Most disappointing amp

  • Thread starter Thread starter Smash
  • Start date Start date
Thought I was king shit getting a Marshall AVT100 head for my first non practice amp. First time I used it with a band and another guitar player, I couldn't hear myself at all. Of course he was using a tube amp. Bought a Mesa Mark IV that I eventually loved, but when I first got it, it had old tubes, and it was before I knew anything about dialing amps. Horribly disappointed expecting Metallica. Not a good amp for a beginner IMO. Bogner Uberschall Twin Jet had me hating life. Had it sounding great out of the box, then moved some knobs and couldn't get it back. Now I wonder if it was just super sensitive to voltage swings.
I forgot about the bogner twin jet, i had one with kt88 and wasnt impressed, kept it for a month and dumped it.
 
I was most disappointed by the Bogner Uber Ultra. I have loved almost every other Bogner I have played, but the Ultra just was too filtered for me.
I will admit all of those modded Marshall’s I didn’t like (that I’m not disclosing) did sound similarly filtered to the UU, which is crazy to me that they were able to do that to vintage Marshall’s from the late ‘70’s/early ‘80’s. That info won’t give anything away as many love them

I am not a fan of any version of the uber i've played, but I haven't played an Uber Ultra yet.

Is it that different? The twin jet, etc, are all "fine" in that they don't sound like complete ass or anything but I've never been wowed by them at all. Weird EQ, hard to dial the tone to where it isn't blanketed by fizz, weirdly dark unless you use something hyper bright like an SH6 or an EMG81, I just wasn't super impressed with any of them - especially for the boutique price. I think the helios/eclipse is a way better sounding high gain amp, and from all the clips the snorkler sounds way better too.
 
I forgot about the bogner twin jet, i had one with kt88 and wasnt impressed, kept it for a month and dumped it.
I tried KT88 and 6550 in the one I had. If I hadn't heard it sound good initially, it wouldn't have aggravated me as much. :doh:

I know one that will get me in trouble. The CCV was a cool amp, but didn't blow me away. Probably because it was already so hyped up before I even heard it, and I didn't sound like the guy from Y&T playing it, lol. I should have kept it though, could have doubled my money!
 
Last edited:
That can really depend on which revision you tried and even the best revisions need very unconventional settings, but I’m guessing they probably still wouldn’t be your cup of tea, but can be some of the best when used for the appropriate styles
OG…was excited to get one based on the description…never found anything I liked. Traded it for the XTC. It was better but always had that headcold sound and hated the feel. Finally got my Wizard, got rid of the XTC and never looked back.
 
ISP Theta head. I was one of the first to get that amp and it sucked dogs balls. Worked that bitch over for months, even had a best bro take it home to to try it. No joy whatsoever. Super disappointed. It was like the 3rd or 4th amp I bought/ordered after I started playing guitar again back in 2006 or so. That amp made me sad.
 
Diezel VH4 & Herbert - the 'low pass filter' Diezel sound is not for me I'm realising.

Wanted the VH4 to be my end all amp, (liked Mike from Staind's rig for years).

Herbert is a lot better for my tastes but still has that 'detailed highs are cut off' voicing that can't be fixed.

Wizard MTL mk2 - frustrated it wasn't modern but wasn't vintage either, sat in a strange no man's land for me. Struggled to get the bright knob on the back to sit in the right place, very touchy
 
ISP Theta head. I was one of the first to get that amp and it sucked dogs balls. Worked that bitch over for months, even had a best bro take it home to to try it. No joy whatsoever. Super disappointed. It was like the 3rd or 4th amp I bought/ordered after I started playing guitar again back in 2006 or so. That amp made me sad.
I damn near ordered one. I just fell in love with the idea that someone had finally made a high quality high gain solid state amp. I read enough bad reviews to stay my hand. I feel like it could have been great. I don't know what happened with it.
 
Diezel VH4 & Herbert - the 'low pass filter' Diezel sound is not for me I'm realising.

Wanted the VH4 to be my end all amp, (liked Mike from Staind's rig for years).

Herbert is a lot better for my tastes but still has that 'detailed highs are cut off' voicing that can't be fixed.

Wizard MTL mk2 - frustrated it wasn't modern but wasn't vintage either, sat in a strange no man's land for me. Struggled to get the bright knob on the back to sit in the right place, very touchy
I wasn't a huge fan of the MTL, but the 150 watt version was fucking badass.
 
KSR - had a few I was selling for a friend. Each amp was terrible. I saw tons of hype here, lol. I got better tone slapping my cock on a cinderblock than any of those amp had.

Friedman amps - Every amp I've played was terrible. Everyone had weird high end. Worst I played was the small box. It made a great door stop.

Wizard - just never got a good sound out of them. I owned a Wizard Metal that Jerry P modded and that amp was good.

Soldano SLO- I wanted to love that amp, just didn't do it for me.

VHT Pitbull - fucking turd

Diezel VH4- was just a ball of mush.
 
Anything made by Hughes and Kettner.

