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Average user rating 5 of 5

• JonE999

  

  14 weeks ago.

  User rating 5 of 5

  I reckon the journey can say a lot about the ultimate destination, so rather than spew out a load of tech specs that are already out there I'll explain why I've stopped looking for new tube amps since getting a Rebel 30. It's a bit of a stream of consciousness but hopefully someone will find it useful.
  I started my journey into tube territory with a Blackstar HT5 - great little amp, especially for rock, but no headroom clean (big surprise as it is only 5W), so I moved to 40W Fender Blues Delux - fantastic cleans but overdrive channel always sounded a bit harsh and pedals just seemed to make it nasty to my ear (and not in a good way), also very heavy and the clincher was that it was very hard to play at sensible volumes for anything other than quite large venues (and I play in pubs and small/medium functions). So I went small again and got a Fender Blues Junior with a Celestion 30 Vintage speaker, using pedals to give clean vs dirty sounds; this solved the volume problem and its a lovely size for the lazy man without roadie but still the same problem - just couldn't get the overdriven sound I wanted either with or without pedals. I accept that this could just be my lack of ability to get the best out of my own gear but that was where I ended up after a couple of years of experimenting to little avail.
  So finally, we move to the Rebel 30. I'll admit that I was initially drawn to it because it is ridiculously pretty - looks a bit like a cream and black ACE Cobra with the stripe down the bonnet. However, further inspection revealed it was more than a pretty face - great clean channel and the in-built reverb sounds very good. The dirty channel is fantastic whether you just want a little edge right up to full overdrive (probably not a full on metal amp but frankly who cares). There's also a lot of tweakability - the valve selector gives some fine tuning to the tone, although I tend to stick it in the 50:50 mix and this gives 30W. However, the output control (1-30W, one control per channel) is very useful as it allows you to control the amp's breakpoint and that is useful when you are at all volume constrained (you could also influence this by selecting either all EL84 or all 6V6 with the mix knob, as that also drops it down to 20W, rather than the 50:50 mix giving 30W). Also nice little touches like the bright and tight controls on each channel, which just give another level of choice and is very usable. Another useful feature is the effects loop and I find having my pedal board up front to colour the sound, but having my boost (just a Boss EQ) between the pre and power amps is a great way of getting a volume boost for solos.
  All in I'm nothing but happy and my only minor niggle is that the channel button on the foot switch has just stopped working, presumably due to a break in the cable - but that is easily fixed.
  I'm still not sure I've totally found my own tone, but the nice thing about this amp is that there is so much control that you can keep changing your mind and keep tweaking, rather than having to search for another amp.

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