I knew Tag would have the answer on this one.
When I look back, the time and effort (10 plus years!) I put into getting it right is insane. I should have just bought a Dumble first. Lesson learned. Spend the money and get what you REALLY want up front. . If you dont, most of the time you are going to waste a lot of time, waste a lot of money, and in the end, spend the money and get what you really wanted in the first place anyway. I went nuts. Rented 4 Dumbles at a time for hours on end, A/Bd them with everything that was suppose to be a clone I could find. I actually thought I was FINALLY happy with two older model TwoRocks. An "Artist" and "Emerald Pro". Each did something that the best Dumbles did, but it took two amps to do what ONE great Dumnble could do. One day, a buddy talked me into going to a local shop that had landed TWO Dumbles what seemed like out of nowhere. I was really happy with what I had, and just went for the fun of it. The first one was a 70s Dumble, and it was OK, but I had played several early and mid 80s, which to me sounded the best. The second one was ordered in the early 80s, and delivered about 6-7 years after it was ordered. The guy thought he was never going to see the amp, or get his money back, and one day Howie calls him out of the blue and says your amp is done. Like it was totally normal to wait 6 years for an amp. Anyway, I plugged in, played 2-3 notes, and my stomach felt awful right away. I had played some killer Dumbles, but this thing was unreal. They had 2 D style amps there as well, a carol Ann and a Fuchs, both very nice amps in their own right, but the heck if that dumble did not eat them alive. We changed cabs, speakers, everything. That Dumble was pure magic. I was not going to make the mistake again. I got it, and it put my TwoRocks to sleep as well. I was hoping to keep that baby until I was done, but the economy crunched and i had to let it go. I had it cloned before hand just in case anything like that happened. Another thing, every guitar I played through it sounded unreal, but the best match for it IMO, PRSs and Teles. The perfect combination. I still dig my fenders for pure cleans, but the Dumbles cleans are damn good, and there is nothing that touches the overdrive of the best Dumbles. The closest thing to a human voice you will find in an amp. There is nothing like them.
Here is a clip of the Dumble with my old PRS Modern Eagle 1 plugged in (You cant see it in the clip) I never meant to post this, as its just rambling, but the amp sounded so good, I put it up on you tube anyway. The verb is from a Trex roomate in the loop. You can see a few of my twoRocks in the picture as well that were sold a few days later.. And there it is! My old Monster studio cable! So thick it would never unwind correctly. Good thing I did not pull on it any harder! LOL!
(It was actually a tremendous amount of work for him to get it right, but get it right he did!)
