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Post subject: Super Sonic 22 - 1st Post-Gig Impressions
Posted: Mon Jul 12, 2010 6:23 pm
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Played out this past week-end with the SuperSonic 22 and a HRDeluxe (with an A-B Box). Used a Mexican Strat and an ’89 Les Paul Custom. The SS allowed the personalities of the guitars come through clearly, while the HRD colored things more, with the Strat sounding a bit shrill. The venue we played at was a VFW post, a small-ish room, but not a closet. Overall, both amps performed well on the gig. The SS 22 was more than loud enough, running both channels at about 3.5 volume-wise all night. The HRD was running at about 2-3, with an Omnisonic volume box in the loop. Sound-wise, the cleans on the SS 22 were more full vs. the HRD, which sounded “thin” (although I think the differences in the speakers may have been a factor). However, the HRD’s clean seemed to cut thru the mix better, which surprised me (SS clean treble was at 4-4.5, Bass at about 3.5-4). Upon further investigation this evening, the SS clean blooms with the treble at 5-5.5 and the bass at 4. Rookie mistake. Engaging the SS Fat switch, really bought the clean sound to life, with headroom intact. Worked great for tunes like “Breakdown” and “Brown Eyed-Girl”. Delay, Univibe, Chorus, and even the Wah pedal worked fabulously in the SS efx loop. Reverb was at 2-3 all night with no complaints.

The Burn channel did a very good job on the more lead-intensive tunes such as “Black Magic Woman”. Running the second gain knob almost full up and leaving the first gain knob at about 4, along with a little clean boost from a Boss Blues Driver, achieved very Boogie-like sustain, but I don’t think that I’ll be selling my Boogie Heartbreaker anytime soon. Rolling the second gain knob back to about 7-8, and rolling a little off of the guitar volume, worked for such tunes as “2 Tickets to Paradise”, “Keep Your Hands to Yourself”, and “We’re An American Band”. Nice and crunchy. Low/Mid gain sounds were a bit elusive with the SS, so I just stayed on the clean channel and supplemented things with the Blues Driver or the BB Preamp. Painless. Except for the “high gain” settings, the overall characters of the distortions between the two amps were quite similar, but SS had “more guts, more fullness, and was much less fizzy” in comparison to how I remember the original SS60, on the higher gain settings, with the HRD doing a bit better on the lower break-up/mild-moderate overdrive settings, but not by leaps and bounds. Again, I think that the different speakers were coming into play.

I guess that the bottom line is that either amp can suffice easily for your average bar gig and they do have some sonic similarities. However, the Supersonic’s overall sound is much more “refined” than the HRD (again I wonder if this is the speaker difference) and has more versatility. Is it worth $1000? I think so, for what it is able to do, the portability factor, the dual EQs, the lower wattage, and the supposedly higher quality build. Is it worth $300 more than the respectable, best-selling HRD? Yes, I think it is, but we’ll see what the sales numbers look like. Even if you pay to have Omega Amps mod your HRD, your already in the SS22’s price range. So, the SS22 definitely has the potential to be a game changer .

Matt


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Posted: Mon Jul 12, 2010 8:16 pm
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Great review Matt ! Keep us posted as you get more quality time and break-in with the amp and speaker. BTW Which speaker comes in that amp? Art

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Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 3:24 am
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Art,

The speaker is a "50 Watt Fender® “Lightning Bolt” speaker by Eminence®". I have no clue which Eminence model it is closest to, but I haven't had much time to investigate further either. Time to investigate.......

Matt


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Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 6:42 am
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Very nice review indeed !
Glad someone took one out into the real world and gave it a good workout.

My little in the guitar store review wasn't exactly enough to give the SS 22 a good chance to do its thing.

I just wasn't ready to give up the 995.00 to find out if i liked it.

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Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 9:24 am
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Joined: Mon Nov 24, 2008 10:10 am
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Good to hear more good things about the 22. I have yet to try out the 22 in person but doubtful I will.

I'm very happy with my original 112 60w combo. I got an two stage -12db attenuator for $79 custom made from a local amp tech yesterday and am excited that I can achieve bedroom levels with volume on 4 now. With the flick of just one of the two switches, I should be able to drive this amp hard with -6db attenuation at a gig and have plenty of volume. You can pick up the original 60w for $700-850 these days, I got mine for $725 shipped with a retube already and broken in speaker. The sound of that vibrolux setting with the amp on 4-5 is just gorgeous, clean but with aggressive picking a lovely fendery breakup. Add a TS9 pedal and it's just pure burbling texas roadhouse distortion all the way to hard rocking spank!

Good luck and glad the 22 worked out for you! I'm all for anything that keeps the Super-Sonic alive!


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