PRS Sonzera

The 20 combo, on the other hand, has sounded great every time I've heard it, has a midrange sweetness to it. I like the power of 50 watts, but if the 20 really sounds that much better...
Same "problem" here... I like the sound of the 20 combo but at the same time want the knobs (I don't really need 50 watts - nice to have on the other hand) of the 50 head o_O
 
For what it's worth, Premier Guitar just posted a review of the 50 watt combo. Here's 'the problem', the Soundcloud audio sample is terrible, really awful playing and tone. How the editors could allow such a horrible example be posted of the amp is beyond me. The copy praises the amp for price to performance, but if you were to base you purchase on this clip, you'd run away fast.

https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/25121-prs-sonzera-50-review?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=PGN - 021817&utm_term=PG Weekly

Agreed. It seems like they tried to play a clean riff through a the gain channel with a bunch of jacked up settings. I wonder how much Mesa paid them to tank the tone demo. ;)
 
Early February became end of April rather quickly for the online retailers estimates of when they will arrive! I know these dates are usually a sliding rather random floating point, so I should have known better! I got all excited thinking I would have one of these in hand by now.. Ugh.. They are all saying end of April-ish; skipped right over March!

"Fooled me once, fooled me twice; fooled me deadly, pretty baby!"

though, also true:
"good amps come to those who wait!"

(paraphrasing there! ;)

Cheers!

:)
 
Musician's Friend is now estimating end of July for the 50w Sonzera combo...... Ouch!

Well, the waiting is the hardest part... :)
 
For what it's worth, Premier Guitar just posted a review of the 50 watt combo. Here's 'the problem', the Soundcloud audio sample is terrible, really awful playing and tone. How the editors could allow such a horrible example be posted of the amp is beyond me. The copy praises the amp for price to performance, but if you were to base you purchase on this clip, you'd run away fast.

https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/25121-prs-sonzera-50-review?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=PGN - 021817&utm_term=PG Weekly

Wow, that audio is pretty terrible.
 
I've looked at the Sonzera as well but wound up going with the Archon 50 combo for it's gain stage. I don't get the vibe the Sonzera can do high gain. Maybe I'm wrong.
 
I am pretty stoked, the UPS tracking finally updated this morning; Sonzera head should be here tomorrow! It's been killing me; it's been 'in transit to UPS' for two days. Lol, that's what I get for choosing the free standard ground. At least it's not shipping from New York!

I am hoping to have the house to myself tomorrow night, and jam is on with the guys at the spot Friday after work.

I have a Friedman 2x12 cab to pair with the Sonzera, and a couple of 1x12 cabs at the jam spot. Got my Friedman Runt 50 combo over there too; I let me buddies band use it at their last gig; also a killer amp. Battle of the EL34's!

I just tidied up and re worked the home jam studio too; got a kickstart on spring cleaning. Finally bought some monitor stands, and a pair of HS5's; upgrade to the studio!

Been overhauling the other pedalboard too, spent some time wiring it up last night. Really pumped to hear how the Sonzera does as a pedal platform.

Happy St Patrick's Day!
Sláinte!
Cheers!

:)
 
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I am pretty stoked, the UPS tracking finally updated this morning; Sonzera head should be here tomorrow! It's been killing me; it's been 'in transit to UPS' for two days. Lol, that's what I get for choosing the free standard ground. At least it's not shipping from New York!

I am hoping to have the house to myself tomorrow night, and jam is on with the guys at the spot Friday after work.

I have a Friedman 2x12 cab to pair with the Sonzera, and a couple of 1x12 cabs at the jam spot. Got my Friedman Runt 50 combo over there too; I let me buddies band use it at their last gig; also a killer amp. Battle of the EL34's!

I just tidied up and re worked the home jam studio too; got a kickstart on spring cleaning. Finally bought some monitor stands, and a pair of HS5's; upgrade to the studio!

Been overhauling the other pedalboard too, spent some time wiring it up last night. Really pumped to hear how the Sonzera does as a pedal platform.

Happy St Patrick's Day!
Sláinte!
Cheers!

:)


Sweet! Looking forward to a "real world" tone report!
 
Sweet! Looking forward to a "real world" tone report!

Ok, I am liking this amp so far! It arrived today, and lucky me, I ended up with the house to myself for the night. Thus far, very encouraging! I'm liking what I hear.. I just plugged a couple of my guitars into the amp; no outboard fx, no noise gate, nothing in the fx loop. Just used the footswitch to channel change and toggle reverb on/off.

It's definitely getting hauled over to the jam spot with the 2x12 cab tomorrow night, and I'm very curious to hear how the amp's voicing options sit in a relatively loud basement jam with drums/bass/guitars and such kind of scenario. My Friedman Runt 50 combo is over there already; be very interesting to hear how they blend; both are EL34 50 watt.

I got some nice blends of clean channel / dirt with channel switching. I messed a bit with the higher gain sounds; will need to revisit those tomorrow at the spot, at louder volume than I could pull off tonight!

Though, I must say, this amp loves being with my Friedman 2x12 cab! Here is a photo for a sense of scale; the cab is 30" wide.

Cheers! (Happy St. Patrick's Day!)

VQfxBkZuSytfaFN-lIM4t42ZEqzGmD7BjE5iO1DI1g8





(If you are really feeling adventurous I can send some clips with different mics - but you'll have to overlook my terrible playing :)o_O;)
 
Next I will hook up my Fryette PS and Helix to run some silent direct recording through IR's! Crank it up into the power station speaker load, and see what kind of tones the power tubes push when it's not splitting hairs between very low values on the volume/master/drive/level dials! Helix is doing soundcard duty tonight; take the XLR from the PS to the Helix, can route that through either 2 or 4 different IR's, depending on what I want to do. Usually two, since two is higher quality IR's than maxing it at 4 with lower. Going to try some 3 Sigma Friedman 4x12 IR's; seems like a good place to start! Maybe I will get some PRS IR's too..
 
Did some late end of night semi silent recording (heavily attenuated) with the Fryette PS. Got some sweet recording tones! XLR from PS to Helix, processed through a pair of 3 Sigma Friedman IR's, to ProTools. You can get some interesting power tube saturation on both channels.

Good stuff! Pretty stoked to haul the rig to the jam spot tonight and let 'er rip!

One thing; I had issues with putting pedals in the Fx loop. I need to test that with my M9 fx loop board, which gives the Runt no problems. Might have just been the pedals. Plus the true bypass popping sounds; I re routed those pedals to just go in front on the amp, and put the noise gate after the dirt pedals instead of in loop. All sounded pretty good! Albeit, at very low levels after 3am..

Cheers!
 
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