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I'm becoming more convinced than ever that, unlike audio Reproduction, where the aim is to Reproduce recorded music with absolute fidelity, the goal here is different.
So many variables - the guitar, strings, player, amp, speaker, room size and character etc come into play in Producing the sound we want.
So "flat" may not be the goal, rather choosing an amp that fits into all the above variables and others in a manner that also meets weight, size and cost constraints.
Playing blues on a Telecaster in a large room requires an entirely different amp than playing chord melody on an archtop in a comfortable living room.
As a result, choosing an amp properly requires actually trying it out in the intended circumstances, and the reviews of others only are a guide - it's a musical instrument, just as much as our guitars.
Just my observations.
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02-16-2015 08:46 AM
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Chris, great post. Spook I told you someone else would explain it properly
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Thanks Jorge. Tell you what though, I wish I could understand the modelling thread that you young blokes seem to talk about so easily
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Ha ha maybe one day you'll be "converted"
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I purchased a Jazzamp 110 a while back and wound up selling it after a few months. I play a D'Angelico copy by Vestax with a floating pickup. I tried every known setting with the equalizer, amp on floor, amp on stand, tilted back, etc. and never could get a nice, mellow rounded tone that cut through on a gig (mostly quiet jazz quartet) or even in my house -- it always seemed a little boxy and stuffy to me. In retrospect I think a 112ER would have been a better match for my guitar. I replaced the Jazzamp 110 with a Polytone V and I'm perfectly happy with it.
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You know.. sometimes I type 'flat' and I mean 'neutral'. The Henriksen is not adding or removing frequency content when the knobs are at '5' or 12 o'clock. This being flat. To Boatheel's point, amps are sometimes instruments just like everything else and it should not be surprising that a Henriksen sounds like a Henriksen. Many love the sound, a few don't.
As for what the Joyo American is doing (to color the sound even more), I suspect they are replicating certain frequencies and adding them back in maybe with a slight phase shift. The trick being which frequencies to choose and in what amount.
BTW.. the Henriksen does makes a splendid small bass amp in quiet settings.
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Hey guys
I received my Henriksen 1 X12 ER today and I am over the moon. So far, I have set everything flat (12:00) and I don't find myself with any urge to adjust the settings further. I love the acoustic tone of my set pickup archtop and this thing lets me have it at a louder volume. It does not add anything that my guitar does not naturally have and nothing is taken away.
As I said in an earlier post, I have always been a tube amp guy and had some kind of weird prejudice against SS amps. I think I got lucky with this Henriksen because usually my first stab at new gear ends up on Ebay shortly after purchase. After playing this for a day, I cans say that I do not want to try a 1X10. I love the low end of my 1x12 and now I know why it gets a solid nod around here.
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In my experience, one of the neglected contributing factors to the sound of your amp is location: my shed is all wood, and I can easily get a sound I like without much twiddling with the controls. Same settings in the classroom: sounds awful, and needs a lot of tweaking to get right. Really good amps can sound pretty bad in an "unfriendly" environment, just like cheap stuff can sound great in an "archtop-friendly" room.
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Oh, this is so true!
Originally Posted by Brubra
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I completely agree. This point is almost worth its own thread. For me, saturday night crowded pubs/ bars make all my gear sound bad..... Originally Posted by AlainJazz
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I really enjoy my Henriksen ...
But I also love variety ... so I'll be keeping my tube amps ... and my Roland cube
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Currently contemplating selling mine. It does that clean thing very well...but if I'm honest, that's really not what I'm looking for right now. I have other amps that get closer to what I want. That's just me, I guess.
Expect to see it in the For Sale section any time soon.
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i'm with coolvinny - no reverb at all
i use a henriksen 110
i've never used reverb - but as soon as you turn on the reverb switch on the henriksen amp the sound quality takes a serious hit
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Yep.. another Heineken fan here.
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congrats. I have been using a Jazzamp 112 for many years and it does great at my gigs. Not a big fan of the reverb but the eQ is really great, perfectly tuned for 7-string guitar, and has plenty of power for my small combo gigs.
Even amps with good sounding reverb cannot compare to a good reverb pedal, so I am just as well plugging in a TC "Hall of Fame" to the Henriksen and to any other amp really.
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On the Henriksen's Website it says:
"With a cabinet originally tuned for upright bass, the JazzAmp 112 also quickly became a favorite choice for guitar players with greater volume demands and a wider frequency needs, such as 7-string players and....."
which means that it was originally designed for upright bass.
Therefore I'd like to ask Henriksen the following question: " If you had decided from the very beginning to build an amp for guitar players, which 12" speaker would you have chosen? Exactly the same (Eminence Beta 12) or a different one, and if so, which one?
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A clue might lie in the fact, that a few years ago, they used the Eminence Ragin Cajun speaker in both their Convertible and Bluesamp models.
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But the Ragin Cajun only comes in 10" size.
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Yes, I know. I was trying to make the point that they did use other 'guitar' speakers in their amps..I think they used the Legend 1258 in the 12" Bluesamp for a while.
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Yes, you are right, it was the Eminence Legend 1258 in the BluesAmp 112, which is rated 75W, if I remember correctly, much less than the actual Eminence Beta 12.
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I A/Bed the whole range of henriksens with my polytone for hours at one local store and i really don't get the love for henriksens.
True, the sweet spot is easy to obtain, but they really compress A LOT of the sound, going from them to the polytone was making the sound more open and alive, each time.
We tried to get the kind of directness, dynamics and tone that my polytone delivers (my friend was basically looking for something similar to it) and ended up leaving the shop looking for a used polytone instead.
I found the tone kindof seducing in a 'overprocessed to make it forgiving' way, but in the end, overcompressed and only capable of doing one sound (where the polytone has useful sounds from the classic 'muffled' jazz sound to the modern rosenwinkelian bright sounds)
Just surprised to real only positive opinions about the henriksens ...
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I think this thread shows that opinions are very mixed! Originally Posted by add4
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I'm surprised add4 found the sweet spot easy to obtain--IME then henriksen takes a little work to dial in.
I've even grown to dig my henriksen with my tele, now that i've figured out the eq better...i should mention i have the head though, i don't use a henriksen cab.
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Hi Mr B, if you don't mind sharing, I'd like to know your 'go-to' setting(s) on the Henricksen. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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I start every room with the jimmy bruno settings, then adjust from there. Usually the second knob gets cut a little more, sometimes the others move, rarely more than 1 "number's" worth.
Then i figure out if i need reverb, and I'm good to go.
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Chunking, does it work for Jazz improv?
Today, 10:59 AM in Guitar Technique