Genz Benz Black Pearl 30?

robkay

Thinking along the lines of EL 84,s, before i go to the mass trouble of building a Matchless DC30 clone or something.....what are these Genz Benz Pearl 30 amps like, would quite fancy the head version.

Any thoughts

Rob

timmysoft

I think they sound great! Although for el84s the laney lionheart is the one to beat.

Cirrus

They're great amps, nice cleans and take pedals well but IMO the overdrive is what sets them apart - the boost knob is a great way of getting extra gain, and while it's quite a compressed sound the various tone controls make it easy to dial in a nice and full distortion sound - great sensitivity, string definition, and just enough balls to keep it from sounding thin as some overdriven el84 amps are prone to. Also, the choice of master volume, triode/pentode AND 2/4 power valves make it great for taming the volume a little. I'd say it's not a hugely versatile amp in terms of having clean/distorted two channels, it really excels at going from chimey light overdrive to a heavier overdrive with the boost switch. Also the cleans were a little quieter, less punchy and a little more choked than the ac30 I ran along side it, probably because a lot of the preamp circuit choices are optimised to getting a great overdriven sound.

Dave_Mc

Very nice. I like mine, anyway. It does several tones which I couldn't get (at least, couldn't get really well) with my current gear, and I got it pretty cheap when GAK was blowing them out.

Couple of caveats:

- My first one was DOA (and I wasn't the only one) so reliability is maybe a bit iffy. I think there was talk online about some parts maybe being a bit dodgy too (pots? I forget ) )

- They were being blown out a while back for very cheap (£450 for the 2x12 combo with the alnico red fangs IIRC, though I had to pay postage on top as I'm in NI) so don't pay too much.

- Reverb is horrible (IMO). Some talk on TGP (I think) about fitting a different (longer?) tank possibly helping, but stock... really don't like it much, at all. And it's not footswitchable either, which is a bit of an oversight if you ask me.

- Not super-versatile. For me it's really for clean up to maybe classic rock levels of dirt (though it takes pedals pretty well). Different (ceramic) speakers help a bit with sounding a bit more modern, but with the stock red fangs, to me it's more of a lower gain amp really. And as Cirrus rightly says, the boost isn't really the same as having two channels.