troublehead
New member
I pretty much spent the day with it and think I can give a fair review. As a reference, my favorite amps to date are the Engl Blackmore and VHT 100/CL.
I want to say first off.........this is the best amp I have ever owned when played at loud house volume and louder..........hands down.............period. It does a "decent" low volume, but not near as good as the Engl's and VHT's. But like I said, it would just destroy the Blackmore at louder volumes. It is so much more aggressive and full sounding. The Blackmore was just a bit too polite/round for me. And it makes the VHT sound really thin/brittle in comparison.
If I had to plug straight in, I would probably not keep the Splawn. It has a very prominent mid response that sounds really unique but also kind of strange IMO. You can hear it in almost all the Splawn clips. However, after fiddling with my graphic EQ (in loop), I got it dialed out with some very minor tweaks. And I have no problem with this since I use my EQ with every amp.
I found I prefer just to leave the amp in OD1 and use my Xotic BB for clean boosting. It just sounds better to me and adds a bit more saturation than the OD2 function alone.
There are big differences between the gears (others say there isn't). Gear 1 is pretty open and has much less low end than the others. Gear 2 and 3 are similar in voicing, just more compression/gain in the latter. I prefer Gear 2 by a big margin for what I do.
Gear 1 with gain at noon using my neck and middle single coils gives me as clean a channel as I need. Great for bluesy stuff and slight breakup. Rolling down the volume on my guitar gets me real close to a bonafide clean channel. But who needs one !
IMO, all the Engls pretty much sucked for lead playing. I would rank the Splawn up there with the JSX as the best lead amp I have ever played. Too bad I thought the JSX blew chunks for anything else. The Splawn has a singing quality with plenty sustain that actually makes lead playing pretty easy. However, the Splawn is extremely unforgiving (moreso than the VHT) when playing rhythm. I'm going to have to clean up my picking
My old Blackmore was so effortless to gallop on. I'm going to miss that.
I don't think I would recommend this amp for you guys who play extreme metal. It just doesn't have the low mids for that. However, I can change that easily with my EQ as well. But for anything between blues and BLS it fits the bill. The highlights being 80's metal of all kinds (thrash, hair, etc...). It also works great for the southern stoner stuff that I play (imagine COC, Down, etc...)
The loop isn't the greatest as it changes the tone a bit and makes the Master less usable for low volume playing. However, here are few tips for that:
1) This has already been mentioned but....... use an external device with a volume control in the loop. You can then turn up the Master to allow the power section to catch up. It does this somewhere around 8:00 on the Master knob. Then turn down the volume on your device to offset the hearing loss and police arrival.
2) I discovered this myself..........if you aren't using the solo boost, turn it off..........but leave the solo boost control cranked all the way up. It makes the amp fuller and less compressed sounding when using it at practice volumes.
I am going to keep this amp forever solely for what it sounds like cranked. I don't think I could ever replace what I'm hearing with any other amp. I plan on picking up a small combo of sorts for practicing etc,,, as it just doesn't cut it for bedroom levels. I guess all the the Engl's spoiled me there.
It was well worth the wait and I plan on using Saturday as clip making day.
I want to say first off.........this is the best amp I have ever owned when played at loud house volume and louder..........hands down.............period. It does a "decent" low volume, but not near as good as the Engl's and VHT's. But like I said, it would just destroy the Blackmore at louder volumes. It is so much more aggressive and full sounding. The Blackmore was just a bit too polite/round for me. And it makes the VHT sound really thin/brittle in comparison.
If I had to plug straight in, I would probably not keep the Splawn. It has a very prominent mid response that sounds really unique but also kind of strange IMO. You can hear it in almost all the Splawn clips. However, after fiddling with my graphic EQ (in loop), I got it dialed out with some very minor tweaks. And I have no problem with this since I use my EQ with every amp.
I found I prefer just to leave the amp in OD1 and use my Xotic BB for clean boosting. It just sounds better to me and adds a bit more saturation than the OD2 function alone.
There are big differences between the gears (others say there isn't). Gear 1 is pretty open and has much less low end than the others. Gear 2 and 3 are similar in voicing, just more compression/gain in the latter. I prefer Gear 2 by a big margin for what I do.
Gear 1 with gain at noon using my neck and middle single coils gives me as clean a channel as I need. Great for bluesy stuff and slight breakup. Rolling down the volume on my guitar gets me real close to a bonafide clean channel. But who needs one !
IMO, all the Engls pretty much sucked for lead playing. I would rank the Splawn up there with the JSX as the best lead amp I have ever played. Too bad I thought the JSX blew chunks for anything else. The Splawn has a singing quality with plenty sustain that actually makes lead playing pretty easy. However, the Splawn is extremely unforgiving (moreso than the VHT) when playing rhythm. I'm going to have to clean up my picking
My old Blackmore was so effortless to gallop on. I'm going to miss that. I don't think I would recommend this amp for you guys who play extreme metal. It just doesn't have the low mids for that. However, I can change that easily with my EQ as well. But for anything between blues and BLS it fits the bill. The highlights being 80's metal of all kinds (thrash, hair, etc...). It also works great for the southern stoner stuff that I play (imagine COC, Down, etc...)
The loop isn't the greatest as it changes the tone a bit and makes the Master less usable for low volume playing. However, here are few tips for that:
1) This has already been mentioned but....... use an external device with a volume control in the loop. You can then turn up the Master to allow the power section to catch up. It does this somewhere around 8:00 on the Master knob. Then turn down the volume on your device to offset the hearing loss and police arrival.
2) I discovered this myself..........if you aren't using the solo boost, turn it off..........but leave the solo boost control cranked all the way up. It makes the amp fuller and less compressed sounding when using it at practice volumes.
I am going to keep this amp forever solely for what it sounds like cranked. I don't think I could ever replace what I'm hearing with any other amp. I plan on picking up a small combo of sorts for practicing etc,,, as it just doesn't cut it for bedroom levels. I guess all the the Engl's spoiled me there.
It was well worth the wait and I plan on using Saturday as clip making day.
