Fender '68 CDR vs Laney Lionheart L20-112...should I 'swap'?

colourofsound

I've had my '68 CDR for about 3 months now. I've yet to gig it, but it's a phenomenal amp, and I really like the sound.

However. It is noisy (not that bad, but noticeable); it is mass-produced and thusly potentially unreliable.

Laney Lionhearts have always had my eye, especially as I used to own an LC50 that I adored.

So - is it ridiculous to have a mass-produced Fender amp that costs £800-£1k when I could have an arguably similar sounding, British made mass-produced amp for £500?

Should I sell the Fender, and buy a Lionheart plus a reactive load thingy so I can play/record silently at home?

Has anyone had both amps in the room for comparison? I'm told the Lionhearts take pedals really well which is comforting; the reason I got rid of my LC50 was because it didn't really take pedals very well (to my ears). I've since had an HRD before flipping that for the current '68 Custom Deluxe Reverb in search of warmer clean tones.

I probably won't action this for a while as I want to have the Fender for at least a year before I get rid of it; plus I can't be arsed with the hassle of selling and buying amps after only just going through it.

So yeah. Advice appreciated. Cheers!

MattBanshee

The Lionheart 20 is gorgeous; I love mine and would agree that it takes pedals well. I haven't tried the Fender but the Laneys are certainly excellent value for money.

english_bob

IMO the Lionheart doesn't sound much like a Fender amp- my L20T is much warmer sounding than the Cornell Romany Plus (Champ-based) I had before. Much less clean headroom, much more of a "British" character. If you like that glassy, pristine clean thing you can get from the HRD, the Lionheart won't get it. It sounds really good, just not like-a-Fender good.

That said, It does sound good with all the drive pedals I've used (but it crunches and compresses rather than getting louder, so if you want a volume boost you'll need to put it in the loop) and hasn't given me any problems in the two years I've owned it.

FWIW, the stock effects loop is shit. It's a parallel loop, apparently poorly implemented, so when you use certain effects (every digital pedal I tried...) you get a huge volume drop and an odd sort of filtering effect that makes the amp essentially useless. You can mod it to series by removing a single SMD resistor (which is a pig to get to and involves dismantling the amp), but then you'll need to bridge the loop with a patch cable whenever you aren't using it. 

I don't think "mass produced = unreliable" is fair either. Mass produced products from well trained workers in a properly equipped factory may well be more reliable than considerably more expensive kitchen-table bodge jobs from some "boutique" manufacturers.

normula1

The Lionheart preamp is very much derived from a Marshall style circuit. The clean is essentially a slightly tweaked JMP and the lead is more of a JCM800 type with a bass cut added as the gain is raised.
The power amp of course is different.

If you have the serial loop mod, a jumper wire can be added to the loop sockets themselves so that a patch lead in the loop isn't required.

english_bob

normula1 said:

If you have the serial loop mod, a jumper wire can be added to the loop sockets themselves so that a patch lead in the loop isn't required.

I thought I'd tried that when I modded the loop, and that it hadn't worked. Could be that I connected the wrong contacts. It was such a faff getting the mod done that I couldn't be bothered to open the amp up again. 

Jonathanthomas83

Never had a problem with the FX loops on any of my Lionhearts and I've had four. They've all been spectacular. The clean is beautiful and makes for (as you quite rightly say) an incredibly good pedal platform.

I don't care much for channel two except for setting it at light breakup which sounds very nice.

Ive had Fenders in the past but this takes pedals better, for my needs.

normula1

you mean you don't have the 15 hours it takes to undo all the screws?

english_bob

Jonathanthomas83 said:

Never had a problem with the FX loops on any of my Lionhearts and I've had four. They've all been spectacular. 

I think the issue is with latency- although it's imperceptible under normal circumstances, using digital pedals that send your whole signal through A/D D/A conversion in parallel with your unaffected direct signal is what causes the weird effect I heard. If you're using analogue pedals in the loop, or digital pedals with an analogue dry path, or with a mix control dialled over to 100% wet you might not hear the same thing.



And yes, now that you mention it, I don't think I've found much use for the drive channel past about noon- it definitely excels at low-gain "dirty-clean" sounds up to sort of AC/DC crunch. The higher end of the gain range gets a bit mushy. Even so, it's still got a much more useable, controllable range of gain tones than a SF RI Fender. If you need really grindy distortion or really long sustain without silly volume you'll need a pedal. The good news is that everything I've tried sounds good with it- Tubescreamer, RAT, Zendrive, Screwdriver...

english_bob

normula1 said:

you mean you don't have the 15 hours it takes to undo all the screws?

Ugh. Tell me about it.

As I recall, the loop connections were on a smaller separate PCB which was slightly less faffy to remove than the main one. 

At that point (I'd only just got the amp) I was eager to play and happy to leave it in the state it was in- it worked, nothing I'd read about the mod seemed very conclusive that you could jumper the loop socket like that, and I had a teeny-tiny patch cable handy.

One of these days I'll crack it open again and see what I got wrong.

noisepolluter

colourofsound said:

I've had my '68 CDR for about 3 months now. I've yet to gig it, but it's a phenomenal amp, and I really like the sound.

However. It is noisy (not that bad, but noticeable); it is mass-produced and thusly potentially unreliable

Did you buy from new? If not, could you get the negative feedback resistor changed? If it's the only thing you dislike about the amp and could possibly be improved it might be worth investigating. The '65 is a virtually identical circuit and has very little noise. 

