Anybody else here get in on & want to talk about the Marshall Haze or G & L JC deals?

[GAS Man]

-talking about the G & L Tribute Rampage Jerry Cantrell model that was recently sold by Hello Music for $398 and the Marshall Haze half stack from Sweetwater for $420.

 

I'm curious what others think if they got these items.

 

I'm pretty happy with the little bit of play time I've gotten in on the G&L Rampage. It is indeed pretty sweet sounding clean and full of the growlie chugs when requested. Mine still need a bit of set up attention, but it was reasonably playable out of the box, plus I think it is one sweet looking guitar. The kahler trem is a whole new experience for me. Pretty trippy design

 

I'm not sure what the trem bar is doing though. At one pt I thought maybe I'd stripped it, but it seems to never bottom out when you screw it in, but instead reaches a point where it no longer goes deeper and just lays there fairly loose. I'm thinking about dropping some spring in that trem arm hole to tighten up the slack.

 

The Marshall Haze, I just got that set up last night. The wife was not happy since footprint space is already at a premium in my small home due to "too much gear!" , but I finally pushed enough stuff aside to create a spot for it in the man cave and played it a bit softly late last night; and then I hit some louder ruder tones with it when I got home from work tonight. Actually, I think I'm more impressed with it at lower volumes and "edge of breakup" gain settings. The bassy resonance of it was more impressive to me at lower volumes. The jury is still out for me on how it does with higher gain. So far I'm thinking I'm not too impressed with that aspect of its performance. But another "on the upside" comment - the speaker cabs were bigger sized and bassier sounding than I expected. I picked up another base cab from "Full Compass" (a dealer in WI) to make it a full stack (2: 1x12). It wasn't easy to find the base cabs for sale, but during my phone purchase the sales rep there volunteered that the stock "Marquee" speakers in the Haze cabinet were pretty good". I thought that was a nice thing to hear since I figured my next OCD was going to be finding decent speaker for Haze cabs - but he was right, they do indeed sound quite adequate.

 

Anyway, I'm not trying to make this a NAD or NGD thread - I'm much more interested in what others think who have tried these instruments. I may post the obligatory pic later in this thread

[GAS Man]

Took a pic this morning. The Marshall Haze stack was a bit bigger than I anticipated

 

[Lump]

I do have a question actually. On the G&L, my understanding is that it is a 1 3/4's inch nut, is that right? I actually like that, does it feel wider than a standard neck typically does? Can it get a decent clean tone if you roll back the volume a bit?

[GAS Man]

^^ The fretboard feels flat (it has a 13.75" radius) but I wouldn't say I noticed the difference on the nut width. The spec of 1.75" is only .055" wider (just a hair over one millimeter) than a tradition 1.695" Gibson nut, so I don't notice it, but I go between a lot of guitars and I haven't developed strong affinities for one neck or fretboard shape versus another. But indeed, the flat fb radius is noticeable when you first pick up the guitar if you're tuning into the feel of it vs the tone.

 

Regarding the tone, it is good clean too. I just now plugged it into that Haze for the first time and it comes across a bit bright from that amp in the clean mode. But usually what I'm hearing from it on the cleans on my other amps is just a nice vibey chimey clean tone. I was pretty impressed with its cleans with it arrived. And I do play clean more often than with OD or distortions.

 

I'm not setup on my PC yet to record clips, but I think this vid from GW, played by "Paul", does a good job of demonstrating its clean tones

from 1:35 to 2:02

[video=youtube;hft_W3pA_bE]

[brandass]

I was sorely tempted by the Haze 1/2 stack...

 

But I'm mostly looking for a one-channel with really nice warm cleans for pedal OD at lower volumes. Quick research suggested that there are better alternatives out there for the price.

 

Your review suggests I probably would have been pretty happy with the Haze for pedal purposes, and its own edge-of-breakup tones would have been a nice bonus. Oh well, live and learn. Will definitely check it out next time I get the chance.

 

HNGD & HNAD!!!

[cbh5150]

Took a pic this morning. The Marshall Haze stack was a bit bigger than I anticipated

 

Did the package come with an extra cab? I thought it was only a half-stack

[GAS Man]

 

I was sorely tempted by the Haze 1/2 stack... But I'm mostly looking for a one-channel with really nice warm cleans for pedal OD at lower volumes. Quick research suggested that there are better alternatives out there for the price. Your review suggests I probably would have been pretty happy with the Haze for pedal purposes, and its own edge-of-breakup tones would have been a nice bonus. Oh well, live and learn. Will definitely check it out next time I get the chance. HNGD & HNAD!!!

