I posted a pic of it in a different thread, but here it is again for anyone who did not see it. [img:683:400]http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL1448/1 ... 124424.jpg[/img]
First off, I do not know what Shad charges for these things now, but for what my buddy paid, it is the steal of a lifetime. The workmanship is beautiful. Everything neat and tidy and really nice solder joints everywhere. You can tell a lot of time went into it. I also had the chance to A/B it with my original NOS serial 00 183, and compare. They are close tonally, but there are differences for sure. I lowered the bias in mine, so that may be some of what I am hearing. First off the new one is much clearer than mine, and seems to have better cleans. It is also MUCH more dynamic, which really puzzled me. As a matter of fact, it may be the most dynamic amp in overdrive I have ever played. My very first Fuchs amp (pre SLX) was also extremely dynamic. It was very different sounding and did not sound all that much like a Dumble way back then, but i loved that amp due to the dynamics it had. After it was SLXed, it was much smoother, but lost a lot of that magical ability to go from really quiet to really loud with just pick attack. This new Quinn even surpasses that, but has all the richness and smoothness as well. On the other hand, the amp did not have nearly as much gain as mine, and was quite a bit brighter. You could easily dial the brightness down, but it always sounded a bit more harsh than mine. This could simply be because it was brand new, a hotter bias, the NOS parts mine has, or a combination of all three. It could simply be the taper on the volumje pots, but the new one had to be much higher on the gain and volume knobs to equal the gain and volume levels of mine. All in all, they were close enough where in a clip, Icould probably fool even myself, but in person, that clarity of the new one really stood out, and with that and the dynamics, was EXTREMELY inspiring to play. I improvised over a few tunes with both amps, and I felt like i played much better on the new one due to that clarity and the unreal dynamics. It makes you play differently for sure. So now I have played three Quinn 183 EL34s, my 6L6 version, and of course owned the original. Amazing how each can be a little different, and you can choose little bits of each you prefer. As is, if I had to have only one, it would probably be my original serial #00 Quinn, but damn if the dynamics on this new one are not magical. Its easy to forget how much you lose with any substantial amount of gain dialed in, and to be able to have quite a bit of it, and still have the dynamics almost equal to a totally clean amp is a real eye opener. Great amp Shadster! [/img]
But, I am going to be borrowing the amp again to make some clips, so I will, and I will do an A/B with mine. I have a feeling the compression you get with recording is going to mask the differences in the amps as far as dynamics are concerned, but I shall try my best to show it. I would really like to get my amp to be like that. Not sure whats causing mine to be more compressed, or I should probably say whats making that one less compressed. Mine seemed to have quite a bit more gain available, so it must be related. This was all done in 15 minutes time, so maybe i just need to get used to adjusting the amps differently due to the different pot sweeps. Like 183, mine has those old color coated fender pots that Dumble used at times. I know the new amp does not have those.