I wouldn't be too worried about reliability - I got my 65 second hand about 5 years ago, used daily at home and at higher volumes semi-regularly and I've only had to replace a handful of valves so far.

Prior to me owning it, it was sat for at least a few years in a poorly heated workshop. Not sure when exactly it was made but it's certainly pre 2008 (change of tremolo circuit), and a recent full service didn't turn up any issues. 

colourofsound

I didnt buy from new, no. The noise isnt an issue for me unless you want to use the tremolo; its pretty bad if you do. Its my understandinb that the CDRs don't have tube bias trem but the Princetons do.

noisepolluter

colourofsound said:

I didnt buy from new, no. The noise isnt an issue for me unless you want to use the tremolo; its pretty bad if you do. Its my understandinb that the CDRs don't have tube bias trem but the Princetons do.

I'm told the 'new' CDR68/DR65 trem circuit can be adjusted to reduce the ticking noise substantially as it's on a separate board with trim pots and whatnot. The pre-2008 trem for EU models (or the current one for US) is just a light dependent resistor and the only way to quieten the tick is to get a resistor added to one end of it (which worked for mine).  

Apparently there's an info sheet of some kind from Fender on how to adjust the circuit board trem which they give to amp techs on request

strtdv

I'm an unashamed Lionheart fan too. I find it takes pedals out front brilliantly. I've not done the effects loop mod, and pretty much never use the loop.

I use a Soul Food, an EMMA Stinkbug, an OCD V4, and a Musket Fuzz V2, along with a Zcat Qmod, EHX DMM, and a modded Crybaby, and all work brilliantly. Combined with the drive channel gain set to about 4-4.5 you can get most sounds from clean to "classic British" lead sounds, though not modern metal (the EL84s don't have enough "push" for that).


I wasn't impressed with the '68 CDR, it was noisy and ice-picky. The '68 CPR was much nicer, so I wouldn't write off having a Fender entirely.

vale

i have the laney LC & i love it. a real broody moody sulking amp whereas i think of fender twins & 60s fenders as summery & spangly.
but old-school flavoured laneys a love or hate thing & they only do their thing. you can't dial fender tones into a laney (or into an old marshall, either). you just end up with muffled flatness if you try.
so if you want a mid-between brit& american 'm not sure you could do it with a laney LC (VC may be brighter). maybe a blackstar or something. they can do dark & bright, if that makes sense.

english_bob

strtdv said:

I'm an unashamed Lionheart fan too. I find it takes pedals out front brilliantly. I've not done the effects loop mod, and pretty much never use the loop.

Because of the sort of sounds where it excels (basically, not very distorted ones) it's generally not going to be much of an issue. I just felt compelled to use the loop because it was there, then when I discovered it was shit but easily improved I felt compelled to fix it.

I bought an M5 recently and built myself an order switcher pedal so I could use the M5 pre- or post-dirt depending on what effect it was set for. I've only tried it at home volume so far- the difference is fairly small between having effects before the amp dirt (usually set to about 10-11 o'clock) and after, but it's there. It's most noticeable with delays IMO- because compression is inherent even with low levels of distortion your repeats sound louder for longer with a dirty amp than they would through a cleaner one.

colourofsound

It seems that you're basically all saying I need to save up for an L5 or L5 studio and keep both for a stereo setup. Right? That's what you said.

english_bob

colourofsound said:

It seems that you're basically all saying I need to save up for an L5 or L5 studio and keep both for a stereo setup. Right? That's what you said.

Yep, you got it.  


If space, volume and money don't rule it out, that would probably sound like the absolute bollocks.

colourofsound

@english_bob Well, with an L5 Studio, volume and space is not an issue at all. A little cab can come later; if at all.

Jonathanthomas83

Going stereo was the single best thing I ever did with my rig. The L5S cab simulated line output means you can run stereo with just one amp. Run the line level to your effects and then stereo out to a pair of studio monitors. Sounds fantastic.

strtdv

colourofsound said:

It seems that you're basically all saying I need to save up for an L5 or L5 studio and keep both for a stereo setup. Right? That's what you said.

I'd suggest trading the Custom Deluxe for a Princeton Deluxe with cash your way, then put that towards an L5.

english_bob

english_bob said:

normula1 said:

you mean you don't have the 15 hours it takes to undo all the screws?

Ugh. Tell me about it.

As I recall, the loop connections were on a smaller separate PCB which was slightly less faffy to remove than the main one. 

At that point (I'd only just got the amp) I was eager to play and happy to leave it in the state it was in- it worked, nothing I'd read about the mod seemed very conclusive that you could jumper the loop socket like that, and I had a teeny-tiny patch cable handy.

One of these days I'll crack it open again and see what I got wrong.

Today was that day. For some reason I seem to have thought that I only needed to jumper the sleeve (earth) contacts and not the tip (signal) ones, which would explain why it didn't make any noises unless there was a patch cable in there. I jumpered the tip contacts and... bingo.

I had a bit of a play through it too, although at very low volume (Mrs_bob was watching telly). I reckon with the tone up full and the mids dialled right out it does a passable imitation of a Fender amp. Higher gain settings are more useable than I'd thought- they need very different EQ settings to what sounds good on the lower gain settings, but with @normula1 's comments about the drive channel preamp being based on a JCM800 in mind, I had more of an idea of what it was meant to sound like at full chat, and it does.

Oh, and FWIW I only had to remove six screws to get the chassis out, then unscrew the send, return and footswitch jack sockets to get the little daughter PCB out. The main PCB would have involved further faff.