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Two Rock Amps: The NAMM Report

1/22/2001 11:07 PM
Gil Ayan	Two Rock Amps: The NAMM Report Hey guys, another NAMM show's come and gone and this time around I was a bit too NAMMed out to do much of anything. The best part of the show was to meet with old friends, and to meet new friends like Steve Snider of Two Rock and Carl Zwengel of Summit Amps. I'll cut to the chase and go right into the TR amps. I am not blind and I have seen the pictures posted here and yes, I know most of the people here do better work than that quite easily. I understand the amp in question was sort of an early prototype that was later gooped and sold because the person who bought it liked the way it sounded... Granted, if I were to buy an amp on the expensive side (like the current Two Rocks are), I would expect first class workmanship. I believe Steve has mentioned that the current production amps look great inside? Maybe we will get a chance to look at some pictures soon. On to the sound: many of us Duble fans got a chance to play a couple of Emerald Pros and some other prototypes. All of us have played the real thing at some point, some of the guys have owned the real thing, and all of us have built great sounding clones of the D amps. OK, so last year I had tried a Two Rock and liked it, but this year I heard an amp that sounded much better than last year's. These Emerald Pros, at the volumes allowed at the NAMM show, sound actually juicier than any D amp I have heard (both the real thing and my own clones, and the other guys made the same remark). Having an FX loop and reverb (which sounds very nice), the Two Rocks very smooth and sustain very nicely at low volumes- while the real thing, not having either, are rawer sounding and don't sustain until you get the volume up there. So the Two rock compresses more than teh Dumbles, which sound great at lower volumes. I wonder whether that preamp tube compression might squash the sound a bit too much when you start to get the power section cooking? I don't know, the thought did cross my mind; I hope to get a chance to play a TR at real volumes some time, and then I will definitely know. The amp sounds so good, that the only thing I can nitpick about is their size. They are similar in size to a Bandmaster reverb head (I guess, or else think of it this way: bigger than Dumble, smaller than Marshall), which is too big. I much prefer the size of the real Dumbles, or the narrow Boogie heads (which are like 3 inches narrower than a Dumble head). Also, the chassis is flush to the center part of the front of the cabinet. That doesn't look right, and the chassis is not centered (front to back wise) with respect to the cabinet. Still, these amps look better than the previous versions of the TR, so I can see that attention to cosmetics is starting to be factored in, which is a good thing. Personally, I would recommend that they pushthe chassis further back into the cabinet, such that the mounting bolts lay in a symmetrical pattern, it would make everything look neater. I also took the opportunity to try a couple of prototypes. They were referred to as the "wireless" amps.. because they were built point-to-point without any wires - I would have wanted to see those suckers inside. A 100W proto sounded a bit too bright for my tatse, but considering there are several internal controls in these amps, it was probably just the way that particular one was dialed in. A 50W proto sounded great, and it was actually a magical amp. In clean mode with the preampboost engaged, there was already a very happening chime in the top end that made the amp want to sing, while being clean. Nice! And the overdrive sounded great too. Too bad these amps won't be made to be sold (the labor is very intensive), I would give the 50W head a home! In closing, I think that if you're after a Dumble type sound, the Emerald Pro will get you there all the way. What a good sounding amp, andgood reverb too. As far as the price goes, yes, $4K is a lot of cash and I know I would have some trouble caughing up that kind of money. But make no mistake: those of you who have already built amps (and I mean a finished product, not a prototype in an ugly chassis and without a cabinet) know it takes time to build anything by hand. I built three 100W amps in 1999, and after all was said and done, I think I spend about 100 hours per amp. Yes, they were involved and incorporated some PCB work as well... I think that if I could set everything up to be in "semi production mode," I could probably get an amp built in around 60 hours. How much must one spend in parts? Figure on the order of $500-800, or thereabouts... The question is, how much money do you want to make? If you charge $4,000 for an amp which costs $650 in parts and it takes 60 hours to build, you end up making $55 an hour. That has to cover your salary and your rent, etc. As I think you can see, that is not as much money as it seems. There are people who make hand-wired amps and charge half as much, like Dr. Z, who does great work and makes very neat amps. Two things: (1) his amps are easier to buil (less involved) than a a TR would be; and, (2) I wonder how the good Doctor manages, his amps are one hell of a bargain! Of course, cost of living in Ohio is a lot cheaper than in California... Cheers, Gil

1/22/2001 11:07 PM

Gil Ayan

Two Rock Amps: The NAMM Report

Hey guys, another NAMM show's come and gone and this time around I was a bit too NAMMed out to do much of anything. The best part of the show was to meet with old friends, and to meet new friends like Steve Snider of Two Rock and Carl Zwengel of Summit Amps.

