Why Love/Hate of Randall Thrasher & Satan?

[ubermetaldood]

I'm on the fence now about the new Randall stuff. At first, I was surprised how much I liked the Thrasher. Then I tried the Satan. To me the Satan has much more of a modded Marshall sound. There's not much middle ground between the two as they seem to be very different. I have spent probably 6 hours playing between the two through everything from the shitty Randall 4x12, Mesa 4x12, Marshall 4x12, Engl 2x12, and an EVH 1x12. Probably the thing that stands out to me is that there is some kind of underlying sterility that I didn't hear in the Fortin Bones or Fortin modded Marshall I played before. The Fortin stuff was warmer and more organic than the Randall stuff. Could that be the quality of the components or what? Does anyone else get the same impression from these amps? It's kind of a love/hate thing for me because half the time I want to buy one and the rest of the time I can't figure out why I don't buy one.

 

[technomancer]

I had a Thrasher for a while and didn't find it sterile. I did find that it is one of those amps that does not dial in the way you would expect it to initially. I suspect a lot of people are plugging it in, cranking the gain controls, and setting the other knobs at noon and when that doesn't sound good in the store they talk smack about it.

I was also running through an Orange 2x12 loaded with EVM12Ls which the amp seemed to LOVE.

 

[midnightlaundry]

Is the current Randall lineup all Fortin designed?

I'm sure that the Fortin badged models have the best of the best. I'm sure the Randal's don't, but can be had at a good price point because of production origins.

 

[V-Type]

The Fortin stuff was warmer and more organic than the Randall stuff. Could that be the quality of the components or what?

Well The Randall stuff while designed by Fortin is Made in China so you are crap shooting that the Asian plant is in fact using quality/spec parts and quality assembly processes.
Frankly at the $1800-$2500 these go for you could get a US,UK,German boutique build with above avg parts and quality.
I love my China made Egnater Tweaker though but it was sub $300 and its quality of parts and build is avg.

 

[Racerxrated]

Had a Diavlo 100 and I thought it was sterile. Had to run an eq in the loop to get it to sound good. Returned it. Though I've heard the 45 is a better sounding amp.

 

[ubermetaldood]

I had a Thrasher for a while and didn't find it sterile. I did find that it is one of those amps that does not dial in the way you would expect it to initially. I suspect a lot of people are plugging it in, cranking the gain controls, and setting the other knobs at noon and when that doesn't sound good in the store they talk smack about it.

I was also running through an Orange 2x12 loaded with EVM12Ls which the amp seemed to LOVE.

Don't get me wrong man. I'm not ragging on the amps at all. I'm just trying to figure out what it is about the sound that it turning me off because, by all accounts, I should have one by now. Like I stated, I've spent a lot of time with the two amps side-by-side and with various cabs/speakers. There's not another non U.S. or European made amp besides Blackstar or Hughes & Kettner that I bother much to look at, so the fact that I'm discussing it says a lot about the Randall/Fortin stuff.

The Satan is based of a modded marshall

That makes sense because that's exactly what I was talking about. It's a much brighter, Marshally tone than the Thrasher. There's some sick harmonic content in it that the Thrasher doesn't have and it feels a lot slicker to play.

Had a Diavlo 100 and I thought it was sterile. Had to run an eq in the loop to get it to sound good. Returned it. Though I've heard the 45 is a better sounding amp.

I had an RM100 a while back and thought it sounded fantastic. The Blackface and SL+ modules were my favorite. However, I abandoned it fairly quickly after experimenting with the various modules because they all sounded the same to me. I always thought they should have made it with two separate, configurable power sections so you could assign a module to either power section. Anyway, I did try some of the other tube stuff they put out and didn't care for them at all until I tried the RD45 which sounded pretty good and was the reason I bothered to give the Thrasher and Satan a try.

Well, I digress... What you said rings true to me because I also found that a mild delay or flange in the FX loop made all the difference in the new stuff as was the case with the RM100 I had.