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braintheory
Well-known member
Haven’t tried a CAE amp in person, but some of the diamond amps I’ve tried sounded quite similar to the clips I’ve heard of that CAE, so makes sense
jtgainor
Well-known member
Pretty sure Martin Golub was the head designer for Diamond. Martin was around at CAE while Suhr was doing the od, 3+, and his Marshall mods. You can connect the dots.
PurityS.L.G
Well-known member
I had the Spec Op and Nitrox. Spec Op sounded great until you wanted to add any sort of low end to it. It almost seemed like it was trying to outdo a Rectifier. Totally unusble. I was playing in an active live band at the time and I know you don't really need a ton of low end but jesus, it was thin as shit sounding to get any sort of useable tone out of it.
The Nitrox was more my cup of tea but the H&K Warp I had at the time in '04 smoked it up 3 fold. Between Diamond and Krank, what a weird time for hi gainers!
The Nitrox was more my cup of tea but the H&K Warp I had at the time in '04 smoked it up 3 fold. Between Diamond and Krank, what a weird time for hi gainers!
stratjacket
Well-known member
Throw in the Madison Divinity (although I owned and really liked the Divinity II) in there too, hahaThe Nitrox was more my cup of tea but the H&K Warp I had at the time in '04 smoked it up 3 fold. Between Diamond and Krank, what a weird time for hi gainers!
RedB4Black
Well-known member
Really bad.
RevDrucifer
Well-known member
Yeah, that was Clint. Him and John both switched to EVH a while back and are both on Kempers now.
anomaly
Well-known member
Thanks for the info. I always thought Sevendust were a very underrated band. They never got the attention they deserved.
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Hamer95USA
Active member
Which of one of the Diamond amp heads is considered the "ripoff" of the CAE OD100? I've never heard of these amps before. I've only seen pictures of them.
headlessdeadguy
Well-known member
Spec Op
RevDrucifer
Well-known member
They’re a modern King’s X in a few different ways, the lack of attention in comparison to the talent in the band and the songwriting is fuckin’ criminal. While not every album is a straight banger for me and they’ve found their niche they seem comfortable in, those dudes can write a song. Awesome harmonies and guitar tones, enough texture in the vocals to give somethin’ to everyone and they bring it live.
Awesome dudes, too. In my 20’s I had gone off the rails with drinking and drugs, Clint was getting sober at the time and he took the time to shoot the shit with me in DM’s on a lot of nights I was coming undone. That was really damn cool of him. Shortly after they were down here on tour, I was so broke I couldn’t afford tickets but I wanted Clint to sign my JEM because he was such a help. I went to the venue earlier in the day and met him and Lajon, Lajon asked if I was playing that night since I had my guitar, then eventually asked “Are you at least coming to the show tonight???” and I sheepishly told him I was broke, “Ah nah, we ain’t havin’ that, how many tickets you need?”, didn’t matter what I said, he wasn’t taking no for an answer. He called their TM over and had him put me and my then-girlfriend on the guest list. I showed up that night and had badges waiting for me. I’ll support those guys any way I possibly can until I’m dead.
rottingcorpse
Well-known member
Had the Nitrox. Really wanted it too. Tried so hard to like it. Can't remember how I got it....
Even had everyone come by and try it to get their take.
Only had maybe 4-5 amps at the time, but everything else I had smoked it.
Traded it for a VHT pitbull classic combo that really cemented my yearning for the UL.
Even had everyone come by and try it to get their take.
Only had maybe 4-5 amps at the time, but everything else I had smoked it.
Traded it for a VHT pitbull classic combo that really cemented my yearning for the UL.
anomaly
Well-known member
Wow, that's really cool of Clint, and the rest of the band. What do you think is their best album? I really like "Home" and "Animosity" the most I think, but I haven't heard them all.
RevDrucifer
Well-known member
Animosity is their pinnacle for me. The fucking tones on that album are exactly what made me want a Mark IV. Really fucking awesome album. Outstanding production; Toby Wright produced that one and I love that guy’s work. Amazing dynamics all over it, all the sounds are ace, the drums, electronics, guitars, everything. It hits every button for me. I generally dig a few songs off every album they’ve done since, more some than others, but that’ll always be the standout.
If you haven’t checked out Call Me No One, Clint and Morgan’s band, definitely do it up.
jabps
Well-known member
I was heavy into Sevendust for a time. In fact I turned alot of friends and musicians onto them in my area after their first album.
My favorite album though is Seasons. Now that album is a bit polarizing for some of the diehards but as a diehard myself at one time, the songs are brilliant. I completely understood what they were trying to do and they had to do it. While not sonically their heaviest it does IMO it features their best collection of accessible songs and IMO...the heaviness is still all there it's just a little subdued. I still marvel at the brilliance of the album how they really brought out the melody while retaining who they were.
I knew when that album didn't break them big time, it was never going to happen. As @RevDrucifer said, the comparison to Kings X is valid, great band, incredible talent that never broke big but found their niche, their crowd.
