Most disappointing amp

  • Thread starter Thread starter Smash
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Out of 70 amps, I've only hated a handful. The rest of my journey has luckily been positive, and I've honestly liked to loved every other amp to pass through here. Of course voicing, gain structure, tone, how an amp feels under the fingers...these are all subjective things, but for my taste, these amps didn't last more than a week, and I can say that I actually hated these four:

Armored Amps Sabot-(Worst amp I ever owned). The overall tone, voicing, and gain structure was horrible and the loop was extremely noisy.

Diezel Dmoll--(2nd worst amp I've owned) Flubby, bloated, overly low mid dominant mess with no attack and grind.

Peavey Invective (3rd worst amp)-Lifeless and sterile as could be. Horrible tone, voicing, and gain structure. Just sounded awful.

Friedman BE Deluxe 100w (4th worst amp)-Gutless, no punch/balls, voicing and tone just did not sound right at all. Just sounded off.
 
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MetalHeadMike said:
Out of 70 amps, I've only hated a handful. The rest of my journey has luckily been positive, and I've honestly liked to loved every other amp to pass through here. Of course voicing, gain structure, tone, how an amp feels under the fingers...these are are all subjective things, but for my taste, these amps didn't last more than a week, and I can say that I actually hated these four:

Armored Amps Sabot-(Worst amp I ever owned). The overall tone, voicing, and gain structure was horrible and the loop was extremely noisy.

Diezel Dmoll--(2nd worst amp I've owned) Flubby, bloated, overly low mid dominant mess with low/no attack and grind.

Peavey Invective (3rd worst amp)-Lifeless and sterile as could be. Horrible tone, voicing, and gain structure. Just sounded awful.

Friedman BE Deluxe 100w (4th worst amp)-Gutless, no punch/balls, voicing and tone just did not sound right at all. Just sounded off.
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Man. I damn near bought the sabot. I am so glad i didnt after all the reviews i hear here..
 
hstlaurent said:
Fortin Meshuggah, I was hopping it would get me in the same ballpark as my Dar FBM, but it didn’t come close. Eventually sold it.
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I was so sad that i didnt buy one in the first run. I had it in cart but just bought an avenger and was happy with it.

I had no idea until years later how bad these amps were
 
blackie13 said:
Framus Cobra - wtf...I got one because I saw Wolf Hoffman of Accept playing one...maybe he was on a marshall....
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I played on one many years ago for about a hour. It definitely is not for me.
 
Smash said:
Man. I damn near bought the sabot. I am so glad i didnt after all the reviews i hear here..
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The builder was really cool and easy to work with and he took the amp back went through it, gave it a clean bill of health and said it worked & sounded exactly as designed. I got it back and tried it again but it was just a really really bad sounding amp.
 
MetalHeadMike said:
The builder was really cool and easy to work with and he took the amp back went through it, gave it a clean bill of health and said it worked & sounded exactly as designed. I got it back and tried it again but it was just a really really bad sounding amp.
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I get it. And it is good for some. I have heard people love them. Based on the description of what it was when they came out, i thought it was perfect for me...that and the henning bottle rocket, but i was told to leave that alone also
 
I pretty much agree with every post in this thread.
 
Smash said:
I get it. And it is good for some. I have heard people love them. Based on the description of what it was when they came out, i thought it was perfect for me...that and the henning bottle rocket, but i was told to leave that alone also
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Shit, I forgot I had a Bottle Rocket, this thread has had me revisiting what I've owned and I keep remembering more amps I totally forgot owning...LOL

I actually liked the Bottle Rocket, I remember liking the gain structure and tone a lot and it was tight AF with a quick sharp attack. I

was really digging it but something was up with the one I had. The volume was dropping out while playing. I checked everything, swapped tubes numerous times, couldn't figure it out. Steve H. was useless as tits on a boar hog when I reached out. He wouldn't give me any help. I wanted to ship the amp to him and even offered to pay the shipping and labor fee and he wouldn't touch it. Granted I wasn't the original owner but come on man, help a guy out.

It went back to the seller and his local tech couldn't fin anything wrong and the seller said it worked 100%. Best guess is a cold solder joint or something similar and the vibration in shipping caused things to flex/move causing an intermittent issue...which are the worst!
 
The Friedman JEL20. What a mistake. Sounded like an amp with 3 or 4 bright caps in-line with each other. Useless w/ a Strat.
It had the ability to make humbuckers cut like a Tele. What a POS.
Also had to run the Bass control OFF, and still too much. I shit-canned it and now I got 2 Friedman RED 1x12's with no use for.
Sure enough, he comes out with a JEL 50, and the bright problem was addressed, w/ a simple 3-way bright switch on each channel.


As long as I'm on the subject, I started watching Tone-Talk this morning with Dave and the host, Marc Cockzanski.
While Marc was trying to look cool, drinking a beer (probably Baby-Formula) he turned to politics straight away and the remainder of the show was basically gossip, like The View. Fuck Cockzanski and I'll never buy anything Friedman again.
 