I'll cut to the chase and go right into the TR amps. I am not blind and I have seen the pictures posted here and yes, I know most of the people here do better work than that quite easily. I understand the amp in question was sort of an early prototype that was later gooped and sold because the person who bought it liked the way it sounded... Granted, if I were to buy an amp on the expensive side (like the current Two Rocks are), I would expect first class workmanship. I believe Steve has mentioned that the current production amps look great inside? Maybe we will get a chance to look at some pictures soon.

On to the sound: many of us Duble fans got a chance to play a couple of Emerald Pros and some other prototypes. All of us have played the real thing at some point, some of the guys have owned the real thing, and all of us have built great sounding clones of the D amps. OK, so last year I had tried a Two Rock and liked it, but this year I heard an amp that sounded much better than last year's. These Emerald Pros, at the volumes allowed at the NAMM show, sound actually juicier than any D amp I have heard (both the real thing and my own clones, and the other guys made the same remark).

Having an FX loop and reverb (which sounds very nice), the Two Rocks very smooth and sustain very nicely at low volumes- while the real thing, not having either, are rawer sounding and don't sustain until you get the volume up there. So the Two rock compresses more than teh Dumbles, which sound great at lower volumes. I wonder whether that preamp tube compression might squash the sound a bit too much when you start to get the power section cooking? I don't know, the thought did cross my mind; I hope to get a chance to play a TR at real volumes some time, and then I will definitely know.

The amp sounds so good, that the only thing I can nitpick about is their size. They are similar in size to a Bandmaster reverb head (I guess, or else think of it this way: bigger than Dumble, smaller than Marshall), which is too big.

I much prefer the size of the real Dumbles, or the narrow Boogie heads (which are like 3 inches narrower than a Dumble head). Also, the chassis is flush to the center part of the front of the cabinet. That doesn't look right, and the chassis is not centered (front to back wise) with respect to the cabinet. Still, these amps look better than the previous versions of the TR, so I can see that attention to cosmetics is starting to be factored in, which is a good thing. Personally, I would recommend that they pushthe chassis further back into the cabinet, such that the mounting bolts lay in a symmetrical pattern, it would make everything look neater.

I also took the opportunity to try a couple of prototypes. They were referred to as the "wireless" amps.. because they were built point-to-point without any wires - I would have wanted to see those suckers inside. A 100W proto sounded a bit too bright for my tatse, but considering there are several internal controls in these amps, it was probably just the way that particular one was dialed in. A 50W proto sounded great, and it was actually a magical amp. In clean mode with the preampboost engaged, there was already a very happening chime in the top end that made the amp want to sing, while being clean. Nice! And the overdrive sounded great too. Too bad these amps won't be made to be sold (the labor is very intensive), I would give the 50W head a home!

In closing, I think that if you're after a Dumble type sound, the Emerald Pro will get you there all the way. What a good sounding amp, andgood reverb too. As far as the price goes, yes, $4K is a lot of cash and I know I would have some trouble caughing up that kind of money. But make no mistake: those of you who have already built amps (and I mean a finished product, not a prototype in an ugly chassis and without a cabinet) know it takes time to build anything by hand. I built three 100W amps in 1999, and after all was said and done, I think I spend about 100 hours per amp. Yes, they were involved and incorporated some PCB work as well... I think that if I could set everything up to be in "semi production mode," I could probably get an amp built in around 60 hours. How much must one spend in parts? Figure on the order of $500-800, or thereabouts...

The question is, how much money do you want to make? If you charge $4,000 for an amp which costs $650 in parts and it takes 60 hours to build, you end up making $55 an hour. That has to cover your salary and your rent, etc. As I think you can see, that is not as much money as it seems. There are people who make hand-wired amps and charge half as much, like Dr. Z, who does great work and makes very neat amps. Two things: (1) his amps are easier to buil (less involved) than a a TR would be; and, (2) I wonder how the good Doctor manages, his amps are one hell of a bargain!

Of course, cost of living in Ohio is a lot cheaper than in California...

Cheers,

Gil

Replies:

Steve Snider Gil thanks for the post and it was ... -- 1/23/2001 4:14 AM
Jim S. Were there any Fuchs Overdrive Supr... -- 1/23/2001 6:07 AM
GouxMan Hey Gil, as you know I played the E... -- 1/23/2001 8:41 AM