Looking for an ultimate multi channel amp. Help me

[Wizard of Ozz]

I am going to sell my peavey 5150 and dual recto to get a multi channel amp.

I am considering vh4 or colossus. I played vh4 before. It was great. But, I felt it's a little bit compressed.

I never played colossus. But, from the clips it's pretty similar to vh4. Tons of gain and refined gain structure.

Maybe colossus has more open sounding. Am I right? I need some opinions who tried both amps. Thanks

Multi-channel amps are all about compromises and what you are willing to accept.

The VH4 is probably the single most compressed high-gain channel switcher on the market. It's also a little too dark and lacking upper mids for my taste. Other than that, it's built like a tank and is super flexible. Arguably one of the most flexible, best built, and the fx loops are some of the best designs going: transparent and no tone suckage.

The Rhodes Colossus is a nice amp with plenty of features but the bottom end was to harsh and soft/spongy no matter what you try to dial in. Not tight and percussive enough for me. Other than that they are also buil really well... But I prefer the the transparency of the VH4 fx loop if your an fx junky.

Some others you may want to look into are the Marshall JVM410, Engl SE/Invader, Fryette CLX/UL.

Some mentioned the Bogner XTC, which will cover clean, country, blues up to hard rock. It won't do metal even with a boost. The voicing and low end won't handle it IMHO.

Won't do metal even with a boost? Lmao, you are one of the worst players on any forum. Your opinion is completely worthless.

Back at ya slick. Keep chugging those metal riffs with your strat in to your XTC.

 

[Wizard of Ozz]

Yes and no. The Gemini is a bit more aggressive sounding, but it has the same amount of gain on paper as the Colossus. Just a stripped down version. Still lacks the tight, percussive low end I prefer (as well as many others) for metal. I haven't tried the Ares yet... but I tend to favor 100-150W tube heads for the headroom and ballsier lowend from the extra power.

The Gemini has more gain than the Colossus (5 gain stages vs 4) and has increased switching/midi capabilities. The Colossus is more of a "stripped down" amp than the Gemini. The Colossus is also tight as hell and does metal just fine. I own/owned various VHT/Fryette stuff, and the Colossus is just as tight, but no it isn't as percussive. It is more musical and better suited for leads, whereas Fryette stuff is stiff and really needs a boost for leads to feel right.

It's 5 stages with the Gemini's added boost (5th stage)... otherwise they both have 4 gain stages.

I've owned several Fryette/VHT Ultraleads and neither the Colossus nor Gemini were as tight. YMMV.

 

[thiswaythatway]

 

[Candiria]

It's 5 stages with the Gemini's added boost (5th stage)... otherwise they both have 4 gain stages.

I've owned several Fryette/VHT Ultraleads and neither the Colossus nor Gemini were as tight. YMMV.

Yes, if you don't count the Gemini's 5th gain stage than they both have 4 gain stages.

And saying it's not tight because it isn't as tight as a UL is like saying a 458 isn't fast because it doesn't go like a Veyron.

 

[FourT6and2]

Throw some KT88s in a KSR and it'll improve the tightness, I'm sure. The Orthos and the Ares have different transformers, from what Kyle has told me. And I think they are a bit tighter based on our convos. But they don't have all the crazy MIDI doohickies.

 

[Wizard of Ozz]

It's 5 stages with the Gemini's added boost (5th stage)... otherwise they both have 4 gain stages.

I've owned several Fryette/VHT Ultraleads and neither the Colossus nor Gemini were as tight. YMMV.

Yes, if you don't count the Gemini's 5th gain stage than they both have 4 gain stages.

And saying it's not tight because it isn't as tight as a UL is like saying a 458 isn't fast because it doesn't go like a Veyron.

But what I'm getting at is the Gemini has an additional switchable boost to the lead channel... it's not constantly running 5 gain stages.

As far as tightness goes, we'll agree to disagree. KSR amps remind me of a slightly tighter Recto sound. A Recto with a boost and eq in the loop is still tighter to my ears than any KSR amp on its own.

 

[ob1clyde]

The Engl Invader ended up on the top of my list after many different purchases.. with the midi-footswitch it pretty much has all the boxes checked. Easy to dial in and easy to save changes per channel.. Mines also for sale on SSO. haha, timing man.. it was just timing on this thread I swear! Mine or not check them out. Beat out the MarkV, Fryette SigX and others side by side in tone and functionality to my ears.

 

[Mattfig]

What about Synergy???
Or even Randall MTS? You can customize your tone forever with those...

 

[glip22]

I hope you have 100K to try all the amps posted

 

[Fuego]

Try the Invader 2. There's a comparison video online between the 1 and the 2. Add the wizard module and u will never run out of options, tone wise. Jmo

 

[s_swanson]

Have you looked into Peters Amps at all? I bought an older dual channel from James and I really liked it. His newer dual channel and triple channel amps look killer, and you have tons of flexibility with the channels. You can mix and match pretty much any way you want it, and it looks like he even has Rhythm and lead versions of his crunch and high gain channels now.

Just a thought.

 

[bulletride]

There are so many good amps these days. Choosing an amp is very difficult. I think I need to keep searching more. Anyway thanks guys!