PDC
Well-known member
There was a recent thread about how long it took to know whether an amp was for you. The vast majority of us said we knew within just a few minutes. A few said that they really needed time to work through settings, speakers, and combinations of guitars and pickups to know for sure. I bought myself a brand new - ordered for me - Fully Loaded 50 Watt Splawn Nitro a while back, and at first never really ‘bonded’ with it. It sounded fine, but it didn’t ‘grab’ me the way that my 50 Watt Fully Loaded QR did within the first 5 minutes - and still does. I actually had the Nitro listed here and on Reverb for a while, and after a few weeks with no decent offers, I just decided to keep it. Recently, I rolled a bunch of power tubes through this amp and settled on what I found to be the best sounding pair. Then, over the last few days, I just started from scratch - all knobs on noon - and just started working the Old/New and Mid Cut/Boost switches back and forth BEFORE tweaking the tone stack. And the settings I am using now are vastly different than how I had it set for the first 18 month of ownership. I just finished playing this amp for several hours and it is an absolute ‘Keeper.’ I think I might even like this baby more than my #1 QR. I can say that I found the tone stack to be EXTREMELY interactive with the Old/New and Mid/Cut switches - you can get into completely different spectrums of midrange that either do - or absolutely do NOT - work with whatever cab you are using. I always found this amp a little to ‘full’ in the low mids without enough upper midrange definition - well, by starting at ground zero, I was able to cure that in spades. It’s just nice to know that by being patient and giving this particular amp some time in the corral, I have wound up really, really happy.