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I'm giving the Mambo some pretty serious thought but I'm unsure whether to consider a head or a 1x10 combo.
Most of the comments I've read here are about the combos. Is anyone using the head and if so, with which cabs. Has anyone tried it with the Raezer Edge cabs (I'd especially like to know if anyone's tried it with a Stealth 10)?
How is the reverb? Does it sound at all like a traditional spring reverb or is it more obviously digital?
Has anyone done any recording using the XLR direct out? And if so, how is it? Is it a good representation of the amp or do you really need to use a mic to get that?
In the combos, is there a really big difference between the 8 and the 10?
Does the 10 spread sound or does it feel really focused and beamy.
How has the reliability been? Anyone having any problems yet or has it been rock solid?
Anything else you'd like to add, I'd be interested in reading (and I suspect a lot of people wold be), so feel free.
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07-31-2013 11:48 AM
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Jim, I recently purchased a Mambo head and have been using it with custom cabinets that I had made for me by Rick Johnson, a 1x10 with an Eminence Beta 10a, or a 1x12 with an EVM12L (| Steel Guitar, Cabinet Making and More). Both speakers sound fantastic with the head, although I think I have a slight preference for the 1x10. (I believe the Beta 10a is the stock speaker that comes with the 10" combo.) I purchased the 180 watt version -- also available in at 300 watts. I also had Jon install the headphone jack.
The 24 bit digital reverb is fine, better sounding to me than most on-board reverbs (for example, in my recently sold Acoustic Image Clarus). It doesn't really mimic a spring reverb (at least to my ears) and don't think it was meant to. There are two controls, one for reverb depth and one for time of decay. Jon recently simplified the reverb options offered to just this one configuration.
I have not had any issues with the head, although I've only had it a month or so. You do have to purchase a carrying case for it separately.
Jon was a real pleasure and a gentleman to deal with.
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I use a Mambo head with a Redstone RS10ER cabin et and it works very well for me. The tweeter (adjustable with an L pad) in the RS cabinet allows me to adjust how much sparkle the tone will have.
As for the reverb, it's fairly good but I still prefer the sound of my Tech21 Boost R.V.B pedal. I had Jon install the full reverb controls but the difference they make is subtle - or my ears are not what they used to be.
I have heard the clips you have uploaded from time to time and have noticed the bright and sparkling sound. Therefore I strongly suggest you try a Mambo before buying. The Mambo has a traditional 1950s jazz guitar sound and you may find it too dark for your taste - and then you'll have to add say a BarbEQ or the like which was not the idea.
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Jim - I've had a 10" wedge since March this year & to date no problems at all with it - I'm gigging once a week with it since then & the amp is consistently good.
In terms of sound projection - my experience is that it has both good projection & can easily fill a space. The first time I gigged with it - the singer was initially dismissive in terms of the amp's size but when I was warming up came back across the from the other side of the room immediately to comment on how great the amp sounded and again how it filled the room. I'm not a big fan of volume for volume's sake and like the way the amp has real presence with it becoming brittle or too-cutting sounding. Recently played at a wedding in a big old 19th century church & whilst bearing in mind that the building is designed (in part) for sound - the amp again sounded great.
I'm due to do some recording in a studio in the next couple of weeks and will try the XLR out then & will let you know how it goes.
Reverb is good - have no complaints about it - but then would use sparingly. I play a peerless monarch through it & other guitar players have commented (as above) that it has that real 50s blue note guitar sound & is great at capturing the acoustic qualities of the guitar.
Also as said above it was a pleasure dealing with Jon - he is a real gent.
PS I love the look and sound of your guitars - if my numbers ever come up I'll be onto you with an order!
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Lots of questions Jim. First I agree that the Mambo stock sound is not a sound I would hear from you a lot... But it's also not the typical blanket jazz amp sound. You can get a pretty open sound... I usually boost the mids but maybe scooping them will put your closer to the typical blackface sound you use. I am in NY right now or I would try that and tell you.
Jon has (had?) plans to replace the deep bright swith with a blackface / tweed mid boost switch. Talk with him and see if it will be available soon. The amp sounds MUCH warmer and natural than most jazz amps (imho).
I have the head with Jon's cabs (two 10s) and have tried the 8 combo. I also have a big EV DR Z cab that I run closed. I bet it would sound just as good with an RE cab.
The reverb is the best digital built-in I have ever heard but still, of course, not as good as a good pedal. It's not close to a spring sound... more a natural room / hall reverb.
The 10 has a deeper and more present sound. Both have excellent dispersion (comparing a 8 combo with my head and a 10 cab). The wedge is the way to go in my opinion. Also the 10 has a mid scoop the 8 does not (see speakers' charts). They are the least beamy cabs I have ever tried given that size... excellent presence and no ice pick. At really high volumes it can sound a little harsh but I think that has to do with how the Betas deal with the transients.
