I bought this amp a few days ago and I want to share my thoughts about it.
I was looking for a small one channel tube amp, suitable for small/medium gigs, home practice and home recordings with IRs. After checking other brands in this price range (including a Katana 100 which I actually bought but ended up returning it) I ordered the Super 12 combo hoping that it will fit my needs.
After a few minutes of playing and messing with the settings it was clear that this amp does everything I wanted and a bit more.
I'm primarily interested in clean and crunch tones.
Recording with IRs :
- using the line out won't mute the speaker. The master volume is also needed, you can't turn it down and use the preamp gain to send the signal to the audio interface or cab sim.
- to use the line out silent, plug a cable in the return jack of the amp. It will be silent in 1W mode but in 15W mode there's a hiss coming out from the speaker. I couldn't hear a difference in quality between 1 and 15 Watts.
- my favorite way is to plug an attenuator in the external cab jack to get some juice from the power amp. Sounds great !
- it's very light and easy to transport
- despite its size, it's very loud and sounds full
- sounds great in 1W mode
- great pedal platform and nice reverb
- the cleans are crystal clear if you keep the preamp gain bellow 3
- you can get many types of breakup/crunch tones by using the gain/boost/volume in different ways. With the master volume at 10 and preamp gain lower, maybe 3 or 4, you get a classic power amp breakup sound associated with more expensive amps. The other way is to push the preamp tubes into distortion and experimenting with the relationship between gain and boost. The gain is transparent while the boost is adding some upper mid boost.
- the preamp start to distort very soon. Maybe between 3 and 4 with single coils but you may have to keep the gain at 1,5 to get crystal cleans with high output humbuckers. Fortunately it will be loud enough if you push the master volume. The gain knob does not increase the volume that much, like a 2 channel amp would do, it is rather a distortion controller.
- the preamp breakup is a bit dark sounding. It's getting brighter if you push it to a crunch territory or if the boost is activated.
- the 1W mode is ok for home practice but you can't push the power amp without disturbing your neighbours.
- lack of a standby switch.