 

 

Thanks, but actually I think you're probably not far from the mark on your initial thoughts. Part of me is liking the Haze and part of me is not. I just now got done using my Fulltone OCD through the Haze clean and it was interesting. Neither disappointing or particularly awesome.

 

The gain distortion from the Haze is fairly grainy there's a very small area on the gain control where the edge of break up sounds are there, but even they do tend to be a bit more grainy than warm. So if you continue to pursue a warmer amp for your pedals, that will probably get you where you want to be.

 

At the original MAP pricing, these things were like $599 for the head and $250 for each cab, so that would be a $1,100 rig. At that price I can certainly see why these amps weren't huge sellers. There are little things about them that feel a bit cheap, like the power switch and speaker jacks feel quite "plasticy". But at $420 (maybe I should have just stopped there @ the half-stack) + $235 for the extra base cab, I'm at $655 - which is still pretty pricey for this amp. I do think that the biggest surprise is that the cabinets are a bit physically bigger and they sound better than I expected. I'm a bit more impressed with the sound of these 1 x 12 cabs than I am with the Vox 1x12 cab-companion to the Night Train. (they're both priced about the same)

I think these Haze cabs have a bit more spacial volume to them, and the Marquee speakers sound quite decent and have more depth than the Night Trains cab. A lot of the extra depth with the Haze cabs might just be coming from the closed back design versus the open design on the NH cab.

These of course are all "initial thoughts" on this gear.

[GAS Man]

Did the package come with an extra cab? I thought it was only a half-stack

 

No, I had to go hunting for that base cab. The MAP on them was $250 but it was hard to find a dealer that had them. I got mine from a store in WI called Full Compass for $210 + 25 shipping. So that watered down my "great deal" on the whole set up, but I didn't want to be down the road later on wanting that extra cab and then not be able to find one. I figured there'd soon be others out there that bought in on the Sweetwater deal who'd also be chasing after the matching straight (the one from SW is angled) bottom cab.

 

But if folks are looking for a "decent" 1 x 12 cab, you might want to keep your eye on them at MF. They just have the angled cabs in stock, but as the Haze amps seem to be getting cleared out, there might be some good deals coming on the cabs and that cab might do well for folks looking for something to go well with their low watt tube heads.

[brandass]

Hey, thanks for all the info!

 

My search for warm cleans for pedals will continue, then, but the Haze cabs at least are now on my radar.

 

Much appreciated!

[Lump]

Thanks for the info. It is a super cool looking set up.

[GAS Man]

By the way, this Marshall Haze stuff is made in India. Makes you yearn for the good ole days when import versions of British amps were made in Vietnam and China

 

 

 

 

 

It was interesting that the factory box, inside the Sweetwater shipping box, that housed the amp head - you could tell it had been around for quite a while. The metal staples commonly used to hold cardboard flaps or edges together were fairly heavily corroded. It must have been in a rather damp warehouse or had actually gotten wet somewhere along the line. But the head inside seemed fine. It had your typical clear plastic covering it. But you could certainly tell this blowout from SW was some lot of NOS they bargained for from some sleepy corner of some warehouse.

 

Even though I do think the Haze is a bit of a mixed bag, I keep coming in my cramped man-cave/guest-room/office/music-room and going straight for it. I'm still working on tallying up the tricks it does well. I think one of them is "rude at relatively non-neighborhood offending" levels.

 

One review comment I remembered reading was that - although when you switch channels it does remember the fx setting for each channel, it doesn't do that for the 3 EQs. Well, that's no surprise at this price pt, but I do appreciate that comment more after playing this am a few times. The clean channel is bright and vibey but can use a bit more bass rolled on. The lead channel is darker and can use more treble and the bright switch on, but it doesn't need as much bass EQ. So I find that when I channel switch, I am grabbing for the EQs each time.