Purely going by the support/maintenance experience. Say 30 years ago I bought an H&K amp, had it for a few years time came to service. Guess what, no documentation available, and a call to H&K yielded no results. The excuse was the components were not sold anymore, so there was no point giving me the service manual. OK, than you. Got rid of the amp.
A few years ago I got the Triamp MkIII. I like the amp a lot. It did develop an annoying buzz in certain modes, so I approached the H&K for a service manual. Nope, you can’t have it as the end user.

So it is an arrogant, unhelpful company I’d never buy a product from again. And I’ll be the first to say that the products are not bad, the support/company policies is. Time and money better spent elsewhere, getting both great product and enjoyable interaction with the company.
 
KSR - had a few I was selling for a friend. Each amp was terrible. I saw tons of hype here, lol. I got better tone slapping my cock on a cinderblock than any of those amp had.

Friedman amps - Every amp I've played was terrible. Everyone had weird high end. Worst I played was the small box. It made a great door stop.

Wizard - just never got a good sound out of them. I owned a Wizard Metal that Jerry P modded and that amp was good.

Soldano SLO- I wanted to love that amp, just didn't do it for me.

VHT Pitbull - fucking turd

Diezel VH4- was just a ball of mush.
You remind me of those old Life cerial commercials. "Give it to Mikey. He hates everything."

 
1. Fender cyber deluxe. It was a 1x12, supoosedly a great modeling amp. It was junk.
2. Metaltronix M1000. It was the loudest amp I ever played, it was unusable in anything other than a stadium. Not a lot of gain either.
3. Henning Cherry Bomb. It was sold as having a great master volume, mine did not.
 
KSR - had a few I was selling for a friend. Each amp was terrible. I saw tons of hype here, lol. I got better tone slapping my cock on a cinderblock than any of those amp had.

Friedman amps - Every amp I've played was terrible. Everyone had weird high end. Worst I played was the small box. It made a great door stop.

Wizard - just never got a good sound out of them. I owned a Wizard Metal that Jerry P modded and that amp was good.

Soldano SLO- I wanted to love that amp, just didn't do it for me.

VHT Pitbull - fucking turd

Diezel VH4- was just a ball of mush.

I was so dissapointed when I played a SLO. I expected a wow factor and all I got from it was thinking it’s just a better component built 5150.

I played a Fortin Bones and although that amp was fun to solo on it had zero teeth to it. No aggression at all. It was as soft and harmless as a kitten.

Diezel Dmoll - I couldn’t dial in anything I liked but I do get the appeal. Amp just sounded thin to me.

5150 Iconic - it has gain but the use of FETS was designed to reduce cost and complexity and not to improve what could be a great metal amp platform. They just sound thin on their own with no real punch.

5150 III - I get the appeal but they never did anything for me. Just a wall of gain and zero right hand dynamics. I can’t stand the voicing as it’s fixed to the design of the amp channels.

Metroplex - It had built in compression that you couldn’t dial out and was unnatural with volume.

Henning Cherry Bomb - it just didn’t have enough gain without a boost and choice preamp tube rolling. Something was up with the grounding scheme because adding a simple bright cap caused the amp to go unstable. Sold it to guitar center in working order only to find out later on it had channel switching issues that required the store to send it back to Steve for repairs before guitar center could move it.

Bogner/Line 6 hybrid amp - one of the worse sounds out of an amplifier. Never understood that amp design.
 
I was so dissapointed when I played a SLO. I expected a wow factor and all I got from it was thinking it’s just a better component built 5150.

I played a Fortin Bones and although that amp was fun to solo on it had zero teeth to it. No aggression at all. It was as soft and harmless as a kitten.

Diezel Dmoll - I couldn’t dial in anything I liked but I do get the appeal. Amp just sounded thin to me.

5150 Iconic - it has gain but the use of FETS was designed to reduce cost and complexity and not to improve what could be a great metal amp platform. They just sound thin on their own with no real punch.

5150 III - I get the appeal but they never did anything for me. Just a wall of gain and zero right hand dynamics. I can’t stand the voicing as it’s fixed to the design of the amp channels.

Metroplex - It had built in compression that you couldn’t dial out and was unnatural with volume.

Henning Cherry Bomb - it just didn’t have enough gain without a boost and choice preamp tube rolling. Something was up with the grounding scheme because adding a simple bright cap caused the amp to go unstable. Sold it to guitar center in working order only to find out later on it had channel switching issues that required the store to send it back to Steve for repairs before guitar center could move it.

Bogner/Line 6 hybrid amp - one of the worse sounds out of an amplifier. Never understood that amp design.
Only thing i can figure with fortin is that his marshall mods sounded badass. Because all his amps seem to be bombs.

I was really close to getting Bones also. Single channels are my thing and it seemed to be exactly what I wanted.
 
Did you boost?

gettyimages-blddl_k12_0344-2048x2048.jpg



(Just for you Smash. :))
 
Dual Rec Solo Heads. Never liked them.
I did like the Triple. Love the Tremoverb.

Also early JCM800 2210/2205s. Like 1984 ish. No gain, no balls
 
Back
Top