I'm back from trying out some amps. I spent about an hour and a half playing and talking with Nick.
First off, Nick @sonictoneamp is legit and knows what he's doing. He's also a really nice guy in general. I enjoyed hanging out at his place. We talked about the Loyalist and Patriot circuits a bit. I'm versed enough to at least understand what he was saying. He talked about things like they were second nature.
He mentioned that he's talked with Bruce Engnater for advice. When I was showing him some pictures of my amps he saw my Headfirst Alta. Nick was like "that's Jason Tong's amp" and said he follows him too. He asked if I caught Jason's video where he called out Marshall for using Vietnamese transformers and we talked about that for a bit.
He gave the short story of how he got started. He built some vintage circuits for himself like the way some of us have done. From there he started developing his own stuff based on what he had learned. Local players liked what he had done and wanted him to build something for them. When COVID lockdowns hit he wasn't able to gig and decided to go for it and started SonicTone amps.
Right now he's a one man operation and everything is made in house. All his amps are hand wired on eyelet/turret boards. All is built with quality components and he uses Heyboer transformers. Chassis are aluminum and made by a local vendor. He even builds and covers the amp shells himself. Shells are constructed of 3/4 ply using box joints. As a woodworker myself I can tell they're very solidly made.
For guitar amps I only tried out the Patriot and Loyalist. I used my Hondo LP style guitar tuned in E standard on both. The Hondo is solid wood and I put a Dimarzio Fred in the bridge & PAF Joe in the neck. I played through two of Nick's 412 SonicTone cabs. One with G12-T75's and the other with Greenbacks. We did talk about some of his other amps but I didn't play them. You can check out his website for specs on his offerings. He's also been very responsive to my emails so I'm sure he'd answer quickly if you have questions
For both amps:
I didn't play the clean channel much. Both had a really nice clean channel which will crunch up if you crank the gain. The difference between the 2 amps is what you'd expect. The Patriot was more reminiscent of a Fender type clean and the Loyalist was more mid forward JTM45-ish.
Channel 2 is basically a JCM800 preamp with a switch for a "hotrod" option. It was kinda the same thing as the clean channel. On the Loyalist it was pretty much what you'd think as the JCM800 tone. The Patriot was slightly mid scooped. In standard mode it's a JCM800. In "hotrod" mode it's basically like putting a transparent boost in front. I could live on this channel and be happy.
Patriot:
This one is not in my usual wheelhouse. It's American voiced and mid scooped. I'm a Marshall guy. My impressions (and I said as much to Nick) is it reminded me of a Recto, but without the flubby bass. Even thought the amp is not my usual style, I could tell it would be a monster for modern metal. The low end is thick, but tight. Mids are scooped. There is a switch on the high gain channels for scooped or pushed mids. I personally like it better in the pushed position. We went over the component values he used for each position, but I forget what they are. Highs are just the right amount for modern American style metal. I didn't have a full dropped tuned guitar with me, but did do drop D on the one I brought. Holy shit, the Patriot would be a bulldozer for drop tunings. It was full, thick, and exactly what I'd want if playing in those tunings. If you predominantly play in drop tuning this would be the one to go with.
Loyalist:
This is where I live; British style mid forward. Even though it's British style, nothing comes to mind that I could directly compare it to. It really has it's own thing going. It has that JTM Hendrix type low end, but it stays tight. The mids and highs are what you'd expect from an 80's style Marshall. It all blends together for a really great British voiced modern amp, but with slightly thicker lows that stay tight. In the "mid boost" mode it would basically be a stock Marshall amp. In "scooped' mode it's a Marshall amp with the mids scooped out somewhat. It's kinda self explanatory. I almost forgot to mention, we didn't push the gain much above 4 or 5 and it as more than saturated enough for my style. So this amp has gain for days. When it comes down to it; though for different reasons, I'd rank the Loyalist right up there with my Hellion, Alta, & Skeleton Key.
Another thing to mention for both amps, they fit into what'd you'd want from modern amp dynamics. There was some response to pick attack, but also had some compression. I'm not talking ENGL levels of compressions, but it wasn't full on organic and raw either. Compression sat in a good in between place. Compressed enough to keep everything tight and even without being sterile, and having just enough dynamics for a good feel under the fingers.
This post is already getting long so I'll start to wrap things up. For the Patriot and Loyalist I was impressed with both and I placed an order. I was actually having a hard time deciding between the two. Both sounded great. The Loyalist is in my wheelhouse and the Patriot would expand my tonal pallet. Nick and I discussed this and came up with an interesting idea. On both amps Ch. 3 & 4 are duplicate channels. Nick is doing a custom Loyalist for me. Most everything will be the same as a regular Loyalist, but Ch 4 will be voiced more like the high gain Patriot channel. Nick said he could change up some components so the mids on Ch4 were more scooped and more lows were let though like on the Patriot. He hasn't done this mod yet and is intrigued about how it will come out too. Nick joked about watch this mod catch on then no one would buy a Patriot LOL. Lead time on my amp should be about 4 weeks.
Last thing... I did play Nick's newly release Bass amp. I'll make a follow up post on that later. I will leave a teaser and say Holy Fuck it's awesome and just what I've been looking for.
