Old Splawns vs New Splawns

PurityS.L.G

PurityS.L.G

Well-known member
Anybody here played or own both? Particularly the Nitro? I'm looking to get another Nitro and not sure if I should wait for an older model with the Heyboer OT's or order a new one with the Classic Tones. Is Scott still using Classic Tones? Wasn't there a shortage or something due to COVID? Wanted to know what differences in tone, if any, were apparent.
 
Purity said:
Anybody here played or own both? Particularly the Nitro? I'm looking to get another Nitro and not sure if I should wait for an older model with the Heyboer OT's or order a new one with the Classic Tones. Is Scott still using Classic Tones? Wasn't there a shortage or something due to COVID? Wanted to know what differences in tone, if any, were apparent.
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A brand new one likely won't have classictone as they are no more. Heybooer Iron is great though. I had a Splawn QR and Nitro with the Heybooer. I enjoyed the Heybooer and I have had a bunch of amps with classictone. I don't think you can go wrong with either but I've heard that the classictone models were a little bit better balanced eq wise but take that with a huge grain of salt. Kyle Bull can probably answer this better than anyone but I don't think Scott Splawn will put any ol transformer in his amps.
 
Kyle has my old(er) 100 watt Nitro - not sure what transformers are in it. It’s a damned good sounding amp (I wouldn’t mind buying it back!!!) I replaced it with a Classic Tone transformer 50 watt ‘fully loaded’ Nitro - which I love… but the older hundy had a touch more firmness and articulation that I now miss. Great amps.
 
I played the prototype Scott had back in the day before it was released (‘07 maybe?), bought one of the first ones he made, and had another briefly 4-5 years ago. They all sounded the same to me.
 
I preferred the Heybooer Iron over Classic tone....for sure. I owned two 2006 Quickrods, a 2008 Competition, and a 2012 Quickrod(Classic tones). The Heybooers just had more punch in the chest and clarity.
 
Heyboers for the win.


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Also maybe consider a new Quick Rod with the newer features. Some of the guys in the Splawn subforum maybe more direct side by side comparisons of old vs new Nitros.
 
messenger said:
Have they done anything to the new ones like PCB mounted pots or tube sockets?
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I don’t think so. I’ve been to Scott’s shop in person and he prides himself to following mil-spec quality assembly. He doesn’t aim to cut corners and has not released a single model that aims at less than bombproof attention to detail.

He’s a really passionate guy if you ever get the chance to stop by. I was there to pick up my 4x12s in person that I’d ordered long ago.
 
glpg80 said:
Old ones had weird mids. Newer ones less weird mids.

Man if you only knew how many people complained back in the day on the forum about it 😂
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Oh I do! In fact it always steered me away from them hearing about it so I ended up ordering a Mako MAK2 instead at the time.

I did eventually buy a Nitro a few years ago and actually loved it. I regret selling it now. It was an '07 with Heyboers. It did have a weird mid frequency that you couldn't dial out which made it super picky with a lot of boost pedals.

So now I'm in the market for another one and going to mod it according to Nolly's suggestion and see what happens.

https://www.rig-talk.com/forum/posts/2386311/
 
I have a 2005 Quickrod and have played a 2018 fully loaded Quiclrod. There is a huge difference in the tone and feel. IMHO, the new Splawns are less aggressive sounding. My amp, vs the 2018 that I got to play, has slightly less gain but sounds meaner. Scott smoothed out the top end to my ears. Now the 2018 clean channel was far and away better than mine. On my amp, the lead channel gain knob effects the clean channel headroom. I run Gear 3 OD1 as my main tone with the gain at 1:00. If you have heard any of my videos, they is where the gain is set unless otherwise noted. Anything above 11:00 and the clean channel clips to the point where it is useless to me. The tone knobs on the clean channel of my amp also effect the tone of the lead channel. Move them off of noon and the tone of the lead channel suffers.

I have not gotten to play a Nitro, so I cannot really say about those amps. Just my experiences with the Quickrod.
 
SFW said:
I have a 2005 Quickrod and have played a 2018 fully loaded Quiclrod. There is a huge difference in the tone and feel. IMHO, the new Splawns are less aggressive sounding. My amp, vs the 2018 that I got to play, has slightly less gain but sounds meaner. Scott smoothed out the top end to my ears. Now the 2018 clean channel was far and away better than mine. On my amp, the lead channel gain knob effects the clean channel headroom. I run Gear 3 OD1 as my main tone with the gain at 1:00. If you have heard any of my videos, they is where the gain is set unless otherwise noted. Anything above 11:00 and the clean channel clips to the point where it is useless to me. The tone knobs on the clean channel of my amp also effect the tone of the lead channel. Move them off of noon and the tone of the lead channel suffers.

I have not gotten to play a Nitro, so I cannot really say about those amps. Just my experiences with the Quickrod.
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Have you tried a 5751 in the PI?

But yeah, going from clean to OD live is not easy.
 
SFW said:
I have a 2005 Quickrod and have played a 2018 fully loaded Quiclrod. There is a huge difference in the tone and feel. IMHO, the new Splawns are less aggressive sounding. My amp, vs the 2018 that I got to play, has slightly less gain but sounds meaner. Scott smoothed out the top end to my ears. Now the 2018 clean channel was far and away better than mine. On my amp, the lead channel gain knob effects the clean channel headroom. I run Gear 3 OD1 as my main tone with the gain at 1:00. If you have heard any of my videos, they is where the gain is set unless otherwise noted. Anything above 11:00 and the clean channel clips to the point where it is useless to me. The tone knobs on the clean channel of my amp also effect the tone of the lead channel. Move them off of noon and the tone of the lead channel suffers.

I have not gotten to play a Nitro, so I cannot really say about those amps. Just my experiences with the Quickrod.
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I had a '13 Streetrod and experienced the same with the lead eq affecting the clean channel tone and vice versa. WTF! I emailed Scott about it and was told it was normal. I rolled my eyes and flipped it.
 
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