadster, I spent months begging the buyer to sell it back to me. Worth every penny I paid so much so that I tried to buy it twice. When that failed, I was forced to purchase something else to replace it. With only 21 of these ever made, it's a hard find. An example of what mine sounded like with a boost pedal in front can be found here: http://soundclick.com/share?songid=6230168 Catastrophe fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Jan 19, 2009 |
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Jan 17, 2009 19:58
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Electric Amps MV120  Price Paid / Price New: $1995/$2450 Year Manufactured: March, 2007 Specs: * 120W, 4 x EL34 based amp * 3 x 12AX7 tubes * single-channel * Internal components all hand mounted on turrets, no PC boards * custom Mercury Magnetics transformers * front controls for "Deep, Fuzz, Bass, Treble, Presence, Boost, and Master" * adjustable line-out Sound: 9/10 - Again, this is going to be pretty subjective. I know a lot of people who hate this type of amp sound as well as many who foam at the mouth, craving it. This unit will be a close comparison in some ways to the Matamp above. It has a late-60s or early 70s voicing to it except with more bass extension and an unreal amount of gain on tap. It's designed for the same stoner/doom/sludge type rock/metal playing as the Matamp above and is voiced for that genre. It isn't a modern scooped metal tone. It isn't an 80s screaming rock tone (but that can be arranged..). It is, at most settings, FULL of lows and low-mids with a mid range "honk" that most people familiar with bands like Electric Wizard or Sleep are very familiar with. The gain is not the smooth gain of something like a Mesa/Boogie Mark-series amp but, rather, is a fuzzy growling type of gain. Compared to the Matamp, it has more bass, tighter bass, more gain available, and more volume available. When not played at very high gain settings, every note is pushed out very clearly. It has plenty of power reserves to let each string's note sing out confidently. The Deep knob is a 4-way click knob that alters the amp's voicing like Orange's old FAC knobs. Clicked all the way counterclockwise, much of the bass is cut as well as a chunk of the gain and it has more of a straight-up vintage amp voicing to it. You can get very good clean sounds of this amp that are the most touch sensitive and percussive I've heard from an amp yet. With the Fuzz up a bit in this position and a boost pedal in front, it pulls off instant 80s style high gain. The amp with the Deep knob set to the most counterclockwise position is clinically tight. Zero flub or looseness. Boost back off and the Deep knob on any of the other 3 click positions, gain is raised and the low end seems to extend down into a bottomless pit. The gain is loose and sludgey with that characteristic buzzsaw growl. Hit a power chord and you'll swear you're listening to Sleep playing their Jerusalem album live. Back the Fuzz nearly all the way down on the three clockwise clicks and you get a very satisfying low-mid gain crunch sound as well. Instrument Quality: 10/10 I have had quality amps and instruments before but never had anything where I can look at it and find NO quality flaws. You can tell that every component was chosen because of how good it is, not because it was "good enough" or "good for the price". The control knobs have no play in them, the knobs themselves are custom bakelite, the amp shell is thick and solid, the chassis is very thick steel with no flex, the transformers are HUGE quality pieces, the soldering inside is done well and looks like it was all carefully done.. even the power switch flips with a heavy clunk. All of its little good bits add up to it being a seriously high-quality piece of equipment. Playbility: N/A Usefullness: 7/10 This amp is simply made to rock out with fuzzy, wooly distortion. You can get good cleans and you can get good crunch sounds out of it but, being a one-channel amp with no footswitchable options, you'll be going for ONE tone live and that one tone will most likely be its higher gain settings. That sound may be exactly what you need or may not. Overall Value: 7/10 This is a very high quality amplifier built by hand one at a time using only the highest quality parts. There are amps made today at the same price or higher using far inferior parts and manufacturing methods that can't touch the Electric Amp's sound. It is a very expensive piece of equipment, though. There's no getting around that.
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Jan 23, 2009 20:20
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