I had a minor issue NOT RELATED with Jon, his power amp supplier sent him a faulty unit. Everything was taken care of very fast at no cost for me - brilliant customer service. The amp seems exceptionally well built but I am not an expert,
For the classic "polytone" jazz sound it's the best I have ever tried. But I know that is not a sound you look for so...
In your case an herniksen head with a barb eq and say a subdecay spring theory reverb would be perfect, trust me.
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You may be right but if I'm going to go with a bunch of separate pieces, then I'd be happy enough just getting a second Pod. The only reason to consider a change is to have a simple grab and go rig to play out. If I can;t achieve that then I'd just stay with the solution that I already have and know.
Originally Posted by jorgemg1984
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Your question about recording via XLR, Jim; I have used the mambo xlr for a couple of recordings, and i posted a snippet of one in an earlier mambo thread. It's just the guitar, but coloured by the tone controls - which in my case, were set on 5, 5, 5.( so maybe not coloured after all...) Happy to dig it out, if it helps.
I agree with Jorge that, judging by the recordings you have posted, the mambo doesn't sound like it would do the job for you -it's not a scooped-mid amp, it's flat, in a very, very good way. For me, the mambo reverb should satisfy all those who aren't reverb black belts..
The Evans AH200 head will produce almost any sound, with reasonable reverb, and might be better for your purposes. It's very expensive IMO, but a good amp. No experience of the Quilter.
Chris
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It's VERY, VERY good. For jazz it's fantastic. You can tell it's designed by a guy who actually plays guitar because the EQ and switches work absolutely perfectly and are all in the right place. I did try it for some robben ford fusion stuff and it seems to be right at home with that as well.
More later including clips....
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Very interested, looking forward to your clips Jack.
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Spent a couple hours playing through this amp today. i was using it through an AI Corus cabinet. Compared to the AI Corus amp, the mambo is more transparent in the lows and mids and therefore has a bit more clarity. This also translates into some additional versatility for fusion overdrive tones.
Unlike most of the other SS amps out there, the tone controls are perfectly positioned so that the treble knob can be used (along with the bright switch) to provide a very tube-like bensony tone. There is also a harmonics switch but so far I have not played around with it much.
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Jack have you owned an Evans amp before and how would you compare this Mambo to one of those? Thanks!
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Yes, I've owned 3 evans amps. No comparison frankly. The thing that makes the mambo different is that the preamp is very neutral and clear sounding. On almost every other SS amp, the mids are extremely colored. In the case of the evans amp, it's got a very exaggerated midrange that to my ears is fatiguing. The mambo's midrange is very clear and transparent. Originally Posted by jads57
Also, like many other SS amps, the evans treble control is not quite placed right. It seems to be more of an upper midrange control.
For me, the thing that makes a fender BF tone stack so great is that all the controls are ideally placed. Boosting the treble from 4 to 6 for example, gives you that slightly biting, george benson tone. I can get that on the mambo. Not so on the evans or acoustic image or henriksen.
Don't get me wrong, the mambo does not sound like a tube amp but it's very clear and with tone controls that were obviously designed by a guitar players ears.
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Jack,
I am glad to hear that you liking your new amp.
The Fender BF tonestack which I know that you like, is among the most colored out there. The frequencies in the fundamental guitar range are all highly attenuated and scooped. A Tweed/Marshall tonestack is actually much closer to being neutral. With the BF tonestack, the treble control really effects the midrange (on a guitar, I think of mids as 300-600 Hz). So it really is a mid/treble control which you have found to be a problem on other amps. The blue line on the figure below is the treble pot set at 4. So take a look at what happens between a change from 4 to 6
This plot doesn't even take into account speaker coloration which further deviates from neutral. It is likely that the Mambo is just colored in a pleasing way to your ears. What is fatiguing to some, is perhaps pleasing to others (e.g. Exaggerated mids/extremely colored). So perhaps what you find "clear and transparent" is just a pleasing euphonic coloration.
My $.02
Bob
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they all have strengths and weaknesses and I still think a great tube amp is the best sound like a BF Deluxe which is what wes reportedly favored in rudy zeller's studio... It probably depends on the guitar too. I think the top 5 SS amps in no particular order are
henriksen, acoustic image, mambo, evans, quilter
Any of them are capable of getting a great tone.
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Glad you like the mambo.
I like them very much, but I'd describe their particular asset as the idea of ''weight'' to the notes in the low mids; the top string fundamentals just seems to push right through a mix.
I know from the mambo eq plot that it's designed to be flat @ 5, 5, 5. So theoretically the coloration comes from speakers and all the rest - and cab of course. All v subjective of course.
I'd agree about the older Evans amps' trebles, but the newer ones have a 'buff' feature that really sorts the treble issues out IMO. It's a sort of presence control.
ps I can see 'like' buttons on all these posts…...
