Boogie & Dumble had a baby, and they called it Quilter OD 202.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

The Quilter OD 202 I ordered last week arrived Wednesday. This is a limited early report on an amp that hasn't gotten much attention here compared to the Tone Block 202. I've only had it for 2 days, and I had a gig last night. So I have maybe 90 minutes total experience with it so far, all in my home studio. But it's so good that I wanted to post a "first impressions" report.

The Tone Block amp heads are part of a system with the BlockDock speaker cabs, and the system design is excellent. The 10" BlockDock only holds the 100 series heads, but the 12" takes 100s and 200s. The head slips easily, securely, and perfectly into my BlockDock 12HD (Celestion BN12-300S), which is my only "big" speaker cabinet and still a gig virgin because my Toobs, Blu 6, RevSound 8 and RE 10 have been more than enough. But "you never know when you'll need it", and it sounds fantastic powered by my SBUS or my DV Mark EG250. Now it has its own heart, and it's a strong one! This is a 23 pound Boogie Mk 1, pure and simple. It has a huge sound, pumps an honest 200W RMS into 8 Ohms, and will peel the paint and paper off your walls. I didn't buy the footswitch, but for $90 it's a great deal and I'll probably get one as soon as my points from this purchase post on MF.

First things first - it's a great jazz amp using the "clean" channel. It lets the character of each of my 3 archtops come out clearly, and when I have time I'll make and post a recording of all three playing the same passage. The EQ (a garden variety BMT setup) is very effective and combines with the 3 switchable voicings to let you dial in a broad tonal spectrum. Voices 1, 2 and 3 have been described as linear, center weighted, and scooped in several reviews. This sounds right to me, and they're similar to the 3 voices on my SBUS except that voice 1 (the "full Q" setting) is warmer and fuller than any on the SBUS. Here's the description of the voices from the manual:

1. A flat “honest” voice similar to many early amps, with some added treble sparkle for improved definition. Unlocks the full warmth and tone of guitar speakers while preserving the honest voice of your instrument.
2. A distinctive "bell-like tone" that emphasizes the “presence” harmonics, letting your instrument sing in both clean and overdrive registers. Improves chord definition without harsh “ice pick” tones.
3. A classic metallic voicing with lots of “oomph” and incisive highs, delivering the classic “ripping” guitar sound and thrashing overdrive you expect from a “high gain” amp.

Voice 1 sounds like the clean tone I got from my original Boogie 1x12 EVM. You can dial out that "added sparkle" (which is very subtle to my ears) in voice 1 with the amp's EQ, the guitar's tone knob, or both. And slight adjustments of the tone controls yield significant changes in tonal character that favor different guitar types. The amp lets each guitar sound like its best self, from a thunky laminated top with set HB to a full depth big body carved box with thin top and floater to a big body flattop with piezo. The EQ also lets you bring out the jazz tone in a solid body.

The overdrive channel is a switchable second preamp section with its own gain and volume pots plus a limiter like the one in the Superblock. Using these controls plus the master output level control, you can dial in OD from subtle and smooth like a Steel String Singer to buzzier than I'd ever use. But you can also get a smoother, less chimey OD from the clean channel using the gain pots right. After only a few minutes playing with it, I was able to find both the SSS chime and the sustain of a Dumble ODS. This amp yields Boogie Mk 1 tones like Carlton's in the late '70s - early '80s.

The amp is very "tube-like" in its response to playing. There's enough pick sensitivity to let you straddle whatever breakup point you set, and you can hear me doing this in the second half of the demo clip below when the lead goes up high. There's no actual sag, but there's just enough hysteresis in the attack-rise-sustain-decay cycle to feel flexible like tubes rather than stiff like a typical SS amp.

I threw this simple demo together using my Eastman 16" Jazz Elite (carved 2 1/2" body, carved top, heavier bracing, single set KA HW 12 pole HB) for the intro and my Tele 7 (mahogany neck-through body, maple cap and board, neck Alumitone) for the verse. There's only a tiny hint of reverb on this because I forgot to turn it up - it's a nice and very usable effect. The recording is mic'ed from about 6" with the internal mics on my little TASCAM digital recorder. When I picked up the tele and got into the verse, I started playing around with picking dynamics to see what I could do. Once I get more familiar with it, I'll put up better examples (with better playing once I can focus on it without the distractions of feeling out a new amp) and record all 3 of my archtops through it with the same settings for comparison.

[helios]

Wow-Great playing on the demo!

[icr]

Nice!

[DawgBone]

That was some fine picking on the demo indeed. Pretty good for "thrown together simple". Some great jazz tones in there. Nicely done.

[pingu]

yeah that sounds great
nice amp
and real good playing tenderly too

[Stringswinger]

I am sure digging my Quilter Mach 3 Combo amp, or should I say all six of the amps that Quilter has stuffed inside a 22 pound Combo that has more headroom than I will ever need. Paired with my Rich Raezer built Stealth 12 ER cabinet, I could play an outdoor gig with no PA with no problem.

Between Quilter and Henriksen, my amp needs are more than met (for all genres) and my 66 year old back is very thankful for this new technology.

Congrats on the new amp David! And yes, the playing shows what years of dedicated practice can achieve (along with a healthy dose of natural talent).

