Speaking of new Soldano stuff.

tekbow

An X88IR was teased today.

Presumably the same IR tech ad the Astro 20.

Not massively familiar with the original, but this seems to have more mini toggles including crunch/OD switches for both channels 2&3.

digitalscream

Very much "meh" on the IR stuff. Very, very happy about the MIDI, though.

Lots of additions there, though - apart from the toggles on the front and the IRs, there's the stereo return on the loop, stereo outputs, loop level and XLR out level, phantom power support...it genuinely looks like they've put a lot of effort into listening to all the issues that people have had over the years.

Definitely like the idea of two drive channels, though!

tekbow

digitalscream said:

Definitely like the idea of two drive channels, though!

I thought that was a good idea too (on top of the other stuff.)

Dual OD modded SLOs were owned by Lynch and EVH. It seemed to be a bit of a secret mod they didn't really advertise openly.

digitalscream

You know, if these actually come out at a reasonable price - ie priced as though they're the Astro 20 without the power amp, which is basically what they are - it's fairly likely I'll get one. I'm thinking £1000-1200 tops, and I'd imagine it'd be great for home recording stuff.

If they come out priced to take advantage of the vintage X88R halo, it's a hard "nope".

I'm not optimistic, though.

tekbow

digitalscream said:

You know, if these actually come out at a reasonable price - ie priced as though they're the Astro 20 without the power amp, which is basically what they are - it's fairly likely I'll get one. I'm thinking £1000-1200 tops, and I'd imagine it'd be great for home recording stuff.

If they come out priced to take advantage of the vintage X88R halo, it's a hard "nope".

I'm not optimistic, though.

I'm not either. The X88r was a custom order if I remember, although to be fair, so were SLOs technically.

Some are grumbling though (very few). I suspect they're owners of original X88's of which around 100 were made. That's probably why there's not much grumbling.

tekbow

Someone on the Soldano FB Group was at NAMM and have quoted (currently unverified) $2500 for the X88IR.

So not as expensive as might have been thought, but not as cheap as we'd have liked.

digitalscream

tekbow said:

Someone on the Soldano FB Group was at NAMM and have quoted (currently unverified) $2500 for the X88IR.

So not as expensive as might have been thought, but not as cheap as we'd have liked.

Well, I guess that doesn't sound completely insane, I suppose. Still, on the face of it that's a bit weird - the preamp from the Astro 20, costing as much as the entire Astro 20.

I wonder how they'll differentiate it.

I'm sort of wondering...would I buy it, at around £2k? Maybe...in the absence of an ADA MP-1 re-issue, the X88R would basically be a holy grail piece of gear for me. In terms of a "last rig I'd ever buy" kind of thing, it strikes me as a distinct possibility.

As a home rig...X88IR, a stereo delay/reverb, Marshall 20/20, a pair of decent reactive loads...yeah, I'd happily work with that. Hell, even just the X88IR into Two Notes Torpedo and its power amp emulation, that'd be a pretty sweet recording setup.

Guess I'd better start saving.

DaveyBlues007

Yep been told by Soldano itll be out Summer , at $2500

digitalscream

DaveyBlues007 said:

Yep been told by Soldano itll be out Summer , at $2500

Well, that's definitely going to cause me problems, because I'm definitely going to have the cash by then...

tekbow

digitalscream said:

DaveyBlues007 said:

Yep been told by Soldano itll be out Summer , at $2500

Well, that's definitely going to cause me problems, because I'm definitely going to have the cash by then...

I have a funny feeling there might be power amp emulation in these.

I say that because I recently read something about the Astro 20s Speakerless config.

Now.. you'd think they'd have just bunged a reactive load in, but apparently not.

The post wasn't entirely clear, but it was mentioned that the Power amp was basically put into a sleep mode (like standby?) And some digital witchcraft happened, which given the IRs onboard the Astro and X88, makes me think they put a TwoNotes style virtual power amp in.