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Post subject: egnator rebel20 head review.
Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2010 10:44 pm
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ok santa brought me a amp that ive been after but just didnt buy, to many other things
ive been buying has gotten in the way lol.

ok so here is my review after only a couple days of ownership.

this amp is loud, there i s no question about it.
some people say you can gig with this amp, but i say that it all depends on your drummer and how loud he has to be.
the amp is built like a tank theres no question about it. the only weak spot in my opinion is the handle. it could have been a little more beefier actually.
beautiful just to look at honestly.
moving right along..........
the controls are as simple as they get,
tube mix, watts, master, trebble, middle, bass, and gain, leaving 2 mini toggles bright and tight.
the tube mix allows you to select which tube type you want tones from, 6V6 or EL84's.
the original design was to either select 6V6 or EL84's.
the design didnt work out as expected so george egnator designed around the set back
leaving us with the option to sweetly blend the two together.
honestly, you will pick one of 3 selections, either or, or straight up 12 o'clock.
there is a time and place for all 3 very different tones.
they surely wont disappoint even the biggest tone chaser.
im running my HW1 with the seymour JB jr and the two 69ers singles through the
fulltone OCD, which is a key pedal in my tone.
the watts knob is a little tricky at first. you might not even notice its working until you start screwing around with the volume and gain controls.
this amp has balls. its perfect for the rock and roll player who wants to go organic and not use any pedals or for the guy who wants an OD boost.
you might even be able to take it a step up and get away with 80's hair metal tones as well. i didnt get the opportunity to run my charvels or jacksons from that era to test it as of yet, but i fear not the possibilities.
the amp loses nothing as you creep up on the volume controls, and that better be how you do it, "creep" lol.

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Post subject: Re: egnator rebel20 head review.
Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2010 11:12 pm
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Rock Star
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it seems as i switch from the either or on the tube selection im wanting to tweek the other EQ knobs to dial in my tone a bit differently than before.
what ive been spending time trying to do is find my blues tone with this amp.
i havent done it yet. now you have to realize something, ive only used my HW1 R&R
guitar. you put a JB jr in a strat and you totally change the intended music for that guitar to heavy rock and some classic rock. the guitar has more balls than the law should allow for a guitar lol.
my next attempt will be through my tele. i love this guitar. it sings very well for a mexi fiddle thats stock. at this point in my review i still like my tones i get through my tweed Blues jr for blues playing. the tone of that amp crossed with my OCD is amazing with my tele and normal strats. a lot of people put them down but damn i sure do like it's tone.
i knew going in that the HW1 is a very demanding guitar and is suited better for harder
music. i cant wait to start dialing in with a different guitar to see what this amp is able to do. i like the amp and its fair to let you know that ive paired it with a avitar 1X12 cab loaded with a green back. i need to back off on the OCD too i think. its a balls to the wall OD pedal. some say that the egnator has the ability to sound like a fender and a marshall depending on your settings. im yet to find the fender tones.
im going to keep this post running until i make up my mind on this amp.
im very much in love with my blues jr still. i might try a sansamp or a matchless next.
i dont need another 1 trick pony amp. i have a wall of carvin's to get my rock/metal tones with. i hope i can find my blues tones with this amp.

if you had opportunity to try one of these amps out and didnt spend at least an hour with it, you missed out on a lot. it takes time to dial this amp in and 20/30 minutes isnt gonna cut it. im gonna keep posting so stay tuned.
at this point, i like the amp, but i dont see its blues potential as of yet.

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Post subject: Re: egnator rebel20 head review.
Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 7:17 am
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Rock Star
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way cool jr,
Man, you know I own one of these puppies! Yes you can seriously gig with one. I do all the time. If the venue is bigger, I bring my second Egnater 112 cabinet. The Egnater cabs are my favorite with this amp. They just seem voiced for it. They're ported cabs and are loaded with Custom Celestion Elite 80's and have a nice bottom end.

For a good Blues tone, I mess with the watts knob. Lowering that decreases the headroom and adds a bit of grittiness to the tone. It can still get really loud even at the one watt setting. The watts control is not an attenuator, it lowers the voltage to the tubes. Voltage is applied to the watts control, that's why there is a little "scratchiness" when you turn it, it's the voltage change you hear and it's normal, they all do it. One watt on these amps is actually one watt. I usually put the gain control at around 1-2:00 and then mess with the volume control. My amp has a little less gain because I changed the preamp tube in V1 to a NOS JAN Phillips 5751 to reduce it. If you run high gain, flipping the tight switch on really tightens up the bass.

If you turn the tube mix knob to 12:00 you'll get a pretty good volume boost. That's because all four power tubes are running equally. I usually use that trick in bigger venues too. I've heard on the Egnater forums it's pretty close to 30 watts. I'm not sure about that, but I know it's really loud and has a lot more headroom at that point.
Running the 6v6 side gives me a little more Fendery sort of Princeton Tweed sound when you turn down the watts control and lessen the headroom. The EL84's are a bit more aggressive and have a little jangle to them. But no, you won't get exactly Fender, Vox or Marshall out of it. You will be part of "The Brotherhood of the Egnater". LOL :mrgreen:

way cool jr, you are correct that you need time to play with the amp. It's far from a one trick pony. It took me weeks to dial in my tone and then I find a new one, then another new one and then............ You get my drift. I don't like the handle either, but they give you a nice bag to carry the amp head in. I've had mine over a year and and have had ZERO problems with it. It has been gigged quite a bit with never a problem. I can also tweak the tone to the room very easily with the turn of the tube mix dial and I've never had to put the cab on a chair to hear it. It cuts a mix like a knife. It has been light years better than HRD amp and with two cabs, it can keep up with any drummer I've encountered as well as keep up with 50-75 watt amps.

