MadAsAHatter
Well-known member
https://www.sonictoneamps.com/
I have a couple of broken up SonicTone threads from ordering and receiving my Loyalist. I want to condense it all into this thread and give some updated thoughts after getting to know the amp after a good 10 days of playing. I'll be using this thread to post any further thoughts and updates.
Here are links to the other threads where I gave initial impressions and review
Post 18 & 22 are impressions after visiting Nick's shop & playing some amps.
https://www.rig-talk.com/forum/threads/going-check-out-some-amps-this-thursday.329335/
Post 8 & 9 are my initial review after playing the amp through the first weekend of having it.
https://www.rig-talk.com/forum/threads/soon-to-be-nad-my-sonictone-loyalist-is-complete.330393/
Here is some updated thoughts after having & playing the Loyalist for a solid 10 days.
First thing of full disclosure. I did have a small issue pop up. One of the power tubes turned out to be bad. I just replaced them with a new set, rebiased, and all was good to go. Nick uses JJ's as the standard set which is what I went with. After I told him what happened he said he was having some issues with getting bum JJ power tubes. I've heard others have been having similar issues. Nick offered to drop ship me a new set no charge, but I declined. I have enough spare EL34 sets and already had the amp back up and running.
Over the last 10 or so days I’ve been familiarizing myself with the Loyalist more. My initial review is still holding up. I’ve also learned a few things and have a couple updated thoughts.
First, I wouldn’t mind having a negative feedback knob. Not that the Loyalist needs it. It’s a feature I have on a couple of amps that I find useful. It could be that extra 1/2% of fine tuning the tone and feel to personal taste. I may talk to Nick later about adding one, but I don’t think it’s necessary right now.
This is a big thing I discovered on the Loyalist. The Channel Volume and Master Volume play a big role in the tone and feel.
Originally, I was playing with the Channel Volumes around 7-8 and using the Master to adjust the overall loudness. I don’t want to say congested because that’s not the right word. For my taste it was lacking a little top end on the high gain channels. On the crunch channel, it gave an early Black Sabbath/Tiny Iommi sound. In fact, it wasn’t far off from my Laney Lionheart which I think is very reminiscent of that tone. What I think is happening is there’s phase inverter distortion being mixed in with the preamp distortion.
Then I tried swapping it up. I kept the Channel Volumes lower; about 3-4 and put the Master up high. This put it squarely in the Marshall tone camp. It sounded brighter and more open. It was much more JCM800 and high gain modded Marshall across all the channels. This tone fits my overall taste better.
Playing with the interaction between the volumes I think lets you fine tune the tone and feel to your taste. Where I also found it useful is matching the speaker/cab you’re using. With my main cabs that have a Weber Grey Wolf/Blue Dog mix and Grey Wolf/Silver Wolf mix it worked better with the channel volume lower. My secondary cab that has G12K100’s can be a bit bright with some amps. Pushing the Channel Volume up tamed that high end.
The other thing I’ve been doing is some back-to-back comparisons. I’m not going to go into anything specific because I’d be writing pages about it. Later on I'll probably post some comparison thoughts. For now I’ll say that while the Loyalist is a familiar tone it doesn’t directly correlate to any of my other amps. Modded Ch4 helps set it apart even more. It has its own unique tone and feel that minimizes any overlap. I’m not sure exactly where to rank it yet, but it’s currently sitting pretty solidly in my top 5 favorite amps amongst my Hellion and Alta.
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