Paul VanJohnson

I've had an Astroverb for a few years though I rarely get to play it anymore. I think the biggest misconception about this amp is that it is a miniature SLO. Desciption single channel 12ax7 preamp section (4 I think) EL84 based power section presence control in addition to the usual B-M-T controls Accutronics 3 spring reverb (pretty sure it's 3) Don't recall the speaker (I'm at work so I can't look) It has a very nice and tweakable clean sound that's very open and more glassy. Closer to a blackface Fender than a Marshall or a Mesa but not as much bass as a Fender. The downside is that there just isn't enough headroom to use even in a small club. The crunch tones are where this amp shines. I would not call this a "high gain" amp and I've heard that it's based on the "crunch" channel of the SLO. It also doesn't have a lot of low end. If you boost the front end with a TS9, spike the mids and turn up the reverb you can nail DLR era Van Halen sounds. You can also get some good SRV tones with a TS9 in front (or better TS808), crank the power amp volume to 10 and adjust the gain to taste. The cork-sniffers will point out that this is an EL84-based power section and SRV preferred 6L6 power amps. They would be right but this is close enough for government work and you won't go deaf. Overall it is great for just about any kind of classic rock crunch and the tone controls are very effective for tweaking the sound. It's also pretty transparent (a strat sounds like a strat through it, etc). If you're looking to play high-gain, bass-heavy, cookie-monster vocal style metal then this is definitely not the right amp for you. Hope this helps.