"Can you hear me NOW???"

This reviewer purchased this item from Same Day Music.

Feature:
...Look at all those knobs... The most useless feature on this thing has got to be the foot switch mute. Save your money, walk over to the amp, and push the mute button. Might be somewhat nice to have some sort of low key lighting built into the front as the little knobs are hard to read when the lighting is poor. It puts out 1100 watts of power!! So you WILL be heard. However it only has one speakon connector on the back, so you will probably need to daisy chain from your speaker cab to the other speaker cab if you want all speakon connectors. The driver tubes are a nice touch and does away with what would become an additional solid state amplifier to amplify the preamp signal up to a level the MOSFETS could work with. In short this is as tube as it gets without having power tubes. Mine came with all sovtek tubes (groove tubes which are sovtek in the preamp) and two Electro harmonix in the driver section.

Quality:
I give it an 8. There is no soft-start for the power amp. After the warm up time you get this pleasant snap when the relays engage the power amp. Could surprise you if you are playing at low levels in your home late at night. The fans are REALLY loud. Together they flow up to 60 CFM of air. Sometimes they harmonize with each other as each amp controls a fan according to temperature. The paint is prone to rack rash just as all others are, however, the front is anodized not painted so it should hold out better than the top cover.

Value:
You pay for the name. You always pay for a name. Go price out some power amps and preamps. You will get more flexibility with speakers that way, but for an all in one you get quite a bit right here. Made in America, so I can see and will pay a higher price for that. Oh, and there are no surface mount components inside! This will make it much easier to repair and I prefer to repair my amps myself.

Desirability:
The front is sort of bland. You may like that but I would like to see a VU or some LEDS on the input section so I know how hard I am driving. Ampeg has always been "plain" on the front, the die-hard fans will probably really like having "just business" on the front end.

Sound:
Do you know how to use a parametric EQ? If not, and you do not want to learn, hit the back button now. I would like to see (more knobs and switches) a 3 band normal EQ for the quick and dirty tone shaping we are all used to. THEN put on the 4 band parametric for the surgical manipulation of the tone. Once you fiddle-dink with the EQ enough you can really get this amp to sing. I play so many different kinds of music- (church music to full fledged rock n roll)- that it is hard to find "the" amp to use. It does sound like well... an Ampeg... Not distorted or really dirty, it does have a certain edge that says, "I play rock n roll." Go put in a DVD of a band where their bass player is playing an SVT and one where they are not using an SVT and play along. You will see what I am talking about. The compressor is very nice and will really let you dial in a dynamic sound without going overboard and sounding boxy.

Ease of Use:
Depends on how good you are with a parametric. The only time I have ever used a parametric was to help cut off the plosives on mics in the church. I had never used one for this quantity of tonal shaping before. Get to the venue early and set it up. It might take you a while to eq it to the stage you will be performing on. There is no real "dial n go" settings on this amp. Each adjustment must be carefully planned. In the right hands however, this EQ can give you pretty much ANY sound setting you might want.

Support:
Loud is amazing when it comes to supporting their products. Very easy to get what you want. I have never had a problem with Ampeg in particular, but I did request the service manual and schematics. I hung up the phone and there they were in my in box. I have had to deal with Loud on several occasions concerning different products (EAW, Mackie) and got satisfaction right away. The hold time on the phone may be a little long though.

Overall:
Yes, 9. It is an expensive amp, it sounds like an Ampeg and is built like a tank. If you are going out on the road with it I think you will be happy with Ampeg at your side. Maybe have an extra tube on hand just in case, but if you are not an idiot with your gear I don't see any problems happening with this unit. If you really want a truly flexible amp and are willing to take the extra time on the EQ, I think you will really like this amp. I hope this is the last amp I buy. This is in a good way of course.