Head to Head
A quartet of combos with multi-switching abilities
All four combos fire up smoothly and quietly with little or no hiss and hum, and all seem to work equally well with humbuckers and single coils, thanks to wide-ranging EQS and voicing options. Despite its relative lack of features, the PRS Sonzera 20 packs serious tonal authority, with stunning clean and high-gain voices. We liked the way the clean channel can be driven into a very authentic tweed vintage overdrive, while the gain channel provides plenty of filth but also sounds really good at low drive settings, something most amps don’t do well. Marshall’s latest DSL40 may not have the luxury of independent EQ, but with two voicing options on each channel as well as a tone shift button, there’s plenty of flexibility. The DSL40’S clean sounds are better than earlier versions and the crunch and OD1 settings are great fun to use, while OD2 provides all the modern distortion that you would expect from a Marshall.
Blackstar’s all-new revised HT Club 40 also has four voices to choose from, with the extra benefit of their clever ISF control on the lead channel, which continuously varies the amp’s EQ between UK and USA response. The HT40 Club MKII excels at low to medium gain drive settings, where the in-house digital reverb really adds a new dimension to this amp’s capabilities. It’s a similar story with the Mark II version of Peavey’s El84-powered Valveking; while the VKII doesn’t have four preamp voices to choose from, it has Vari-class, which lets you experiment with class A or class AB power amp response and any combination in between. Vari-class is quite subtle at lower volume levels but has more effect as the volume controls are turned up. The Peavey sounded great for low- to medium-gain playing, and the low wattage options make it ideal for home use. The MSDI outputs have a low noise floor - which is perfect for hooking up to a mixing desk.
all four combos fire up smoothly and quietly with little or no hiss or hum...