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Thanks to Jim777, I learned of a used ODH head at a GC 50 minutes from home. I've been wanting to try one since I first learned about them. I was planning to get up to Fuchs later this summer when they got another one in, since they're all made to order. So I drove down to GC on Tuesday with one of my guitars, played through it for about an hour, and fell in love. It followed me home, and Mom let me keep it
It's a triumph of engineering for sure. It's a bit industrial in design and construction, but it's one solid piece on which everything looks and feels professional grade. There are enough controls to get an amazing variety of sounds from it, but it's nowhere near as complex as a later Boogie Mark to dial in. The basic clean spectrum is very wide, from fat and warm to lean and tight. I played through a 1x12 and was amazed at the fantastic jazz tones I could get from it. It does justice to everything from my 14" to 17" carved boxes and my 16" laminates, and it lets each sound like itself.
Then I went to Dumbleland and found what I've been looking for for years. Dumbles were all built for their buyers' playing styles. There were several models (SSS, Dumbleland, Manzamp, Overdrive Reverb, ODS etc), all of which sound different from each other. But no two examples of the same model sound exactly alike either. What's most amazing about the ODH (and, I presume, the tube Fuchs amps as well) is that it'll do pretty much any of them. In half an hour, I found Mayer, SRV, Carlton, Bonamassa (who has 3 ODHs), Robben Ford's smooth endless sustain, Lowell George, Bonnie Raitt and so many more. I've only scratched the surface, but I've already found every sound I'll ever want or need in it. No pedal in my experience comes close.
It works its magic on my 12" BlockDock, 10" RE, 8" RevSound, and 6" Toob Metro BG+. I absolutely love it!! Assuming it holds up on my gigs through the 45 day return period, I'll sell the Tone Block 202 and both Block Docks and buy a Mojotone Light 1x12 cab (since the ODH has to sit on top of the BD and the back feet drop into the amp opening).
I just threw these clips together to see if it sounds as good on recordings as it does while playing it. It does! These are all through the RE 10.
Here's a very short FS riff on the Bravo -
Here's a bebop head picked on the Bravo with a Dunlop Jazz Stubby -
and here's a brief example of the creamy sustain I've been chasing (that's an EMG active in the Frankenpaul - the pickup has absolutely no character of its own) -
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07-02-2026 02:26 PM
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Sounds great David, I'm really happy you ended up with that amazing amp
A really great amp just makes you want to play all the time.
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And as you now know, I was able to get the 10" Fuchs cabinet that you spotted on Reverb for it this afternoon. I can't tell you how much I appeciate your vigilance on this stuff, Jim. The reason I don't follow Reverb etc is that I'll end up with too much stuff again. But as you know, I've been interested in the ODH since it came out - and the wait was worth it.
Originally Posted by jim777
Sounds great David, I'm really happy you ended up with that amazing amp A really great amp just makes you want to play all the time.
So now I'll have a Fuchs ODH 110 to go with my Blu 6. These should fulfill all my gigging needs forever. Having just spent all this $, I'll keep using the Metro FRFR II and the BG+ as my sound reinforcement system, powered by one of the BAMs. Once the Ibanez and the Quilters are sold, I'll be in compliance with the one in - one out rule again and I'll have put the cash back in our account.
Now I'm really thrilled that I didn't buy the Bud 10!
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Sweet - congrats! Andy's amps are pretty amazing! Enjoy!
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Killing me with this post. I haven’t bought a new guitar or amp in 2.5 years with the exception of the milkman benson pedal amp. Seeing you all post about this and the new quilters has been curious. I almost ordered this exact head from GC to test it out and return if I didn’t like it. I’m glad it ended up in your hands. It sounds great in your demos. Can you say anything about feel/compression vs a tube amp, eq flexibility. Do you know the center frequencies for the different EQ bands? Also is the cooling fan noisy?
Great playing as always.
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Congrats on the new gear. Andy makes good amps. Some have lots of options. Some ... don't.
And plenty of room inside to pack a lunch.
Last edited by Hammertone; 07-13-2026 at 06:46 PM.
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It sounds amazing, Dave. Made to measure!
