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I still use my lunchboxes a lot. I use the acoustic for practice at home (its loud enough to hang if a horn playing friend stops by too) and I use the original for rehearsals, even some gigs. It absolutely needs reverb in any room to "unbox" it a bit.
It hung with a drummer, bass, acoustic guitar, vocals, and pedal steel and fiddle last week. Pretty sweet. Wasn't even half way up.
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09-01-2014 09:31 PM
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I have the LB Acoustic and it sounds fine for home, jams and even small venues. I tried the regular LB first and wasn't impressed (for jazz). The LBA even works well as a head (w reverb) into a 12" cab. Balancing sound, weight and price it works well for me in the applications I need it for.
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I ordered one and ended up returning it (disappointingly).
Very clear sound. Just didn't have enough transparency or shimmer for my taste. I've become used to playing with aluminum dustcaps, makes a big difference.
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i have owned both the lunchbox acoustic and the club ..... i found the LBA more impressive since it was so small and compact and when placed on the floor sounded huge and was used in my gigs with drummers with brushes ....
as i've said before in earlier posts the acoustic lunchbox is way better tonally than the original one for jazz and if you get it cheap ...it's a great amp to gig at small ensemble or solo jazz guitar gigs..... in fact very little can beat it for the ratio of size/weight/power/tone/giggability / features ...in the same price bracket i paid about ($220) BUT if you have a bigger budget i'd say go for a Mambo 8 amp but we are talking 3 to 4 times the price
and with an external cab the ZT acoustic lb sounds huge i used mine with a 15" cab and it sounded huge and very jazzy and hung with a really loud drummer no problem ...but then it loses the appeal of a small (fit in a backpack) amp which i believe is it's selling point .... affordable gigabble sound in a portable tiny box
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I found the Lunchbox extremely portable but the sound was uninteresting. The Club was an improvement but not enough for me to buy one. What I DID buy was used DRRI which kept me happy until I got my current rig.
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IMO once you get past the small size benefit, these amps suck
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Put a good modeler in front of a lunchbox and you got a loud, compact, good sounding rig.
I don't really know what people expect from these. They do what they do. Think of the lunchbox as a powered speaker that'll sound like whatever you put in front of it, and it's pretty dang useful.
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I echo Mr. Beaumont - put a reverb pedal, compressor and Tube screamer type pedal and its awesome. Sure, playing a solo jazz gig would be a stretch but doable. But in a small group where you need to break through, its fantastic. Simply put, as a car-less city dweller, owning this amp allows me to play where I otherwise couldn't. I have cabbed, walked and gotten rides with it, which I couldn't do with a DRRI.
Its a tool that serves a purpose.
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The Lb Acoustic has a great jazz tone, IMHO.
But one could definitely do jazz with a good "fendery" pedal in front of the regular lunchbox, but true, for a solo gig it might be nice to have an extension speaker for a little more low end thump.
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Many thanks for all the replies.
I explored things further and there are indeed solutions. I'm taking my time. So far I've narrowed down options to:
- the Lunchbox, probably the Acoustic version; very expensive in Europe though, hard to find used, would have to import it.
- Fender modelling products; Mustangs v2 seems great. Looking forward to a v2 Mustang "Floor" though, as I'm not sure I really need a full amp, and my wife wouldn't like me bringing another piece of furniture home.
- Blackstar amps? Their marketing is targeted exclusively at rock players though so that leaves them out.
- Ethos products seem great; would run one of their preamp pedal, probably the Clean, as is (they have a cab emulator output) or with a Two Tones Cab simulator pedal, or a software-based cab sim.
- I like what Quilter Labs do a lot. Despite the helpful answers from Quilter, I'm still not sure how a Tone Block would work through an audio interface. I'm not sure I would fully exploit the unit used in this way and it may be overkill based on my needs. I'm all for solid-state solutions as tubes are just too finicky and unpractical IMO, I'd rather invest my time and funds in solid-state and digital solutions, which seem to be the future. I saw a couple of demos with the Kemper unit that were just mind-blowing.
Update
Before I do anything, due to having to get a new PC as mine just died, I'm going to demo the Scuffham S-gear software. Check out "Roy's Dream" in the demoes or if it's not there on their Soundcloud channel, I thought it was brilliant. The Roy Buchanan sound is complex, yet every nuance is there and you wouldn't believe it was a digital amp, at least I could have been fooled.Last edited by m_a; 09-16-2014 at 04:04 AM.
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Great sound from a ZT Lunchbox, but it should be noted that the guitar seems to be really nice and, more importantly, the guitarist is exceptional:
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Jeff - do you think this would also apply to the Acoustic or just to the original Lunchbox for electric sounds ?
Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
I'm thinking this is a good solution for a very light, versatile, portable rig: direct into the LBA with both my piezo-equipped acoustics and my HB archtop, but via a modeller for my thin-line semi for blues and fusion. The first two options seem to be well-covered by the entries here, but not sure about the last option.
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I bought a LB on the recommendation of a NYC jazzer who gigged with it.
I also saw video of Reg Schwager at a gig using it.
These guys, of course, sounded great.
I saw the Seasons Guitar Quartet (Anthony Wilson, Larry Koonse, Chico Pinheiro and Julian Lage) -- all using it.
Not sure about Reg, but the others used various signal processors.
That said, I could not get anything out of it that I liked.
On the floor, the sound just seemed to disappear in everyone's legs. If I turned it up, it sounded harsh.
Off the floor, it sounded screechy -- apparently it needs the coupling to the floor to produce much audible bass.
On balance, my 12 watt Crate GFX15 practice amp sounds much better, has more features, was a third the price, and probably has about as much usable volume -- since the Crate sounds fine well off the floor. The Crate weighs about 15lb to the LB 10, so it's heavier.
My LB sits in a closet. If you can't resist this sales pitch and want to buy it, fine with me.
BTW, I tried it with the Korg PX5D (the NYC jazzer's choice) and my Boss ME80 -- and still couldn't get an acceptable sound.
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Great little amp. I use it with the matching ext cab and it's a great sound for Archtops. Very basic with no reverb so I use a pedal for that. Amazing sound for such a little amp.
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First time posting, but have been lingering for a long time. I am in the market for a small SS amp for jazz/general usage. I am eyeballing the DV Little Jazz, but those are hard to come by in Canada at the moment. The new ZT has got my attention, but I have yet to hear more than the NAMM audio. Has anyone tried it?
Cheers!
T
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