bduersch
Well-known member
Today I had some time to kill while the car was in the shop... no better way to kill it than to walk down to the local music shop and see if they had anything cool in stock. Only thing that really caught my attention today was one of the RG50TC 1x12 combos ( http://randallamplifiers.com/products/amplifiers/tube/index.asp ), which (I believe) is the latest all-tube amp from Randall. The most worthy guitar in the shop was a Schecter with real duncans and incredibly nasty strings, but nonetheless, I put the RG50TC through its paces.
Quick feature summary... two channels, each with 2 footswitchable voicings and its own EQ; 50w driven by EL34's into a 12" Celestion; spring reverb; FX loop; 4-button footswitch. That's about it... not too fancy.
In a word, I was pretty impressed with the RG50TC... the clean channel was very crisp, great for funk work, but also delivered a fat jazzy tone when I rolled down the tone control on the guitar. The lead channel has two variations... one of which is designed for crunchier tones, the other is designed for smoother lead tones. It has that wanna-be hot-rodded Marshall feel. There was plenty of low-end thump for chugging on power chords, and plenty of gain for Santana-esque leads (though the voicing was not particularly Santana-esque). I think I was expecting the tone to be more harsh, so I was pleasantly surprised with how warm & fat it was. The reverb was rather subtle, adding a nice amount of texture to the clean channel while not overwhelming the lead channel. While it sounded good loud, it also sounded pretty good at low volumes, which is a bonus. I was pretty impressed with what I could coax out of the amp with the dead strings on the Schecter, and will probably go back to the store to give it a test drive with one of my PRS's; however I know if I go back to play it again, I'll end up buying it.
All in all, I'd say this is a heck of a deal... at $560 new, you basically get a 50w all tube combo that acts like a 4-channel amp. While I don't really need any more amps at this point, if I found a used RG50TC for a good price, I'd pick it up just on principle.
Anybody else given this amp a try?
--B
Quick feature summary... two channels, each with 2 footswitchable voicings and its own EQ; 50w driven by EL34's into a 12" Celestion; spring reverb; FX loop; 4-button footswitch. That's about it... not too fancy.
In a word, I was pretty impressed with the RG50TC... the clean channel was very crisp, great for funk work, but also delivered a fat jazzy tone when I rolled down the tone control on the guitar. The lead channel has two variations... one of which is designed for crunchier tones, the other is designed for smoother lead tones. It has that wanna-be hot-rodded Marshall feel. There was plenty of low-end thump for chugging on power chords, and plenty of gain for Santana-esque leads (though the voicing was not particularly Santana-esque). I think I was expecting the tone to be more harsh, so I was pleasantly surprised with how warm & fat it was. The reverb was rather subtle, adding a nice amount of texture to the clean channel while not overwhelming the lead channel. While it sounded good loud, it also sounded pretty good at low volumes, which is a bonus. I was pretty impressed with what I could coax out of the amp with the dead strings on the Schecter, and will probably go back to the store to give it a test drive with one of my PRS's; however I know if I go back to play it again, I'll end up buying it.
All in all, I'd say this is a heck of a deal... at $560 new, you basically get a 50w all tube combo that acts like a 4-channel amp. While I don't really need any more amps at this point, if I found a used RG50TC for a good price, I'd pick it up just on principle.
Anybody else given this amp a try?
--B
