Phaez guitar amplifiers

October 28th, 2010 by Andres Gallo

Having played various amplifiers, I sometimes find myself wishing I could have ”that clean sound”, with “that distortion sound”, along with “those features.” I had been looking for an amplifier that would give me the sound of a Marshall at 10 at lower volumes, while providing my tone with even more body and definition. There are not many good low watt high gain amplifiers in the market. As I searched for something of this kind, I found many raving reviews about the Phaez daisycutter high gain amps. These amps are made by an amp builder who many claim to be “a gifted” amp builder in Canada.
Doing more research on his amps and those of competing brands, I decided to give it a shot. I ordered an awesome 35 watter with EL34s, which will probably give me insomnia for a while. I will provide the full specifications once I receive it and review it. So be sure to visit guitarliving again for the review, and if there is anything you’d like me to cover in the review feel free to email me.

Review:Bugera 333xl head

December 23rd, 2008 by Andres Gallo

Bugera 333XL
$599

Design

Design is something this amp head packs, especially for the price. It has three channels, an effects loop, and a whole lot of options. The amp looks and feels durable, and has a grill cover in the front, back, and top which should keep the tubes nicely ventilated, while at the same time making the amp look more attractive. The amp is very attractive, but I wish they had use real metal for the decorations.
Beyond the appearance of the amp, as mentioned the amp is feature packed. It has three channels, and comes with a footswitch allowing the player to switch between the three channels, as well as turning of the effects loop on ad off. In the front of the amp, it has some LED buttons that the user can also press to change the channel, and they stay lit to let the user know what channel is currently active. It also has a built in reverb, which functions with the same LED button principle.
Other things that have LED buttons in the amp is the effects loop, and the XL switches which boost the bottom end making the sound bigger. There are also knobs to control the parameters of all the functions turned on/off by these LED buttons. For example each channel has equalizing knobs and a volume knob, and all channels except for the clean channel have a gain knob. The reverb also has a knob to increase/decrease the reverb, and the effects loop has two knobs to control the signal in the send/receive output and inputs, giving the player immense versatility.
Not forgotten are the very important Master volume knob, Presence knob, Standby Switch, High and Low gain inputs, as well as the line out. The presence knob for example is a really awesome EQ type control.
The design is not perfect however. One thing I don’t like about the design, is that its construction uses plastic knobs, which makes me wonder how other things inside are constructed, and one thing which is really annoying is that the noise gate does so little controlling hum, it almost seems as if it was broken or something.

Sound

Let’s get the negatives out of the way first. There is always a really annoying background noise in the background, which is annoying as you use higher gain pickups, and higher gain tones. This is not a problem unless you have really high gain pickups, and have a tendency to put the gain all the way up. However, such problem is easily controlled with a good noise suppressor, and the amazing tone this amp delivers makes it worth it. Every tube amp, I have tried hums anyways.
On the clean channel the background noise is almost not there, and the clean channel is very warm and pristine. It’s surprisingly good at this price, especially considering this is a high gain amp. It is one of the sweetest clean channels I have heard. The clean sound has lots of vivacity, and very articulate definition. The clean sounds really amazing with single coils or coil split humbucker pickups. It has so much body, yet the notes all ring out so nice and clear.
The crunch channel allows for a huge range of tones, going from a light overdrive all the way to Van Halen type tones, and impressively the sound stays defined through out.
The lead channel has lots of bottom end, and lots of gain, which make the leads really stand out. I can see some people would like to use this channel for overwhelmingly heavy riffery, as it can have some levels of gain that are just insane. In other words the versatility with this amp is phenomenal. The lead channel however begins to lose clarity when pushed to the extremes, however, I don’t see why anyone would play with such a gain packed tone.
While each channel sounds splendid, is the ability to do really good clean, and high gain both in the same amp, that makes it special. At this price range amps usually perform outstandingly in one, or the other, and sometimes neither, but never on both clean and high gain applications. This is a do it all amp, and once again I have to remind you readers that the clean channel is phenomenal, and so is the crunch channel, both which are “toneful” and extremely versatile.  In spite of the few negative things I mentioned this is without a doubt one of the best, if not the best value in high gain amps.

Reliability

The construction of the amp, feels well constructed. The only thing that worries me is that the material of the knobs, the grill and decorations is plastic when it should have been metal. With that said, I am left wondering about what to expect of the materials in the inside, but I am confident it will last. It sounds so good, I am sure, or at least hopeful, it’s construction was all thought out, but I guess I’ll find out with more time.

Customer Support

I have no experience with their customer support.

Review:Roland Micro Cube

December 23rd, 2008 by Andres Gallo

Roland Micro Cube
$125

Design

Pure genius. Well, if those two words described my entire review, I would not be too far from the truth. This amp is in my opinion probably the best practice amp for most guitarists who like to have a simple, but decent setup for home use where volume is kept constrained to avoid having “killer” neighbors.
Growing up I always wanted a big tube amp even though it would be used in my “lonesome bedroom gigs”. Turns out, for low volumes, it is better to avoid tube amps, especially huge loud ones. Tube amps will sound very tinny and fizzy at low volumes, which is why I feel this solid state amp is the greatest bedroom amp I have tried so far. For this application, the design is almost flawless. This Roland is really small, it’s built like a tank, has various effects already built in, and performs rather well. This Roland also runs batteries which makes ideal for small jams out in the park with some friends, especially if they got the same amp.

Sound

While not the best sounding amp I have ever heard, nor anywhere close, this amp sounds very very good. The amp is very small, yet it has plenty of volume for the bedroom practice application, and yet more. While I feel this amp would probably sound much more powerful with a bigger speaker, I feel the size of it is such an important feature that I feel I can’t take points away for not having a bigger speaker. With it’s small speaker unfortunately the sound lacks warmth, sounds bright, but maintains a pretty decent amount of clarity which is what I like about it.
Being a modeling amp you can get various tones with it all which may be completely different. You can go all the way from clean, to overdriven tones, to metal distortion. It also has some effects built in, which makes it a great amp for the usual bedroom guitarist who is just starting to experiment with effects. I personally think the effects are good, but lack control of their tone. I wish there was some kind of tap tempo button for the delay for example. That is just me being nitpicky, however. This amp sounds great, and has lots of useful tones, in a small package, making it very versatile.

Reliability

I have enough experience with Roland equipment to feel confident purchasing their products. The construction of their products is always top notch. This amp looks like it is built like a tank.
Who knows…with all the features it has for the price, it may have a hidden “turn to tank” button.

Customer Support

Roland has great customer support as long as you are within their warranty period. Their customer support is one of the best I have experienced.