ARCHON, 2 CHANNEL C, H, CUSTOM 50 ?
- Thread starter Steven Beardsley
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Steven Beardsley
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Ok my brand new MDT will be here thursday blueish green telex with blue face plate. Still new in the box latest version with mid, presence and dirty/clean toggle where the bright toggle was. $xxxx shipped. So now this 62 year old crusty bastard is 12 again waiting for christmas morning....gotta love gear...thanks again everyone for taking the time posting the info and vids to bring me up to speed on the prs amps. You can bet the next three days will be as slow as some where between glacial speed and molasses in the winter...LOL
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elvis
Hamfisted String Banger
I REALLY want a blue maple plate for my Archon, but PRS won't make one 
Ridiculously good deal, but we're not supposed to talk retail pricing of any kind here.
However, congrats!
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dmatthews
Dave's not here
Congrats!
This thread is dangerous!
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Steven Beardsley
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Okie dokie on the retail prices
Steven Beardsley
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The MDT came yesterday and all I can say is wow. I spent much time comparing to the friedman small box 50 and while the small box is a great amp for sure I prefer the MDT. So up on eBay goes the small box 50. What shame I purchased it new from sweet water and have maybe 10 hours on it. But I know myself the gear that I like best always gets played and the other stuff just sits there completely ignored collecting dust. I even purchased a tuki cover and never used it. Thanks again everyone for your thoughts on the prs amps especially aristotle if you hadn't thrown in the perverbiel wrench (MDT) I won't of even checked them out. Thanks again if you need me I'll be playing all day and tomorrow as well....LOL
dmatthews
Dave's not here
Lol!Sounds like a love story to me! And that's the way it oughta be.
Another happy PRS cAMPer.
Great story, and super glad you found a winner Steven!
My experience with Dave Friedman's amps is less extensive than yours, Steven, since I've played 'em, but never owned one; it's seemed to me that Friedman is more inspired by a modded Plexi/JCM Arena Rock vibe than a true vintage, single-channel amp sound with complex overtones.
That was my takeaway, in any case. Would you agree with this assessment?
What I love about the PRS amps is their vintage, purist tone platform, and tremendous range of gain responsiveness to the picking hand. Some call it touch-sensitivity, I tend to always want to be more specific.
To my mind, you can throw a boost pedal in front of a PRS amp and it'll certainly deliver those Arena Rock tones, but you can't dial the Arena tones out of the Friedman or many other amps trying to be Plexis (Suhr comes to mind). You're stuck with them. Of course, that's a good thing for players seeking that vibe! But it doesn't work for me.
All the ones I named are fine amps, of course, but I like to be able to have a beautiful vintage tone as my starting point.
I think the MDT is a fantastic sounding amp, and it's great that you got one!
That was my takeaway, in any case. Would you agree with this assessment?
What I love about the PRS amps is their vintage, purist tone platform, and tremendous range of gain responsiveness to the picking hand. Some call it touch-sensitivity, I tend to always want to be more specific.
To my mind, you can throw a boost pedal in front of a PRS amp and it'll certainly deliver those Arena Rock tones, but you can't dial the Arena tones out of the Friedman or many other amps trying to be Plexis (Suhr comes to mind). You're stuck with them. Of course, that's a good thing for players seeking that vibe! But it doesn't work for me.
All the ones I named are fine amps, of course, but I like to be able to have a beautiful vintage tone as my starting point.
I think the MDT is a fantastic sounding amp, and it's great that you got one!
Steven Beardsley
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I agree with you 100%. I guess my taste is changing I don't care for high gain amps like I used to. On the MDT my sweet spot is when full volume on my guitar puts the amp into that nice bluesy brake up with normal pick attack and hard pick attack takes it over the top. I'm finding around 7ish on the guitar is a nice bluesy clean. Stepping on a clean boost at this setting was very nice. I didn't care for the boost once the amp was giving me all the gain I wanted naturally. This amp has more gain then I need. It kind of has a live ambience about it. Like having the smallest amount of reverb but not. It's hard to put into words. Maybe the best way to put it is it's very musical if that make any sense to you. The mdt is the first amp that sounds like my guitar when it's unplugged just now it has volume and how sweet it is. I have quite an extensive pedal board with several high end pedals and to be honest I like just plugging my guitar straight into the amp the best. I have mogomi gold guitar cables one 10' and one 18'. I use the 10' for my little home studio and the 18s plugged into my pedal board. When I first tried the MDT I grabbed the 10' and kept going back and forth between the friedman and prs. Then I said lets hear what the pedal board sounds like and I immediately heard a slight high end lost. I thought that really sucks so I turned the input and out put buffers on the boss ES 8 pedal looper and it made an oh so slight difference. Then I plugged the 10' and then the 18' straight into the mdt and found to my surprise it wasn't the pedal board it was the cable length. Imagine a amp that you can hear the difference between to different length high end guitar cables. I A/B the friedman and mdt gain today and the longer I play the mdt the better it sounds. The more I play it my fingers adjust and find they're way with out me thinking about it. I'm really liking this. I've always noticed when I would get another guitar it would take a little time to cokes the same nuances out of her like I'd get from my other guitars and this is the first time I'm experiencing the same with a amp. I've always compared guitars to women every one reacts differently to your touch LOL. I'm using a avatar signature 2x12 with avatar 25watt heltones which are really 25watt green backs broken in. It's the only cab I have. What cab and speakers have you tried and what to you prefer?
