NAD - Laney Lionheart L50H: 50 watts of single ended class A power... WOW!

  • Thread starter Thread starter MadAsAHatter
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MadAsAHatter

MadAsAHatter

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Well, NAD was Tuesday, but I was only able to spend about an hour or so with it. After that I had to prepare for and wait through the hurricane that just passed through. I’ll get time to do more knob turning this weekend and update my thoughts.

First impressions are positive.

Laney Lionheart L50H Specs:
  • Two channel
  • 50 watts parallel single ended class A
  • 3 x 12AX7 & 5 x EL34
  • Passive bass, middle and treble EQ with global bite switch and tone & dynamics controls
  • Digital reverb
  • Dimensions (H x W x D): 9.75 in x 26.75 in x 9.8 in
  • Net weight: 47 lbs
First off this amp is just as responsive as any other single ended class A amp I’ve played. I’d almost argue that it’s more responsive. It’s sensitive to pick attack and guitar volume settings. It’s also very sensitive to pickup EQ & output. Most amps I can change guitars/pickups and be fine without having to adjust amp settings. Not with this Laney. When I changed to a guitar with different pickups I had to adjust the amp settings to match.

For being a passive tone stack, all the knobs have a wide range of adjustment. The tone and dynamics knobs are equivalent to presence and resonance, but don’t seem to work in the exact same manner. First off, like the tone stack they had adjustment across the entire sweep. They also didn’t just add/cut frequencies, but also altered the response & feel of the amp. I’ll have to play with these knobs more to really figure them out. Right now I can say at certain settings the amp became tighter and responded faster and at other it was looser and more saggy.

As far as overall tone is concerned, it sounds like a Laney. I wouldn’t call it a modern Supergroup, but it 100% gives off old school Black Sabbath/Tony Iommi vibes.

No one was home so I was able to crank it a decent amount. At 5/10 on the volume and using a PAF style guitar/pickup the clean channel stayed clean. At that point it was getting too loud for in the room so I didn’t push it further. I suspect at 6.5-7 on the amp volume or with higher output pickups it’s start hitting that line of clean & grit.

The dirty channel sounded great. With the gain knob at 2-3 I was able to ride the line between cleanish and light grit with pick attack and/or guitar volume knob. Gain knob all the way up has enough saturation for 80’s and 90’s style hard rock. It’ not going to bring the brootz, but with a boost it should do hair/power/thrash metal to most people’s satisfaction. It has saturation levels equivalent to my Naylor and Peters Vega amps.

So yeah, my initial impressions is this Laney amp is 100% legit. It sounds great, flexible EQ, very responsive, and has that Laney vibe. It’s a shame the 50 watt version didn’t seem to catch on and was discontinued. There is a 5 & 20 watt version currently available, but they use EL84’s and may not sound as full.
 
Cool review bro. I always wondered about these but more specifically the iron heart…I think that’s the name.
 
That’s basically the same feelings I have about my Laney, it’s a nice different flavor from all my other amps. It’s usually my favorite amp for a few weeks a year when I’m on my annual sabbath kick. Not really sure why Laneys aren’t more popular, kind of want to snag a gh50 or something and send it to groundzero or someone and see what’s comes out
 
JackBootedThug said:
Cool review bro. I always wondered about these but more specifically the iron heart…I think that’s the name.
Click to expand...

Yeah, Ironheart is one of their current lines. From what I've looked into on those is it's different from the Lionheart. The Ironheart is push-pull class AB and has more gain available. From clips it does appear to sound like a Laney.
 
These amps really interest me. I like that warm thick tone. Hopefully see one around soon.
 
I've spent a good chunk of the day playing the Laney with several guitars and doing a bunch of knob turning. I'm getting a good feel for it now. What I've found is I like the bass set between 4-6, Middle at 6, and Dynamics at 6 most of the time.

Treble & Tone knobs and Bite switch are guitar dependent and set to taste. These end up being a bit of a balancing act to get the brightness just right without going brittle. It's not overly difficult to find that balance, just a matter of getting to know the amp. Again this is switching guitars. Sometimes its a matter of flipping the Bite switch on/off. Other times turning the Treble up and Tone down or vice-versa. If I stuck to one guitar it would be easy enough to find where I like it and stay there.

I also played around boosting it with a tube screamer. This is very reminiscent of boosting a JCM800 as far as saturation level, just with the Laney tone instead of Marshall tone. The Laney took the boost just fine. The mid spike of the tube screamer mixed well with the mid frequency of the Laney. I found the tube screamer tightened things up to do some thrash metal, but still kept enough of the thicker sound of the Laney.

Not that I sell anything to begin with, but the Laney Lionheart is one that won't be going anywhere any time soon. It definitely has a unique character and different tone than the other amps I have. It's pretty much earned a spot with my main group of amps. What I really need to do now is reset a couple of guitars to C# standard tuning so I can start rocking more Black Sabbath songs.
 
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