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Thanks for the kind words! The fan is inaudible. It plays like a tube amp because the front end is a pair of 12AX7s. There's also a 6AL5 in the chain after the first gain stages to limit signal strength into the power module and prevent the class D output stage from clipping (which would sound terrrible). So all the O/D in this comes from the tube front end. Clean or dimed, it plays and sounds like the best tube amps. As you push the input gain up and the master down, it develops progressive sag and compression just like a tube amp. It's also amazingly pick sensitive. Originally Posted by omphalopsychos
The frequency bands covered by the EQ pots are not specified in the manual, which does offer a lot of insight into how they work. The EQ pots and switches are pretty comprehensive. The "accent" pot adds extreme highs (a presence control), and the "depth" pot adds extreme lows. The EQ, mid, and brite 3 way toggles shift the centers of the affected frequency bands, with the center positions bypassing the EQ in each band. The low, mid, and high pots are active tone pots (flat at noon) with a broad range. The tone pot in the OD channel is a high cut filter to smooth out the OD.
It feels like the most flexible, powerful 5E3 in the world when playing. You can set the edge of breakup to be sharp or broad. Make it thunk like Tal, chime like Carlton, or cry like Clapton's "woman tone". It's an absolute blast to play through, and it sounds fantastic no matter how you set it or play. I am truly in love!
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I caved. Dave based on your glowing review I took the plunge and grabbed the last one from American Music Supply (they have free one day shipping so I should get it on Monday). If I had ordered from FUCHs directly I’d have a wait time and no refunds, so it felt worth it.
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Awesome! Be prepared to spend a little time dialing it in. The controls are all very effective and tiny changes are quite audible. When I first plugged in, I started in the clean channel, with gain and master both low (about 9 o’clock) and all EQ flat. I turned the accent and depth trim pots all the way down, and put the 3 tone toggles at center (off) position. It sounded good but not as warm as I wanted. I tweaked the EQ knobs one at a time, and found a little bass boost got me much closer. Then I tried each position of each toggle and found EQ2 to bring me much closer to my preferred jazz tone. Originally Posted by omphalopsychos
The accent pot added nothing, but I was playing through a PRS 1x12 - so there wasn’t much above 5 kHz coming out anyway. The depth pot added a little more of what I love in tone. But turning it above about 1/3 of its arc added a little flab in the lowest notes on the 7, so I left it where it sounded best to me. At that point, it sounded great, so I moved on to overdrive.
Even in the clean channel, gain up and master down brings breakup. There’s a huge range of “edge” in the balance between the two knobs, and the pick sensitivity is astounding. Using EQ to judiciously brighten up the mids and/or the top, you can get Mayer clean SSS tone, Carlton chime etc. But it takes careful adjustment a little at a time, balancing gain, volume, and all the EQ controls.
The OD channel offers pretty much everything you’ve ever heard from any Dumble, from creamy, endless sustain to SRV crunch to the fattest slide tone you ever heard. It doesn’t do heavy Marshall style crunch though, because that comes from pushing the power tubes and a class D output circuit sounds terrible when overdriven. This is fine with me, since I don’t play gigs that call for that and I don’t like that sound.
Balancing the OD channel controls for your preferred sounds can take a while, because the gain pot controls the signal strength to the OD circuit, and so does the input pot in the OD channel. The OD output pot controls the strength of the overdriven signal as it hits the output stage, with the master volume controlling the overall out level. It takes all of the gain pots (gain, OD in, OD out, and master) to set the relative levels of the clean and OD channels. Several reviews and owners’ reports online complain that they can’t get the tone they want at low volumes. I suspect they didn’t devote much time to learning how all these controls interact. Once you get the OD sound you want, use the OD output pot to balance its volume against the clean channel. Then use the master to adjust the overall level of the amp. Great tone at a whisper is right there if you use all the pots carefully and delicately.
Be careful. This sucker can get really loud with any kind of tone! I follow the manual, muting the amp before turning it off and only unmuting it after it warms up. The pilot light will be red until it’s ready (about 30 seconds), changing to green (clean) or blue (OD) when ready, depending on the channel for which it’s set.