You and I sound a lot alike, because I tend to live in that area around 6-7 on the guitar being that transition point between clean and breakup. Musical is definitely the word I'd use with both the HXDA and DG30 amps (I don't have an MDT but it's based on the platform they developed the HXDA from). And it's funny that you mentioned cable length, because I hear the difference in my rig, too. Incidentally, I use a high quality buffer from Suhr to preserve signal integrity once it hits the pedalboard, and it works extremely well, just sounds like going straight into the amp with the pedals switched off, I use a 10 foot cable to the pedalboard, but with the buffer the cable length from the pedalboard to the amp no longer matters (within 50 feet or so).
I've used these cabs with both amps: Mesa Recto 2x12 with V-30s, Mesa 1x12 Wide body 3/4 back with Black Shadow 90; PRS DG 2x12 ported with V30s; PRS 1x12 Pine with V-30; PRS 2x12 Birch ply "Big Mouth" closed-back with PRS-modded V-30s, and on one session, a late 60s Marshall with Greenbacks with the HXDA50.
I currently use my favorites with each: the PRS DG30 head with the matching DG cab, and the "Big Mouth" PRS 2x12 with the HXDA, as per the pic following:
elvis
Hamfisted String Banger
Mesa Blue Angel is also good for this kind of guitaring.
Steven Beardsley
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Quote from Steven:
>>Now that I'm going to sell my friedman I have two choices the mature right thing to do ( keep the money from the the sale...LOL right! ) or purchase the hxda. Are these two amps very similar and I found a prs recording amp with matching cab for the same price as I paid for the mdt. It has pretty much the same eq and switches as the hxda but no presences and added reverb.<<
Yeah, I never do the mature thing either.
As I understand it, the MDT is the same output section as the HXDA, but with a Tweed tone stack instead of the Marshall style tone stack, and without the HX/DA position switching that affects both overall gain and tone, but Aristotle has both, he's in the best position to know.
>>Now that I'm going to sell my friedman I have two choices the mature right thing to do ( keep the money from the the sale...LOL right! ) or purchase the hxda. Are these two amps very similar and I found a prs recording amp with matching cab for the same price as I paid for the mdt. It has pretty much the same eq and switches as the hxda but no presences and added reverb.<<
Yeah, I never do the mature thing either.
As I understand it, the MDT is the same output section as the HXDA, but with a Tweed tone stack instead of the Marshall style tone stack, and without the HX/DA position switching that affects both overall gain and tone, but Aristotle has both, he's in the best position to know.
That was Mesa's thinking, but having owned and used a Blue Angel head in the studio for several years (along with several other Mesa amps), and having gigged a Blue Angel combo later, I'd say it is a very sweet amp, but nowhere near as responsive to pick and player as the PRS single channel amps, or even other single channel vintage or boutique amps.
Wasn't even in the same universe, let alone ballpark.
The B/A was more like the clean channel of most Mesa amps; its claim to fame was its ability to switch to/combine different output tubes on the fly -- not a bad thing, of course --and it was a good pedal platform. But it wasn't like these amps.
It's funny, a buddy wants me to buy the one he has, and I've thought about it, because it's a good amp, but really, the DG30 does what it does so much better that only nostalgia would be the motivation.
Well, that and megalomaniacally wanting to own every amp in the world, a la Aristotle...
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elvis
Hamfisted String Banger
I just sold a Blue Angel. I loved it, but I never used it. As much as I hoped I could be, I'm not a single-channel guy. For single-channel-style, I use an OD808 with light drive on a clean channel. Works great for me, just enough drive with the guitar volume up, cleans up fine when I back down, lets the guitar character come through.
I used a Plimsoul or OCD with it for the same purpose.
Steven Beardsley
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Does any one have info on the prs recording amp it has the same eq's expect no presence and more toggles with reverb. Is it a lot like the HXDA and I just play my MDT threw a PRS 2x12 cab and I must say it sound a lot better then my avatar with green backs I mean a real noticeable difference. Has any one played threw a PRS 1x12 what do think? thanks
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Yes, the difference between the cabs is very noticeable! PRS cabs are truly great sounding and worth the money. Some folks think all cabs with the same or similar speakers will sound alike. It's just not true.
I got my son an Avatar 4x12 a few years ago, but found it disappointing compared to my Bogner and Mesa 2x12s, and he wasn't all that nuts about it, either. So he sold it, and got a Mesa.
I owned a PRS 1x12 until just a few weeks ago, but wanted the "Big Mouth" 2x12. Anyway, the 1x12 is a great sounding, warm, and very light weight cab, being all pine construction. I'd have kept it, but I like the swirl and thickness of a 2x12. So I got one. I also have the PRS David Grissom cab, a very sweet ported 2x12 that's all pine as well. Beautiful, huge sounding cab.
IMHO PRS cabs are the absolute bomb.
