NAD - finally a lightweight amp I like!

Rowby1

On Tuesday this arrived with me, bought from @Endpin who had it advertised in the classifieds. 

I've had a few days with it at home to get used to it then last night I felt sufficiently convinced by it to try and gig with it.

Very impressed!

It's been a long journey as I've been trying to find a lightweight amp for a few years to ease the strain on my aging back. I have variously bought or borrowed a whole load of amps that make all the right claims in their marketing (and sounded great in their online demos) but have failed to make me want to leave my valve amps at home. Some have been close, some have been pretty terrible.

The list includes:

Fender Tonemaster Twin
Blackstar St James
Laney Lionheart Foundry
Roland Blues Cube
DV Mark Jazz 12
Line 6 Catalyst

So here we have the snappily named DV Mark DVC Guitar Friend. 50W 1x12 combo weighing in at a very manageable 8.7kg

My back is particularly happy!!

DiscoStu

That's a sweet weight!

barnstorm

Cool - long been curious about these. I had a DV Mark Little Jazz that would have been nice if not for the hiss. Might have been a duff one, but I wasn’t inclined to try again and just returned it for a refund.

How would you rank those others you’ve tried?

vasselmeyer

I have the DV Mark Micro 50 head and the matching 2x12 cab. Together they weigh a quarter of the Egnater 2x12 combo they replaced.

The sound isn't quite in the same ballpark, but it's worth it for saving my back.

Rowby1

barnstorm said:

Cool - long been curious about these. I had a DV Mark Little Jazz that would have been nice if not for the hiss. Might have been a duff one, but I wasn’t inclined to try again and just returned it for a refund.

How would you rank those others you’ve tried?

It’d be hard to rank them because I had different issues with them and also never had any of them side by side. 

What I can say is what I disliked about each of them. 

ToneMaster Twin. Small and boxy sounding. It didn’t sound like a £200 amp let alone a £1k amp. Despite my comments about not ranking them this was easily the most disappointing of the amps in the list.

Blackstar St James. Had that upper mid honk I can hear in every Blackstar amp I’ve heard in the flesh. Not as honky as some of their amps but I just couldn’t dial it out, even resorted to a speaker swap but it didn’t go away. Otherwise I thought it was quite a good amp. In hindsight putting a graphic eq in the fx loop might have sorted it. Probably the best of the amps on the list. I did actually own one of these for a short time and gigged it a couple of times.

Laney Lionheart Foundry. Just a bit boxy sounding. I’ve tried both the small cab and larger cab combos and both sounded the same. Both better than the TM though to my ears.

Roland Blues Cube. Lacked openness in the top end. No chime to it at all although I wouldn’t characterise it as dark. Close but no cigar (like the Blackstar). 

DV Mark Jazz 12. Too dark for me. Couldn’t get anywhere near enough top end out of it. 

Line 6 Catalyst. Sounded plummy(?) with a slightly harsh top end. Biggest problem was it didn’t seem to like my drive pedals. 

I’m sure some people will (and do) get on well with all these amps but they just didn’t work in a pleasing way for me. 

barnstorm

Rowby1 said:

barnstorm said:

Cool - long been curious about these. I had a DV Mark Little Jazz that would have been nice if not for the hiss. Might have been a duff one, but I wasn’t inclined to try again and just returned it for a refund.

How would you rank those others you’ve tried?

It’d be hard to rank them because I had different issues with them and also never had any of them side by side. 

What I can say is what I disliked about each of them. 

ToneMaster Twin. Small and boxy sounding. It didn’t sound like a £200 amp let alone a £1k amp. Despite my comments about not ranking them this was easily the most disappointing of the amps in the list.

Blackstar St James. Had that upper mid honk I can hear in every Blackstar amp I’ve heard in the flesh. Not as honky as some of their amps but I just couldn’t dial it out, even resorted to a speaker swap but it didn’t go away. Otherwise I thought it was quite a good amp. In hindsight putting a graphic eq in the fx loop might have sorted it. Probably the best of the amps on the list. I did actually own one of these for a short time and gigged it a couple of times.

Laney Lionheart Foundry. Just a bit boxy sounding. I’ve tried both the small cab and larger cab combos and both sounded the same. Both better than the TM though to my ears.

Roland Blues Cube. Lacked openness in the top end. No chime to it at all although I wouldn’t characterise it as dark. Close but no cigar (like the Blackstar). 

DV Mark Jazz 12. Too dark for me. Couldn’t get anywhere near enough top end out of it. 

Line 6 Catalyst. Sounded plummy(?) with a slightly harsh top end. Biggest problem was it didn’t seem to like my drive pedals. 

I’m sure some people will (and do) get on well with all these amps but they just didn’t work in a pleasing way for me. 

Interesting, thanks. I find buying amps way harder than buying instruments – always takes me a while to 'learn' an amp and make up my mind about it, if it's of a different type than I've had before.

Rowby1

@barnstorm yes, I agree. It took me a good few weeks and two or three gigs to make my mind up about the St James. The Tone Master just sounded wrong to my ears straight away. Bought it and returned it in 24hours. 

Got two gigs next weekend with two different bands. That should test out how I really feel about the new amp.