The manual also warns not to power up without a speaker load connected. Since you can operate it as a preamp and drive external amps or the house board from the line out (with the amp muted), I don’t understand the admonition to have a load on the output before turning it on. But I trust Fuchs to know their stuff, so I’m following the instructions. I also took pics of the settings once I found clean, EOB, chime, and cream for each guitar. Like a Boogie Mk IV, l’ll never remember all the settings for all the tones.
I hope you love it even a fraction as much as I do. The 10” cab I ordered for it tracks to a Monday delivery. We can both report back Monday night
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Thanks for taking the time to write all that! I’ll be sure to give all these settings a shot. Can’t wait to try it out.
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Andy loves amps, and guitarists, and everything that ties them together. He recently totally redid my '67 Bassman, which I've had for about 10 years but never got serviced. It also never really worked, and had been very poorly modded. A friend who fixes damage done to foreclosed houses found it in such a house years ago and gave it to me knowing I played guitar.
Andy fixed it all up, got rid of the poorly done mods, and because an extra hole had been put in the front panel, he added a Master Volume knob and even gave it a period correct knob!
Further, because it had a 3 pronged power cable, it didn't need the ground switch anymore so he repurposed it into a half power switch! No charge for either of those updates, he just thought it would make my nearly 60 year old amp more flexible and useable. And the amp is glorious I can't speak highly enough of Andy, and his whole staff. Great guys all (and I picked up a germanium Plush Drive II pedal to go with my old green plush drive, both of which are permanently on my pedalboard). If and when Big Red sells I'm going to pick up one his amps as well.
P.S. This post was edited due to my spelking errors... and tequila 
Last edited by jim777; 07-04-2026 at 12:30 AM.
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Damn, that is awesome. Super versatile. 6 lbs, AWESOME.
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I've had mine for a year and I love it, I use it with an EV12L speaker on a Mesa Cab, and an attenuator in order to get the sweet spot at higher volumes.
Andy Fuchs is a genius!
Arnie...
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I believe (which is basically the same as "I heard someone say") that Andy changed the volume pot in the ODH's first revision so the Master Volume behaved a bit more friendly to its 150/300 Watts. Might be worth calling the shop to see if yours could benefit from that mod. I think it's just a POT swap.
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So interesting to read about this David especially since we seem to share a lot of tone tastes! I’ve been into the Dumble sound from the start and that start was when I built my studio 5 years ago and I wanted amps that were beyond good back line amps but really great amps. I never intended to gig with what I ended up with which was actually two different Dumble clones made by Amplified Nation. My favorite is the steel string singer hundred watt although I initially purchased the overdrive Reverb 50w because it covered more ground. So I happily have both Amp heads going to a single 12 inch speaker cab also got from amplified Nation with a celestial cream back and I use an Amp switcher. It ends up being a three channel system, and I use the steel string singer for my clean tones, almost always, but occasionally the clean channel in the ODR but I use the overdrive channel of the ODR to augment the SSS. They stay in my studio, although I once brought the rig out for my album release concert which had a pretty large audience for me at least 500 people. So good for you to come up with what looks like a fantastic portable solution with perhaps even a wider range of dumble tones. I have a UA enigmatic their Dumble modeler and it’s pretty darn good, They strive to cover a wide array of Dumble incarnations. As with all digital modelers, I find running them through my Fryette PS 2 as the power amp and attenuator really brings it to life and carrying those two things around is not much of a problem.
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Gig report! I used the ODH through my 12” Block Dock on a very loud and shockingly eclectic gig last night. I’m subbing for a forum member in his organ trio for a few Friday night dates. The venue is an old school jazz bar that’s become a hot spot for kids a lot of whom are young enough to be my grandchildren
Many are surprisingly into everything from bebop to fusion to Kansas City blues, and they’re a great and interactive audience. I was absolutely floored while talking to a group of them to be complimented on my guitar’s tone. I was playing the LP 7 with EMG in the blues clip in post #1.
