 Telecaster Guitar Forum |
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Reviews
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Views
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Date of last review
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1
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5237
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Tue March 7, 2006
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Recommended By
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Average Price
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Average Rating
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100% of reviewers
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None indicated
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4.0
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Description:
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A versatile head from Fender incorporating vintage voicings and hi-gain settings
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Keywords:
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fender super sonic head tube
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Author
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lchyi
Registered: December 2005
Location: San Diego, CA
Posts: 144
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Review Date: Tue March 7, 2006
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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: Not Indicated
| Rating: 4
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Pros:
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Aesthetically pleasing, lots of usable tones
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Cons:
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Hi-gain not necessarily high, vintage channel lacks a little sparkle, expensive
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I had the opportunity to spend a good amount of time with Fender's new Super Sonic line of amps. Specifically, the head and the 2x12 matching cabinet.
Description: There are two channels, one is a vintage clean channel with two voicings: "Bassman" and "Vibrolux". It has only three knobs: volume, high, and low.
The other channel is the "burn" channel. Basically the hi-gain aspect of this head. This features two levels worth of gain and individual knobs for each. It has a high, low, and mid adjustment along with the standard volume knob.
The head sports a classy salt and pepper grill cloth and a very cool cyan pilot light. The knobs are the vintage Fender amplifier knobs but jet black and very shiny. The head and cab also come in a blonde version for Fender purists who like that look instead.
Pros: The Bassman part of the vintage channel absolutely rocks. It has major low-end thump while retaining incredible clarity. This was by far my favorite channel. For those of you attached to your '66 Bassman, go try this head at your local guitar shop, it's very authentic and quite liberating. The burn channel was quite cool. It creates an unmuffled, clear overdriven sound with a very large headroom. I had the volume around 3 to start thinking that it would give me a muffled mess but was pleasantly surprised on how well it emulated the class overdriven Fender tones at low volumes. At higher level volumes, this amp absolutely screams. Blues fanatics... you must go play this amp, the overdrive on it is insanely rich and creamy. Adjusting the gain knobs down and you get classic and crunchy, diming both knobs gives you a thick lead tone that maybe a little heavier for more Fender fans but definitely not harsh.
Cons: The Vibrolux voicing on the vintage channel isn't as inspiring. It lacks some sparkle that I'm used to in Fender cleans and while isn't muddy, isn't very punchy and clear. The burn channel was nice, but was far from hi-gain. If that's what you're looking for in a tube head, you'd be better off checking out a Marshall or a Mesa.
Overall: Setting weight, looks, and price aside, Fender has a really cool amp here. It is extremely versatile and I think would be a very good blues/classic rock player's amp. It has tones of headroom for medium sized venues and is on the spot IMO with the Bassman setting. However, this thing is quite pricey. The heads retail for about $1000 and the matching cabs at around $500-700. The head also sports no reverb at all but Fender does make an external reverb unit for times like this which is more $$$. It comes in a combo version as well and that looks like a promising solution.
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