ZEEGLER
Well-known member
I have a Nitrox too. It is so close to being a great amp, but IMO not quite close enough. It's very well built and looks good. The features and control layout are great. It even sounds good...but not great. The gain structure is good. There's certainly nothing weird or unpleasant going on there. The controls all work like they're supposed to. I think the only thing that stops it from being a great amp, is that is just sounds kinda thin and small. When comparing it to my Uber or my Rivera, it just doesn't have that massive thumping bottom end or low mids. It sounds a bit one dimensional. I tried on a few occasions to play it at band practice and didn't even get through two songs before switching to another amp. It got severely buried. I haven't tried it yet, but I imagine an EQ in the loop would work wonders. It's a real shame because it could be a really great amp if it had some mods to thicken it up. Close but no cigar.
RevDrucifer
Well-known member
Seasons would be my 2nd favorite, if it had the production of Animosity it’d easily be 1st!
MetalJim
Member
I have the spec ops and the Hammersmith, the spec ops is modify by fortin and for me is a great amp first of all the cleans are awesome, then has 2 shared high gain channels 1 is brighter with tons of gain probably 4 gains stages and the other one more compressed more bottom end, both channels are great, the thing that I like about this amp is that in the back you have a 3 way resonance switch and a midrange knob that I use to adjust if a change guitars with alnico 5 or ceramic magnets in order to get the growl that I like, so that makes this amp very usable because you can use any guitar with any pickup configuration, you can adjusted to use any passive or active, not like other amps in my collection, that only likes low gain passive or alnico 5s pickups, and if one pickup sounds bad take a few minutes to adjust all the features that it has and you can have a great tone, another thing that I notice that is very sensitive to speakers, does not like V30s because of his bright nature, I use this with DV-77s or eminence legends, to get a very nice thrash tone.
Then the Hammersmith is just a very nice British tone with a good amount of high gain. Still, I notice that this amp likes and feels better with active pickups because I think it only has 3 gain stages, and does not have all the features of the spec ops, is more straight forward approach of design and simple to use, this one likes V30s cabinets because is not a bright amp, again the clean is simply fantastic build by Roy Blankenship another thing that I found in a video from youtube is that Martin Gollub the guy that build the dookie mod for the guitar player of green day, he design this amp so I guess this is that dookie mod.
Please let me know if that is correct about the Martin Gollup theory?
Another thing there's guys here saying that the spec ops is a copy if the OD-100 from Custom audio amplification how do you guys know that? I mean how did you compares the PCB board values? did you put together both amps guts to compare?
Then the Hammersmith is just a very nice British tone with a good amount of high gain. Still, I notice that this amp likes and feels better with active pickups because I think it only has 3 gain stages, and does not have all the features of the spec ops, is more straight forward approach of design and simple to use, this one likes V30s cabinets because is not a bright amp, again the clean is simply fantastic build by Roy Blankenship another thing that I found in a video from youtube is that Martin Gollub the guy that build the dookie mod for the guitar player of green day, he design this amp so I guess this is that dookie mod.
Please let me know if that is correct about the Martin Gollup theory?
Another thing there's guys here saying that the spec ops is a copy if the OD-100 from Custom audio amplification how do you guys know that? I mean how did you compares the PCB board values? did you put together both amps guts to compare?
jtgainor
Well-known member
There was a thread way back when the Diamond amps first came out where John Suhr discussed how the OD100 was a blatant rip off of his design.
The “crunch mod”(dookie mod is a derivative of that mod with a whopping one value change) was designed by John Suhr as well. As stated in my post earlier, Suhr designed the crunch and lead mods, as well as the OD100 and CAE3+ while working at Custom Audio Electronics. Martin was a tech at cae during that time. Late 90’s-early 2000’s Suhr left CAE to work as the master builder at the fender custom shop. Martin continued to work at CAE until 2007, doing mods and helping bob build runs of the 3+. When Suhr left, he got the rights to the Custom Audio Amplifiers which the OD100 fell under, and Bob Bradshaw kept the rights to the CAE 3+ design, as that’s what Bradshaw originally contracted Suhr to build for him in the early 90’s. When Golub left CAE, he started doing mods at LASD, where Roy Blankenship also does amp repair.
As far as the OD100 being the “dookie mod”, no. Similar sound though as the original OD100 is the clean and crunch channels from the 3+ mated with a el34 or 6l6 power section. There are different variations of the OD100 that make the overdrive channel similar to the lead channel of the 3+. There are other various mods that Suhr had designed for the OD100 for Scott Henderson and Mike Landau as well
MadAsAHatter
Well-known member
Holy crap dude. Use a period now and again. That was hard to read.
anomaly
Well-known member
I thought the Krank amps were decent. At least they had a unique tone to them, especially the krankenstein.I had the Spec Op and Nitrox. Spec Op sounded great until you wanted to add any sort of low end to it. It almost seemed like it was trying to outdo a Rectifier. Totally unusble. I was playing in an active live band at the time and I know you don't really need a ton of low end but jesus, it was thin as shit sounding to get any sort of useable tone out of it.
The Nitrox was more my cup of tea but the H&K Warp I had at the time in '04 smoked it up 3 fold. Between Diamond and Krank, what a weird time for hi gainers!