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i'm not sure about the "flat" at 5,5,5. My quilter also claims to be flat at 5,5,5 but sounds Waaaaaay different. Unuseable at 5,5,5 but fortunately the tone controls have a huge range on that amp. And my AI is supposed to be flat at 5,5,5. I think the tone stack may be flat but there are other colorations either before or after the preamp in most guitar amps that effect that...And I'm running all through the same speaker for my tests... Originally Posted by Franz 1997
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that's what I'm saying..that the tonestack should be flat @ 555 so the colorations which will be there come from other things.
how do you like the mambo sound @555? too flat?
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no it's perfect at 5,5,5 but what I'm saying is that all 3 of my amps claim to be flat at 5,5,5 and they all have wildly different colorations so something's not right. The mambo through my corus cab needs no tweaking . 5,5,5 is perfect. Through my open back cab with celestion lead 80 it needs additional brightness and less mids.
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Jack,
I believe the AI to be quite flat in its frequency response when set at the detents @ 5-5-5. I believe aside from the EQ that has been discussed, many of the sounds that we try to emulate are quite colored (see example below):
Guitar together with an amp is an instrument with a colored EQ that sounds euphonically good in the context of other instruments. I think there is a love/hate reaction to neutral amps like AI for this reason (along with EQ centering). I happened to like the difference between my AI and Fender style amps, but I was looking for an accurate reproduction of my archtop. I find the Evans falls in between a Fender Style and an AI (adds some nice euphonics).
:-)
Bob (from an airport waiting for a plane!)
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interesting point..on reflection, yes I have found the same with different SS amps. One good example is the polytone, which does have a very distinctive coloration @555, even though the preamp has a 'standard' bax tonestack like the AI and mambo. I don't know what tonestack quilter uses, and evans doesn't have a flat setting - or if it does, one could start a whole thread discussing what it is....
One banal explanation could be that pots of nominally the same value, but different brands in different amps, could vary in their taper so that '5' isn't really 5. I do know that pots in BF and SF amps could be all over the place when measured..
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right Bob, but you and I seem to be speaking over each other. My point is that I can set the quilter and the AI and the mambo all at 5,5,5 and in theory the tonal response should be the same but it's not. Therefore, one or more of these amps is introducing coloration somewhere else in the signal path or they're not being 100% truthful about the frequency curves.
The mambo and the AI sound quite different at 5,5,5
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If you look at the mambo online user manual you will see that the eq plot @5,5,5 is as flat as makes no difference. The power amp also has a flat response.
That said, Oldane, I agree with your descriptions of the 2 respective amps; the mambo is more 'guitaristic'. But it isn't because the mambo preamp eq is not flat at the midpoints, it is for some other reason.
I found the AI had a somewhat more 'sterile' sound overall than the mambo, but I'd imagine they use very similar preamp structures and a very similar class D output section. Yes, the tone control turnover points are guitaristically selected on the mambo, but at 555, that should make no difference.
I think JZ has made an interesting point - why do these 'flat' amps sound so different, as I think we are saying they do..
bear in mind the classic coloured poly sound coming from another flat preamp; I doubt anyone would describe that as transparent and neutral…but the poly preamp is also flat @555; Jon S scoped my old poly preamp only recently
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make sure you run your amps through the same speaker, obviously...Frankly though, despite some claims to the contrary, I do not think of the AI amps as transparent enough for acoustic guitar and vocals. Sure, lots of people use them for that purpose including myself but the midrange is very thick on the AI amps. Acoustic guitar and vocals sound better with a little more transparent midrange. If you plug into a powered speaker it has a more transparent tone than the AI amps. Now, maybe that's not truly a flat freq response but what is flat on a scope and what sounds flat to our ears are two different things. Originally Posted by Franz 1997
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Jack,
This is the frequency response of your Mambo head, with all eq flat (5,5,5), normal setting. (this is actually a plot of your amp taken during it's QC testing back in June 2013)
So it's "flat" in character, compared to say a Fender style scooped mid (AB763 etc.), but can't really be called flat in the technical sense. The smooth roll-off in the low end, covering the guitar string fundamantal frequencies, means it's down a few dB at the bottom E string. The speaker and cabinet and the guitar itself have a huge effect on the overall frequency response of course.
I don't really want to give too much away, but it's only a matter of time before someone reverse-engineers anyway.
cheers
JonLast edited by jonmambo; 03-23-2014 at 08:37 AM. Reason: smaller image file
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This is the frequency response of an AI Contra with and without the HF driver engaged. This is measuring speaker output and not the amp/tonestack like john shared (thanks John!).
The amp specification sheet is 20-20,000 Hz + - 0.5 dB (which seems consistent with the output results albeit with cabinet/speaker limitations). I see a fairly flat response across the 80-1,300 fundamental range. I imagine as specified, it is a flat response. I am sure if someone asks Rick Jones for an amp plot he'll share one.
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