Gsxrbusa
Active member
Came in last week. Peters Hydra. Have been busy playing it and comparing to my other amps. I feel it is the best amp I have owned! Not very good at describing it but here goes......... 
Very tight and focused but with plenty of bloom, so to speak. Very mean voiced. Tight bottom end, not loose at all. With plenty of it on tap. Bottom end is very important to me. An amp need to hit you in the chest with a heavy thud. The Hydra delivers. Very smooth high/top end, not ear peircing. I can actually handle standing in front of it for long periods of time. One thing I noticed right off the bat is the note seperation/definition. At high gain it still has the ability to seperate notes, most high gainers do not do this well at all. The mids are plentiful and very nicely voiced. It does not turn to shit the higher the mids are like my UL does. The UL has ton of mids but turn to poo at really high settings.
I had James put EL34's in it. Ended up with KT88's. Really like how they bring an even more positive thud and smooth things out to my ear. Also experimented with preamp tubes. I seem to always go back to Ruby. Very easy to bias the amp with the external bias points.
Forgot to mention the gain. It has gain in spades. At noon on the gain it is plenty. Actually, I started with all the settings on 12 oclock and it sounded great! Just required minor tweaks to achieve what works for my setup.
This amp cuts in a mix with little to no effort. It will stomp most amps in this category. It almost felt as if my other amps have blankets over the cabs.
A guy will really be heard with this beast.
What surprised me too was the versitility of the amp. It goes from classic tones to full on metal on the overdrive channel with ease. Very easy to dial in multiple tones, especially with the Edge and crunch fucntions. They add hair or tighten things up when engaged. The clean channel is one of the most versitile as well. I am not much of a clean player but it sounds great. (Lame description)
The effects loop is very transparent and took my cheap ass pedals very well ( Boss analog chorus and Marshall delay) Could not be happier with how it doesn't piss me off.
I really have not done the Hydra justice with all my ramblings. It truly is an amp that has to be heard. I will do some clips and vids in the future. Will be taking my time to do it to the best of my ability.
James was a pleasure to deal with during the build. Always responded to my emails and accepted my phone calls. He shipped it in record time. From Canada to Colorado was 3 days! Very pleased with that.
Overall this amp has put out the GAS flames. The only other amps I have gas for are a Peters Gryphon and Chimera. Highly recommend Peters amps!
I'm sure I have forgot something.........
Very tight and focused but with plenty of bloom, so to speak. Very mean voiced. Tight bottom end, not loose at all. With plenty of it on tap. Bottom end is very important to me. An amp need to hit you in the chest with a heavy thud. The Hydra delivers. Very smooth high/top end, not ear peircing. I can actually handle standing in front of it for long periods of time. One thing I noticed right off the bat is the note seperation/definition. At high gain it still has the ability to seperate notes, most high gainers do not do this well at all. The mids are plentiful and very nicely voiced. It does not turn to shit the higher the mids are like my UL does. The UL has ton of mids but turn to poo at really high settings.
I had James put EL34's in it. Ended up with KT88's. Really like how they bring an even more positive thud and smooth things out to my ear. Also experimented with preamp tubes. I seem to always go back to Ruby. Very easy to bias the amp with the external bias points.
Forgot to mention the gain. It has gain in spades. At noon on the gain it is plenty. Actually, I started with all the settings on 12 oclock and it sounded great! Just required minor tweaks to achieve what works for my setup.
This amp cuts in a mix with little to no effort. It will stomp most amps in this category. It almost felt as if my other amps have blankets over the cabs.
A guy will really be heard with this beast. What surprised me too was the versitility of the amp. It goes from classic tones to full on metal on the overdrive channel with ease. Very easy to dial in multiple tones, especially with the Edge and crunch fucntions. They add hair or tighten things up when engaged. The clean channel is one of the most versitile as well. I am not much of a clean player but it sounds great. (Lame description)
The effects loop is very transparent and took my cheap ass pedals very well ( Boss analog chorus and Marshall delay) Could not be happier with how it doesn't piss me off.
I really have not done the Hydra justice with all my ramblings. It truly is an amp that has to be heard. I will do some clips and vids in the future. Will be taking my time to do it to the best of my ability.
James was a pleasure to deal with during the build. Always responded to my emails and accepted my phone calls. He shipped it in record time. From Canada to Colorado was 3 days! Very pleased with that.
Overall this amp has put out the GAS flames. The only other amps I have gas for are a Peters Gryphon and Chimera. Highly recommend Peters amps!
I'm sure I have forgot something.........
