I recently had my SLO listed for sale here and thought i had it sold to a buddy of mine but he backed out of the deal so I've decided to wait until after the first of the year to relist. Now I can't make up my mind if I want to sell the SLO or the 65amp Empire I just purchased...one day I'm in love with the SLO the next the 65amps Empire but one of them has to go...question is... which one? Which amps would you keep and which would you sell?
Soldano SLO or 65amps Empire
- Thread starter gmcelroy
- Start date
killertone
Well-known member
Keep the one you like better. Don't listen to a forum.
I have been wanting an empire ever since I heard those fantastic clips in the amp demo's of it. I myself would rather have the empire as it just seems like such a toneful yet versatile and well built amp with really usefull features such as their power scaling technology. U rarely see these pop up used so getting another would be hard , and slo can always be found used if u regretted selling it later on. My only worry with the empire would be that 1.- it might not have enough gain for me and 2.- It may not be loud enough for me being that its only 22 watts. Those are two pretty big concerns though with the empire that the slo definatly aces.
joepete77":35t6g16i said:
The Empire is definitely a tone machine and the power scaling is flat out awesome! This amp at 22 watts is loud as hell.... even with the Master Voltage around 11 watts it's still pretty darn loud but what's really cool is that you can roll the Master Voltage off to 2 on the dial and still retain I nice thick "thump"; the amp is also extremely responsive to your guitar's volume and tone controls! The third "hot rod" voice is more of a Marshall JCM800 vibe and in my opinion needs an overdrive pedal to achieve more gain to cover late 80's to 90's hard rock which to my ears is not necessarily a good thing since my ts808 adds gain but makes the amp sound thin and harsh. This is actually why I'm on the fence about keeping the amp, while I love the old school vibe and tone I do like to get a bit more gain on occasion which I am able to get with a gain boost but at the cost of turning the sound to shrill mush. I've thought about trying out different overdrives, maybe the Empire just doesn't like the ts808.
sled":1t19ncpc said:
The volume controls also act as gain controls so the volume management between them as far is sound level is concerned is not so great. For example you can set channel 1 up for a great sounding JTM style clean but if you are wanting more gain on the other two channels then you're going to hear quite a bit of an increase in volume when you go to them. While the Empire is set up with 3 different voices (channels) it's not a 3 channel set up to use in live settings with just the Empire due to the tone stack differences between the 3 voices. You can set channel 2 up for a killer plexi sound but if you go to channel 3 the treble and presence will pierce your ears! If I were to use this amp in a setting where I needed killer crunch/gain and a solid clean then I would probably use a two amp setup with another amp for cleans. But..... if you're ok with your clean having a bit of hair on it then all three channels are highly responsive to your guitars controls... even while on channel three (JCM800 style voice) you can roll your guitar's voulme down a bit and get a very usable clean but it will have some hair to it! The Empire with the bump switch really is like having 6 kick ass Marshall/Hiwatt british style amps in one amp but they are not interchangable in a live setting ..... but then again neither are the old school Marshall/Hiwatt amps the Empire tones are based on! One last note... the best feature of the Empire is that you can achieve all tones at volume levels that are more resaonable/useable whereas all of the amps the Empires tones are based on have to be cranked to window shattering levels to get the goods!
