NAD Egnater Rebel 20

welshboyo

OK, bought this from @chrishill901 of this very parish late last week and has turned up this morning.

1st impressions of getting it out of the box were "oh shit, this is too small to gig with", so carried on anyway with setting it up to see what it sounded like...

Unbelievably LOUD.....I mean, eye popping loud, I can't believe so much volume can come out of something so small, got it up to 11 on the master before it started rattling things in the house!!

Tone wise, its a gem, very responsive to touch and with my board running through it and the fx loop, I can't see me needing more, I can see it not needing much up front gain wise and it seems to work better with the SD9 than the EP Booster (I'm falling out of love with the EP anyway, adds too much Bass) - with a Strat (and a reachable volume knob) it will do anything from vintage cleans through to more gain than you will ever need...haven't tried a HB guitar yet.

Unfortunately, its a weekend off for me on gig front as I would love to get this thing up to gig levels to really get a feel for it..

The Bogner is obviously the smoother sounding amp, but its going to have a hard time competing with this....

vasselmeyer

Congratulations @welshboyo and welcome to the Egnater club. I'm amazed that these amps aren't more widely used. Variable wattage from 1W to 20W, an EL84 to 6V6 blend pot, 3 band EQ and a buffered effects loop. What's not to love?

gearaddict

I loved my one, until I blew it up. It had a knob on there labelled "EL34 - 6V6" which didn't appear to be connected to anything though.

vasselmeyer

Corrected. Brain fart.

gearaddict

Oh yeah. Still, didn't really matter, since it wasn't connected to anything.

longjaw

Had one for a couple of years as a back-up, it had a very good sound and I agree it was easily loud enough for gigging but:

• I agree the EL34/6V6 had very little affect on anything
• the volume of the amp was directly linked to the gain level, so knocking the gain down a touch reduced the volume a lot and, with it being a single channel amp, that was a pain when adjusting the tone on stage between songs

Fuzzdog

Another Rebel owner here.  I have the 30 combo, love it to bits.  The power amp tube blend thing has a pretty huge effect on mine, might be a 30 thing.  Perfect gigging amp for me, as it's tiny yet sounds huge when wound up a bit.

Had a couple of little reliability issues, but no more than other amps I've had.  Retouched the solder joints on a couple of pots and all was good.  Pretty sure the recording out is faulty, as I find it hard to believe someone designed it to sound that bad on purpose. Don't really use it, so not really an issue.  Clean channel hisses even with very quiet tubes, but that's just the way it was designed, and it sounds so sweet that I forgive it.

I was initially rather annoyed by the seemingly inactive variable wattage thing (I was expecting it to have some kind of effect at home-friendly levels) until I got it cranked up in a rehearsal, now I wouldn't be without it, as finding that sweet slightly squishy power amp spot in any room is a breeze.

vasselmeyer

I also have the 30 (a 2x12) and the blend control does make quite a difference particularly when the power amp is turned down towards 1W. You can definitely find the squishy spot but 1W can still get very loud indeed. I think your DI out probably is faulty as mine sounds great.

welshboyo

The tube blend thingy certainly does have an effect on mine too, goes from a smooth tone on 6v6 through to what would be a fairly gnarly crunch on EL84.

Agree with @longjaw on the Gain/Volume thing, but still at anything below 12 o clock on the gain is clean enough for me and is still more than plenty loud for gigs, if I need mega spanky clean tones I'll take the Shiva (and even that gets a little hairy at volume)

@Fuzzdog , yes, it is a little noisy, but not obtrusively so, at gig levels it won't be an issue, don't have the recording out on mine, but my other thread on mics has made me decide to buy a DI box so I can have a hassle free trickle through the PA, I just hope it sounds OK now with your comments....

I had a good few hours on the amp last night and I have to say that its really loud, its almost at the point of being too loud for the house, could be taper on the pots as the Shiva doesn't have that problem, it just sounds great though..really good, a real case of pleasantly surprised.

A real sleeper of an amp IMO, vastly underrated (even though most of the reviews are glowing)..perhaps its the brand that's underrated...or badly marketed..I always thought Egnater was for the metal brigade....

Fuzzdog

welshboyo said:
@Fuzzdog , yes, it is a little noisy, but not obtrusively so, at gig levels it won't be an issue, don't have the recording out on mine, but my other thread on mics has made me decide to buy a DI box so I can have a hassle free trickle through the PA, I just hope it sounds OK now with your comments....



Don't get me wrong, the recording out is perfectly usable if you EQ it right, but I find that without a fair bit of shaping it's incredibly peaked in the low to mid range, with not much in the top.  Certainly doesn't resemble what comes out of the speakers on mine even remotely!  I've heard demos of other Rebels direct, and they sound nothing like mine, so it's probably just mine being a bit broken unless they're really piling on the EQ.

Volume pot is a linear jobbie, so the taper is indeed all wrong for home use.  I keep meaning to swap it out for an audio taper one which would probably make a massive improvement for home, but I just can't be arsed to pull the PCB out again just for that.

chrishill901

I definitely noticed a difference with the blend, exactly as welshboyo said, smoother on the 6v6, gnarlier, brasher (and nicer) on the el84... Stands to reason as its the same amp mind you...

I always ran it with the gain at about 2-3 o' clock and used the guitar volume for cclean. It really cleans up nicely. I used a vein-tap leech for a footswitchable clean if I needed an instant switch from OD to clean.

One thing I noticed, (I always ran on purely el84 with the power set to 1w mind you, and gigged with the power supposedly at 1w) was that you should never turn the gain past 3 o'clock. I found that the punch and articulation each string had ever so slightly thinned out at full tilt, and that you needed more gain for sustain, but at 3 o'clock with less gain the sustain was there. Could just be me but i found the sweet spot to be between 2 and 3 o'clock.

Are you using it with the rebel cab? I absolutely love that thing, I'm tempted to put lead 80s into everything! The Rebel 20 is a super sweet amp, one I will regret selling. Our other guitarist told me after our gig on Thursday that he preferred the rebel to the silver jubilee I've just bought... I see where he was coming from too, but I absolutely love the jubilee. I think when I'm flush again though I might pick a rebel up, definitely one of the true gems of the amp world.

jd0272

Love my Rebel 30 head through a Marshall 4x12 for gigging, keep the TSL 112 as a back up...

I can notice the difference in the blend, so maybe the model? And yeah the gain/vol balance is a bit hair trigger, but hey -ho, for the money, no brainer. Canny reverb too.

gearaddict

I was being slightly facetious...I could tell a difference between the different power tubes but not a great deal. I only used it to try and get a bit more volume out of the head - there was a spot at about 1 o'clock where it was loudest.

I loved the Rebel 20. Great sounding amp. Slight lack of headroom for a solo boost. I was running it flat out most of the time - which may be why it blew up! I did try the Rebel 30 a bit later but I just didn't like it anywhere near as much for some reason.