[ccroft]

Very nice! I hope that people will stop with the 'Quilters are too bright' thing some day. They are not all the same amp and there's been a lot of them. I've had a TB202 for several years and love it. Before that I had a Aviator 8, which was too bright for my liking. The TB was out before the OD, or I might've got that instead since I used to play a Mark0 Boogie. The channel switching of the Aviator was really good. You'll dig the switch.

BTW: you can definitely put a 200 block in a BlockDock 10. Just don't try to blow the walls down and it's fine.
Here's the TB202 in BD10 on top of the 12. A smaller grab and go type thing if you like.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

Many thanks to all for the kind words!

I spent about 2 hours playing my 810CE7 through it this afternoon, and I really love it. After an hour of experimentation with the EQ knobs, I like the sound of the big, carved top full body with KA floater best with all 3 at noon. The reverb is very subtle. It’s barely there with the knob at 10 o’clock and it’s not overpowering even when fully up. I think the sound of the reverb is as good as the Accutronics in big Fenders.

It even makes serious sound driving a pair of Toob Metros. Pointing one up and one forward creates a big sound like Martin Taylor used to get when he played his Yamaha through a stereo rig. I couldn’t capture it well on a 2 channel recording - the drama of the live sound just isn’t there, even through ‘phones. But it’s impressive. The 7th string lacks some weight compared to the BlockDock 12 or the RE 10, but it’s more solid through two 6.5” Toobs than it is through an ideally positioned Blu 6.

[yebdox]

Really quite nice, thanks for sharing your thoughts and playing. Does the recording sound close to the "in the room" tone to you, ie, a fair representation? I still miss my old Mark I from the middle 70's. Poor student life and such at the time.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

Really quite nice, thanks for sharing your thoughts and playing. Does the recording sound close to the "in the room" tone to you, ie, a fair representation? I still miss my old Mark I from the middle 70's. Poor student life and such at the time.

It’s surprisingly close. My original Boogie with EVM was my main amp for about 40 years, and I had several very good archtops over that time. So I think I remember how it sounded, although long term audio memory is less than perfect.

I think the low end is a bit tighter and cleaner in the Quilter - there’s none of the toneless thump that plagued the low notes when you cranked big open back tube amps at all with the bass pot above 1. Even at bedroom volume, my Boogie, Twin, Vibrolux etc all got flabby down low with bass EQ even close to 12 o’clock. But with the OD202, even the lowest notes on my 7s are clean and tight. With almost none of that second harmonic distortion added by the amp, the notes are clear and distinct. The low A on a 7 sounds just like every other string.

The overall character is very similar, though. I can’t imagine a gig you couldn’t cover very well with one of these. If you could do it with a Boogie Mk 1 1x12, you can do it with an OD202 in a DockBlock 12HD, and then some. I’m going to use it at my Sunday blues brunch tomorrow to see what it’ll do.

[DawgBone]

Many thanks to all for the kind words!

I spent about 2 hours playing my 810CE7 through it this afternoon, and I really love it. After an hour of experimentation with the EQ knobs, I like the sound of the big, carved top full body with KA floater best with all 3 at noon. The reverb is very subtle. It’s barely there with the knob at 10 o’clock and it’s not overpowering even when fully up. I think the sound of the reverb is as good as the Accutronics in big Fenders.

It even makes serious sound driving a pair of Toob Metros. Pointing one up and one forward creates a big sound like Martin Taylor used to get when he played his Yamaha through a stereo rig. I couldn’t capture it well on a 2 channel recording - the drama of the live sound just isn’t there, even through ‘phones. But it’s impressive. The 7th string lacks some weight compared to the BlockDock 12 or the RE 10, but it’s more solid through two 6.5” Toobs than it is through an ideally positioned Blu 6.

I am assuming it is some kind of digital reverb in there? I have a great Meris Mercury 7 that sounds absolutely amazing with cleans but it's another one of a bunch of digital reverbs that I have tried that create a harshness in the highs with an edge of breakup or mildly driven tone. This is always my experience with digital reverbs. I don't know if you plan on using this rig with any of your blues gigs but it will be interesting to hear any feedback you provide down the road about that.

One of my biggest all time gear regrets was letting my Fender RI reverb tank go. I doubled my money on it but now they are around a grand! The reverb onboard a Twin has nothing on it, just my opinion. Mix and dwell controls were always indispensable to me for dialing in a reverb in a live setting that doesn't wash out my pick attack too much and that is always a complaint of mine with the built in units on BF/SF Fenders and pretty much why I don't use reverb in a live setting at all.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

I am assuming it is some kind of digital reverb in there? I have a great Meris Mercury 7 that sounds absolutely amazing with cleans but it's another one of a bunch of digital reverbs that I have tried that create a harshness in the highs with an edge of breakup or mildly driven tone. This is always my experience with digital reverbs. I don't know if you plan on using this rig with any of your blues gigs but it will be interesting to hear any feedback you provide down the road about that..

The reverb (which is digital) is very smooth and very subtle. It’s barely there up to 10 or 11 o’clock and not spacey even full on. It sounds a lot like the reverb in the Twin I just restored.

I’m planning to use it tomorrow at my regular Sunday blues brunch and will report. The club has a full video system, so I’ll try to get the owner to do me a favor and record at least a few tunes so we can hear it in action. I record the audio from my Thursday night trio jazz gigs there, but I can’t stick my recorder on a mic stand in front of the stage for the blues shows because the blues crowd is bigger, more mobile, better lubricated, and much less well controlled. So the stand holding it got bumped repeatedly, ruining the recordings. When it got knocked over, I said never again.