NAD...The Archon has landed!!!

[Orionsbelt456]

Cool! I have a 5150 iii stealth and the red channel sounds like a plane is landing lol while im not playing that is. Im more of a lead player so i need something with tons of gain thats not so crazy

 

[jc986]

The Archon is super quiet as far as high gain amps go. When I had the 5153 my ISP Decimator had to be engaged at all times if using the red channel, but you could get away without the noise gate with the Archon. I still use the ISP as I prefer dead silence when not playing but it wouldn't be nearly as noisy as the 5153 or any other 5150 variant for that matter.

 

[Orionsbelt456]

Right on. I might look into an archon. You have the 100w?

 

[jc986]

Right on. I might look into an archon. You have the 100w?

Yes, and it's actually for sale in the Classifieds right now. I'll probably regret selling it but GAS is a bitch and I've been craving a Kemper profiler. You can PM me if you are interested or have any more questions about the Archon, as I don't want to further derail GuitarGuyLP's thread.

 

[Orionsbelt456]

Gotcha!

 

[Crunchtime]

So after a few days with it, and a bunch of tube swapping I have found that the Archon is pretty dark overall. If I adjust it to get the cut, and brightness that I like it ends up sounding kind of funky. I put EL34s in it which helped a lot, so did lowering the resonance down to about 9:00, and boosting the presence up to about 3:00.

I am going to give it a bit more time, but I am thinking it is not the amp for me. Which sucks, I had very high hopes for it. It is a cool amp, and the clean channel is one of the best ones I have heard. I just need to figure out where to go next. Something somewhere between the Archon, and 5150 III.

I would try an MXR 10 band in loop before selling.

 

[Orionsbelt456]

Eq helps! Good luck with the archon man.

 

[andross182]

I have heard the Archon called a lot of things, but never dark. *head scratch*

 

[lowmantotempole]

Put some 6ca7 power tubes in it. Sounded way better to me.

 

[GuitarGuyLP]

I don't have any 6CA7s, but I have tried 6L6, EL34, and KT77, the EL34s are the best by a long shot!!!

I am not sure if dark is the right way to describe it, just darker than what I normally go for.

I am going to do some checking out on the amp, and see if maybe the tube sockets need to be cleaned, or one of the preamp tubes might not be 100%. Either way I am going to give it a bit more time, plus I might try some different speakers.

 

[Orionsbelt456]

Always worth a shot to try different things on amps. Especially when they cost soooooo much!

 

[GuitarGuyLP]

So I did a bit of playing around last night, and actually hooked up the foot switch. Once I turned the loop off it sounded better, so I swapped that tube, and now it sounds better either way. I guess I had a bad tube in the one spot I didn't change out.

 

[jc986]

Cool! Glad you were able to get it sorted out.

 

[sleewell2]

congrats on the archon, I have wanted to play one of those since they came out.

HNAD!!

 

[ob1clyde]

I think Im with you on the Archon.. A happy accident landed me an Engl Artist Edition, and although I typically shy away from anything shared EQ.. Consider me a fan. Id take it over a 5153 or archon...

 

[garey77]

Where are the clips, man?!!