[sasjf]

-talking about the G & L Tribute Rampage Jerry Cantrell model that was recently sold by Hello Music for $398 and the Marshall Haze half stack from Sweetwater for $420. I'm curious what others think if they got these items. I'm pretty happy with the little bit of play time I've gotten in on the G&L Rampage. It is indeed pretty sweet sounding clean and full of the growlie chugs when requested. Mine still need a bit of set up attention, but it was reasonably playable out of the box, plus I think it is one sweet looking guitar. The kahler trem is a whole new experience for me. Pretty trippy design I'm not sure what the trem bar is doing though. At one pt I thought maybe I'd stripped it, but it seems to never bottom out when you screw it in, but instead reaches a point where it no longer goes deeper and just lays there fairly loose. I'm thinking about dropping some spring in that trem arm hole to tighten up the slack. The Marshall Haze, I just got that set up last night. The wife was not happy since footprint space is already at a premium in my small home due to "too much gear!" , but I finally pushed enough stuff aside to create a spot for it in the man cave and played it a bit softly late last night; and then I hit some louder ruder tones with it when I got home from work tonight. Actually, I think I'm more impressed with it at lower volumes and "edge of breakup" gain settings. The bassy resonance of it was more impressive to me at lower volumes. The jury is still out for me on how it does with higher gain. So far I'm thinking I'm not too impressed with that aspect of its performance. But another "on the upside" comment - the speaker cabs were bigger sized and bassier sounding than I expected. I picked up another base cab from "Full Compass" (a dealer in WI) to make it a full stack (2: 1x12). It wasn't easy to find the base cabs for sale, but during my phone purchase the sales rep there volunteered that the stock "Marquee" speakers in the Haze cabinet were pretty good". I thought that was a nice thing to hear since I figured my next OCD was going to be finding decent speaker for Haze cabs - but he was right, they do indeed sound quite adequate. Anyway, I'm not trying to make this a NAD or NGD thread - I'm much more interested in what others think who have tried these instruments. I may post the obligatory pic later in this thread

 

I was able to score the Haze Head on a price match rarity kind of a long story but:

 

Sweetwater had the 1/2 stack for $420

M123 had the head for $599 and the cab for $249 (no 1/2 stack availble at the time)

On a long shot I sent in a pricematch, listed all the item numbers and prices and based on the math w/ the 10% difference it came to $378 - never figured they would go for it. Later that day I got a return price match with the head and cab as seperate line items @ $189 each - removed the cabinet from the quote and scored the head for $189!!

 

Anyway I do like the head, it does cleans well and seems to do well for mid gain stuff - not good at all for high gain - but for what I paid it is great!!

[GAS Man]

^^ You done great. In live in a state that MF taxes so I wouldn't have come out too far ahead on price matching the half stack, but getting the head for $189 is stellar!

 

Sweetwater (I'm assuming somewhat arbitrarily since they were only selling them as a set) broke out the cost of the half stack into head and cab when they invoiced me. They had the cab down as only $120 and the head at $299.99 so getting $110.99 off of that is a sweet deal

 

And yeah, I agree with you on the cleans. They're pretty sweet sounding for Marshall cleans. And indeed the mid gain stuff is good too. I think I'd just like a bit more variation within its gain tones. And although I called it a bit "grainy", that could also be called growlie. Just trying to find words for a rather vibey type of OD tone.

[sasjf]

By the way, this Marshall Haze stuff is made in India. Makes you yearn for the good ole days when import versions of British amps were made in Vietnam and China It was interesting that the factory box, inside the Sweetwater shipping box, that housed the amp head - you could tell it had been around for quite a while. The metal staples commonly used to hold cardboard flaps or edges together were fairly heavily corroded. It must have been in a rather damp warehouse or had actually gotten wet somewhere along the line. But the head inside seemed fine. It had your typical clear plastic covering it. But you could certainly tell this blowout from SW was some lot of NOS they bargained for from some sleepy corner of some warehouse. Even though I do think the Haze is a bit of a mixed bag, I keep coming in my cramped man-cave/guest-room/office/music-room and going straight for it. I'm still working on tallying up the tricks it does well. I think one of them is "rude at relatively non-neighborhood offending" levels. One review comment I remembered reading was that - although when you switch channels it does remember the fx setting for each channel, it doesn't do that for the 3 EQs. Well, that's no surprise at this price pt, but I do appreciate that comment more after playing this am a few times. The clean channel is bright and vibey but can use a bit more bass rolled on. The lead channel is darker and can use more treble and the bright switch on, but it doesn't need as much bass EQ. So I find that when I channel switch, I am grabbing for the EQs each time.

 

My box looked like it was around for a while as well, they also shipped it to me without an outer box, which I hate - it looked rough but all was well inside.

 

The main reason you probably keep going for the amp is because it just looks so cool!