Diezel 2003 VH4- total letdown for me, sounded really dark, dull and compressed sounding, tried different tubes and cabs and never could like it, i hated it. But many years later i tried a 2012 VH4 and loved it and purchased one.

Marshall vintage modern- i got it in a trade and sounded decent in clips but inperson i hated it.
 
Smash said:
I have never played one...need to try it. Obviously love marshall based amps, though
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just a less powerful/muscly version of your W800...don't even bother spending money imo :LOL:

JMPs for my taste/feel fwiw
 
CarlF said:
The Friedman JEL20. What a mistake. Sounded like an amp with 3 or 4 bright caps in-line with each other. Useless w/ a Strat.
It had the ability to make humbuckers cut like a Tele. What a POS.
Also had to run the Bass control OFF, and still too much. I shit-canned it and now I got 2 Friedman RED 1x12's with no use for.
Sure enough, he comes out with a JEL 50, and the bright problem was addressed, w/ a simple 3-way bright switch on each channel.


As long as I'm on the subject, I started watching Tone-Talk this morning with Dave and the host, Marc Cockzanski.
While Marc was trying to look cool, drinking a beer (probably Baby-Formula) he turned to politics straight away and the remainder of the show was basically gossip, like The View. Fuck Cockzanski and I'll never buy anything Friedman again.
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hah,

while they were talking about steel prices i was thinking to myself:

'I wonder if it's occurred to anyone that gear sales could take off again once trump eliminates income tax'

bring the tariffs, cut the waste, eliminate income tax, and arrest both the republicans and the dems who have used usaid to get rich off of ngo's. fuck them all

I am bipartisan in my disdain for the uniparty
 
MetalHeadMike said:
Shit, I forgot I had a Bottle Rocket, this thread has had me revisiting what I've owned and I keep remembering more amps I totally forgot owning...LOL

I actually liked the Bottle Rocket, I remember liking the gain structure and tone a lot and it was tight AF with a quick sharp attack. I

was really digging it but something was up with the one I had. The volume was dropping out while playing. I checked everything, swapped tubes numerous times, couldn't figure it out. Steve H. was useless as tits on a boar hog when I reached out. He wouldn't give me any help. I wanted to ship the amp to him and even offered to pay the shipping and labor fee and he wouldn't touch it. Granted I wasn't the original owner but come on man, help a guy out.

It went back to the seller and his local tech couldn't fin anything wrong and the seller said it worked 100%. Best guess is a cold solder joint or something similar and the vibration in shipping caused things to flex/move causing an intermittent issue...which are the worst!
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That reminds me, I had a Henning Cherry Bomb and hated it. If it sounded half as good as it looked it would’ve been a major improvement.
I sold the amp and before I shipped it I realized that one of the output jacks didn’t work. I asked Steve If I could ship it to him, have him repair it, then ship it directly to the buyer at my expense. Even though the buyer was perfectly fine with this arrangement, Steve refused to be of help. He said he’d repair it and ship it back to me (at my expense), but wouldn’t ship it to the seller due to liability issues, even though I assured him that I would not hold him responsible for anything that may occur in shipping. Fuck that guy. 👎🏻
 
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DAR (Forza, FBM and Tuzzia) : coolest looking amps ever, but didn’t sound the part. Synthetic and not really unique sounding the way I fantasized about either

Fortin Natas: nothing special when I tried it

Schroeder Formula: his clean to low gain amps were really good, so I had high hopes for it, but it sounded small, really smooth, no growl or bite, kind of muffled, nothing about it impressed me

Bogner Uber Ultra, Driftwood and Omega Obsidian: you guys already know by now lol. Sterile, filtered, cardboardy, generic quality tone

Kruse and Dynamo amps: just terrible

A few other I won’t mention, but will just say they were modded Marshall’s that are not Cameron or Friedman
 
braintheory said:
DAR (Forza, FBM and Tuzzia) : coolest looking amps ever, but didn’t sound the part. Synthetic and not really unique sounding the way I fantasized about either

Fortin Natas: nothing special when I tried it

Schroeder Formula: his clean to low gain amps were really good, so I had high hopes for it, but it sounded small, really smooth, no growl or bite, kind of muffled, nothing about it impressed me

Bogner Uber Ultra, Driftwood and Omega Obsidian: you guys already know by now lol. Sterile, filtered, cardboardy, generic quality tone

Kruse and Dynamo amps: just terrible

A few other I won’t mention, but will just say they were modded Marshall’s that are not Cameron or Friedman
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Goddamn it, Sam. You mention them right now!
 
Beyond Black said:
That reminds me, I had a Cherry Bomb and hated it. If it sounded half as good as it looked it still would’ve sounded like shit.
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That was another disappointing one I had, more in feel than sound from what I remember. It used to get pretty good hype back in the day, but at the same time had terrible resale value and would just sit a while when used
 
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