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Post subject: Re: egnator rebel20 head review.
Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 7:23 am
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Thankyou for your thoughts on the amp.

I hate to make a comment like this because I really don't buy into a lot of the valve type for certain sounds myths, but...

EL84 single ended amps and a Tele.
The ultimate anarchic rock n roll sound. It's pretty much where I live when I'm on my own.


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Post subject: Re: egnator rebel20 head review.
Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 7:58 am
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Rock Star
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geez 63 its about time you get in here.
i though i was gonna have to send a blimp over your way to get your attention lol.
finally huh, and ive been talking about it for 6 months or more. i do like this amp. im gonna try your settings to see what it does for me.
i had great hopes you would post some and you did. i might buy a egnator cab down the road for this guy. its a sweet amp guys for sure. it just takes time to play wit it as supro said. im still in the begining stages but wanted to get a report up asap as to my findings and walk you guys step by step. this is gonna be fun indeed.

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Post subject: Re: egnator rebel20 head review.
Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 8:20 am
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Rock Star
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way cool jr I had a problem with resetting the password and Brad fixed it up for me. I'm glad because I'm getting close to the 5,000 post mark and I didn't want to start out as the new guy.
Nah, not really. It doesn't really matter.

Anyway, after a year, I'm really diggin the amp. Give it time. I never get a bad tone out of it. If you're used to the Fender sound, it takes time to get used to something different. I've had a lot of different brand amps over the years, but Fender was my mainstay until now. Everywhere I take this amp other musicians are floored by how it sounds and it's small size. If you notice, a lot of amp manufacturers are starting to employ variations of what Egnater is doing. Interesting stuff.

I usually don't use pedals but the two distortion pedals I use, I built. They come from Build Your Own Clone. It's the British Blues Overdrive. One is modded for single coils, the other is stock for humbuckers. It's a Clone of the Marshall Blues Breaker pedal. I like it better than my old Tube Screamer, it's a real transparent overdrive.

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Post subject: Re: egnator rebel20 head review.
Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 6:37 pm
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Rock Star
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that would be interesting to build your own clone pedal.

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Post subject: Re: egnator rebel20 head review.
Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2010 12:34 am
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ok so im setting here pondering the blues tone issue. i know its in there somewhere.
i mean, how could it not be?
i unpluged my holy grail OCD pedal just for kicks and went organic into the amp.
"you gotta be shiotting me", theres my blues tone and with my monster HW1.
how the h3ll? man the sweetness, but disappointment as well. i love my OCD.
i gotta find the sweet spot where they both can coexist together in my heart lol.
man ive been plasying my OCD through this thing and forgot the built in tones that it has. in a word, "smooth" comes to mind. its smooth like expensive whiskey or burbon.
i just cant describe the type of smooth it has. the celestion im running this amp through is well broken in. i want to A/B this cab with the intended cab from egnator. not to see which cab is the better cab but to see which one this amp sounds best with.
imight have to go get one in the near future. it the egnator cab is better, i'll get 2 of them. more to come in the egnator review so stay tuned..........

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Post subject: Re: egnator rebel20 head review.
Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2010 5:07 am
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The Egnater cabs get way better as the Celestion breaks in too. It sounds stiff at first, then loosens up and the bottom end gets fuller. They sound a little bright at first, then get incredibly mellow. I was on the fence for about a week about them then everything clicked. It really takes a while to understand how the Rebel works. What I did was start clean at 20 watts on the 6V6 side then turned down the watts dial little bits at a time until I understood what it was doing to the headroom, then I would do the same with the tube mix dial. It's hard to understand unless you take one dial or function at a time. After I did that, then I started messing with pedals. It was fun for me and still is fun finding new tones.
Try some of the settings in the manual. It'll blow you away.

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Post subject: Re: egnator rebel20 head review.
Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2010 5:17 am
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thats what im going to do when i get back from out of town,
work through the manual's settings.
im headed to see my brother on friday. i'll be back on monday.
gonna be hard to go without this amp lol. i already think about it
when im at work.

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63supro
"The good thing is in a club situation, most of the patrons are trashed and really can't tell the difference."


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Post subject: Re: egnator rebel20 head review.
Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2010 5:53 am
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Way Cool jr. Great buy on that amp, I'm wanting one myself, Glad to hear you like it. Also, glad to see that JBjr is treating you well. I love mine. That sucker can get raw. 8)


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Post subject: Re: egnator rebel20 head review.
Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2010 5:57 am
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oh those pups arent for the regular guy are they. i didnt expect the tone or boost they give. i knew i would get some, but not bucket fulls.

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63supro
"The good thing is in a club situation, most of the patrons are trashed and really can't tell the difference."


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Post subject: Re: egnator rebel20 head review.
Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2010 6:07 am
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as for the amp, ITS ALL SUPRO's fault. :P
on and on he went (now im doing it lol) about his amp until i had to go check them out for my self. then i
ended up buying one. im in this amp and cab for $510. which is a far cry from the price tag on the matchless lightning i want.
these rebel20 amps are sweet. like supro has stated, it takes time to dial them in.
there is more to it than just turning knobs at random. there is a sweet spot on these amps that might be different to your ears than mine. ours might be totally different than supro's idea of where the sweet spot is. the smoothness cant really be explained, but its only found on higher end boutique amps. Lord knows ive owned my share of amps over the yrs, none have been this flavor of smooth.

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