Splawn and Roccaforte compare

[Laura]

I still have mine. Great amps but I don't know why he isn't responding. I always wondered if it had to do with the fact that he was using an aol email. I never had problems getting responses but I know lots of guys who did. I haven't talked to him in a while but I think he is still busy but mainly working with industry folks.

 

[gibson08]

Def like the Roccaforte stuff, still have my HG100, miss my Custom 80,,,maybe should look for another now that I know a little more about speakers, pedals, stuff like that. Well built units, never any problems, always sounds great. I will have to dig up a pic,,,

 

[John4021]

Def like the Roccaforte stuff, still have my HG100, miss my Custom 80,,,maybe should look for another now that I know a little more about speakers, pedals, stuff like that. Well built units, never any problems, always sounds great. I will have to dig up a pic,,,

Had a Custom 80 as well
The HG100 can get kinda close to the 80 if you barely crack
the gain open and bring the master up loud...SRV tone.

 

[Erock]

Big Splawn fan, but always liked Doug's work too. I really wanted to try his HG100, but never had the cash when you actually see them used. His wiring jobs were like works of art, I haven't seen anything as neat and perfectly wired as his work inside an amp. Wish he was still around, he helped me out several times on the old HCAF.

 

[gibson08]

Def like the Roccaforte stuff, still have my HG100, miss my Custom 80,,,maybe should look for another now that I know a little more about speakers, pedals, stuff like that. Well built units, never any problems, always sounds great. I will have to dig up a pic,,,

Had a Custom 80 as well
The HG100 can get kinda close to the 80 if you barely crack
the gain open and bring the master up loud...SRV tone.

Yeah, and that's usually how I run mine anymore, but the custom 80 has a slightly diff tone that I need to revisit. Did you think the Jenelle was diff than both of them? I always kinda wondered if something was lost by combining them.

 

[John4021]

Def like the Roccaforte stuff, still have my HG100, miss my Custom 80,,,maybe should look for another now that I know a little more about speakers, pedals, stuff like that. Well built units, never any problems, always sounds great. I will have to dig up a pic,,,

Had a Custom 80 as well
The HG100 can get kinda close to the 80 if you barely crack
the gain open and bring the master up loud...SRV tone.

Yeah, and that's usually how I run mine anymore, but the custom 80 has a slightly diff tone that I need to revisit. Did you think the Jenelle was diff than both of them? I always kinda wondered if something was lost by combining them.

The 80 side was pretty close but I thought the HG100 side was lacking some of the "grunt"

 

[lol]

I'm sorry to bump this, but I just wanted to say i've always wanted a roccaforte

 

[Thor1777]

had a Jenelle but have never played a splawn. The Roccaforte was the most musical and singing type amp I have ever played, loved it......not a metal machine without good boost but an awesome amp. I only sold because it was soooooooo loud

 

[skoora]

Seattle GC has a used Custom 40 that I tried out recently. I'm honestly not sure if I liked it or not. Had way too much bass. Had to set the knob on zero even at low volumes and the midrange was always slicing. If you wanted a loud, aggressive, classic rock tone it had it but you couldn't dial in anything warmer or heavier. Reducing treble or mids just made it dull, not warmer. The mean switch added very little gain and just made it a little leaner. The gain didn't really go anywhere once you were past 2 O'Clock. Actually much preferred cranking an OR15 head that was in the same room (through the same cab) even though it obviously didn't have the same girth but a much more enjoyable midrange character.

 

[mikey]

Seattle GC has a used Custom 40 that I tried out recently. I'm honestly not sure if I liked it or not. Had way too much bass. Had to set the knob on zero even at low volumes and the midrange was always slicing. If you wanted a loud, aggressive, classic rock tone it had it but you couldn't dial in anything warmer or heavier. Reducing treble or mids just made it dull, not warmer. The mean switch added very little gain and just made it a little leaner. The gain didn't really go anywhere once you were past 2 O'Clock. Actually much preferred cranking an OR15 head that was in the same room (through the same cab) even though it obviously didn't have the same girth but a much more enjoyable midrange character.

I agree with you about the amount of bass the Custom 40 has, it's very different from my other amps. What's the "mean" switch you mentioned? Mine doesn't have one.

 

[skoora]

Seattle GC has a used Custom 40 that I tried out recently. I'm honestly not sure if I liked it or not. Had way too much bass. Had to set the knob on zero even at low volumes and the midrange was always slicing. If you wanted a loud, aggressive, classic rock tone it had it but you couldn't dial in anything warmer or heavier. Reducing treble or mids just made it dull, not warmer. The mean switch added very little gain and just made it a little leaner. The gain didn't really go anywhere once you were past 2 O'Clock. Actually much preferred cranking an OR15 head that was in the same room (through the same cab) even though it obviously didn't have the same girth but a much more enjoyable midrange character.

I agree with you about the amount of bass the Custom 40 has, it's very different from my other amps. What's the "mean" switch you mentioned? Mine doesn't have one.

It was a switch on the back. IIRC I had read a while back on Doug doing them by request.

 

[ibenhad]

My custom 40 doesn't have a mean switch either. I wonder what it would take to add one. I just replaced a tube socket in it and it's a pretty straight forward looking amp design.

 

[skoora]

It didn't do anything a tube screamer set to a mild push couldn't do.

 

[V2a]

I'm sorry to bump this, but I just wanted to say i've always wanted a roccaforte

Feel free to contact me.

The Rocca is a seemingly extra loud amp, as others have posted here and elsewhere, but part of that is due to the taper of the Master pot. Most builders use log (audio) taper for a smooth increase in loudness, but my Rocca has a liner-taper pot. This means that the volume will appear to increase more in the first half sweep than in the latter half sweep.

Put another way, when set at noon a log-taper pot passes on ~10% of the signal to the power amp, but a linear-taper pot passes on 50% of the signal at the same noon setting. So if you want your Rocca's volume to more closely match other amps' "noon" volumes, set your master at around 8 o'clock.