I'd love a Grissom cabinet but I would want the head, too. I'd like the 30 watter, like yours, Les.
If I could have any amp in the world it would be the DG Custom 30 & Cab, Someday it will be mine!!!!
It's probably the most unique amp I've ever owned. Sonically, I've never played an amp that does what it does. But it's also different in operation from most amps. I'll compare it a little to the Mesa Lone Star 100, an amp most of us are familiar with, below.
There is a small learning curve with it because the Master and the Gain controls interact with each other due to the Pre-Phase Inverter type of Master. You don't simply set the gain, and then set the master thinking everything will be like it is on something like a Mesa. The PPI master works differently. The way Grissom sets his up, he simply dimes the master and uses the Gain as an old-school volume control, and of course the amp works great that way, but it gets LOUD.
So the way I do it is to set the Master pretty loud - 1 or 2 o'clock or more - then set the amp up, and then re-adjust the gain and Master to strike a good balance. I prefer the amp on Boost; it's quieter on the normal setting, but my preference there is more for clean sounds. I like a little bit of gristle in my tone, so I use the Boost setting most of the time.
I set the DG30 and HXDA both up with the guitar volume around 6, though that'll vary from guitar to guitar. That way I can control the amp from the guitar's volume, kick in a boost pedal if I want, etc.
There's a little volume jump when the gain control reaches the "noon" mark on the DG30, by the way. The degree of this seems to be a bit tube-dependent. It does it more with the stock JJ in the PI position than with a NOS BRIMAR tube I put in there, but I missed the grit of the JJ, so currently I'm running late 60s/early 70s NOS BRIMARs in V1 and V3, a JJ 12AT7 in V2 (reverb driver) and the JJ 12AX7 in the PI position.
Recently, I got hired to create some music that I felt I needed that Mesa sound for. I felt that a 100 Watt Lone Star would work, and special ordered one because I'm that guy who likes the custom trim.
As luck would have it, the project got cancelled before the amp came in! However, because it was a custom order I took delivery of it anyway -- and my son's been touring with a Lone Star 100, so I figured he could record at my studio if he feels like it when he visits, or even use it as a backup if his fails; I can just ship it to him.
The thinking behind the Lone Star was (I believe) to create a boutique-style Mesa with Fender-ish cleans, and Mesa medium gain. As such, it reminds me a lot of my first-year Tremoverb from the 90s. It's a very nice amp. But as good as it is, and while it's different from my PRS amps, I'd pick the DG30's tones over its clean tones any day, and the gain tones don't really have the beautiful "sink into the overdrive" feel of the HXDA, they're much stiffer and a bit harsh in comparison.
However, I do use it to layer in sounds on projects, because it's good to layer different amps. So that's pretty much what I use it for.