One told me he thought I’d switched to an archtop for Billie’s Bounce and This I Dig of You because the tone reminded him of Wes. Another thought it was more like Grant Green. Multiple staff members from bartender to bouncer picked up on the Ford & Chris Cain tones I used for some blues. And the SSS sparkle put real life into (shudder!) disco hits like I Will Survive.
The band and bar appear to take pride in how high an SPL they can generate / tolerate. The only band I’ve ever experienced that was louder was Delbert McClinton’s at a Monkton (MD) blues festival several years ago. I was backing Frankie Lee, and Delbert asked me to come on stage with him (I didn’t play - they had no charts and his guitar player was fantastic, so I just stayed at the side and grooved). It was an outdoor stage, but it suddenly poured during the day. So they put up a huge tent around it and the rain continued. The sound system was still set for an open event, and everybody was mic’ed including a big horn section. It was deafening on stage and uncomfortable even with my earplugs in.
We approached that kind of loudness by the end of the gig. The ODH delivered every tone I asked it for at any volume level. It wasn’t even warm to the touch, and I swear it winked at me when I put it in the gig bag.
The Quilter 202 I used last week handled the volume as easily. But the Fuchs delivers fantastic Dumble in addition to fat Twin, 5E3, Boogie, etc etc. It even does JC120 (sans effects, unless you use pedals) and can be as flat as a Polytone. It’s well worth twice the price of a Tone Block 202 if you need what it does. The TB 202 is as fine for jazz tones and does decent fusion and blues just with the gain & master volume set right. Good effects (like an Enigmatic) will bring it even closer. The 202 is as loud through a single 8 Ohm speaker, although the ODH will pump twice as much wattage into 4 Ohms and closer to 500 honest WRMS into an 8 Ohm and a 4 Ohm in the two speaker jacks.
I love the Fuchs more every time I play through it!Last edited by nevershouldhavesoldit; 07-04-2026 at 12:38 PM.
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Non update. My shipment was delayed to tomorrow due to the holiday in the US.
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It arrived. I only had a few minutes to plug it in just now. I’m blown away. The EQ is really flexible and on point. It feels like a tube amp.
Will play more tonight and take it to rehearse with a funk band (without the pedalboard). Will report back.
Like Dave, I may not need a lot of other gear after playing this.
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That makes at least two of us! Originally Posted by Stringswinger
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This section is good for my GAS. I find the TB202 to sound ok on its own. Where it really shines is as a pedal platform, IMO. It absolutely inhales overdrive and modulation. And the master works great at giving you the same sounds and feel no matter the level. It responds in a really linear way, if that makes sense. Unlike smaller tube amps it never caves in on itself and gives up. Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
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LOL, I literally have more amps than guitars at this point, and I’m very very happy with the amps. But I’m curious: for us Luddites, can anyone give a screen capture of the settings dialed in for the most pristine dark warm jazz sparkle we all love? Or describe them with clarity. Curious to see what those settings are-and if there is a sound sample (or correlates with the sound samples above). Thanks.
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Took it out to play with a funk group tonight. Continue to be impressed. The bassist commented on how good it sounded. I played it with a 1x12 Barefaced cabinet with a Celestion Alnico Cream. Guitar was a telecaster. Amazing overdrive tones from this amp. I didn't take any other pedals.
Will share more after playing some jazz with it with a band. I've been messing with some other cabs, including the RE Stealth 10ER. It sounds unsurprisingly great with that for jazz. I also like it with my open back Raezer's edge 12 with a Tone Tubby 4240. It sounded great through every cab i tried it with. That's more than I can say for the benson milkman amp, which is very dark.
I am still getting a feel for the EQ. There are 3 switches that change the character of the tone stack in addition to essentially 5 frequency bands of standard EQ.
That's all I got for now. I think it was a great buy and I'll be likely to sell some of my other heads soon.
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If you say something along the lines of, "I'd love to try a..." or "I'm definitely considering a...", someone will happily find it for you. There are definitely gear hunters among us Originally Posted by Stringswinger
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I know it’s early days but any thoughts on the ODH vs the Vibrolux Reverb? I have a ‘64 I am thinking of selling and replacing with one of these to have something more versatile. I only use the Vibrolux on the normal channel anyway.. Originally Posted by omphalopsychos
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