I really loved my Pro Stock overall. Gear 1 was truly perfect for Slash. Gear 2 was where I lived mostly. I rarely ever boosted my Splawn as it was a great mix of tight saturation with a little bit of compression. Tons of bass, so I usually dialed it back. Cut in a live mix perfectly.
My only negs:
1) my 100w was louder than I needed or SOME of the sound guys could handle on the stages we played. (We play places like House of Blues and some decent sized stages locally, and even those bigger stages are keeping stage volume lower--so annoying). Yes, the Loop Master does help quite a bit, but it's not a perfect solution to get those optimal tones out of the Splawn, IMO. They need to be at least at 9:0- 10:00 on the Volume to get the the goods, but at that point it's pretty loud, but the sound and feel is pretty huge and very worth it: awesome fun. You will hear others say, "loop volume solves that" and what not, but to me, it only gets you 80% there, TOPS, with the tone you want. It's not an apartment-friendly amp at 100w--again, to get those optimal Splawn tones. But yes, any amp can do 'low volume', but it's subjective at how much you dig them at that low volume. You can see all my posts on the forums asking about the "too-loud" factor for apartments at 100w and many said, "it's fine with Loop Master" and I have to disagree. Again, my opinion, I'm sure others will neg me. ...That said, the TONE and FEEL was great to me.
2) Gravelly 'thing' in the notes: I posted this in the Splawn thread on TGP and someone replied with it's how the tone stack is. Basically, in a non-band setting, I would hear this 'gravelly, scratchy' thing in the notes. Well, come to find out, it's also a 'thing' in other modded Marshall amps I have. I have a BFG modded Egnater Seminar Amp and I can hear the same thing. My Friedman's don't do it, and it's not really a bad thing, but for me, it kind of irritated me--but only when playing along and when I was really listening for it. You can also not notice it by being so lost in the eargasm you're having while also enjoying the feel of the amp. But again, I think some other circuits do this and it's part of 'that' sound. I'm sure others will disagree or not know what the hell I'm saying here.
3) More speaker dependant than some other amps I've ad. I find that M speakers make it a little easier to tame the Splawn inherent mid and brightness vs. H speakers, which tend to be brighter n nature. I would love to try a Splawn with Redbacks!!
But other than that, I actually have been looking at a fully loaded 50w Pro Stock/QR or Street Rod. I still loved my Pro Stock all 4 years I had it, despite some moments where I was perplexed or unsure how much I loved it. They are HUGE bargains, and I do believe they hang with amps twice or more their cost.
Really play one if you have the chance. I can't recommend them enough, overall.
