[Harp-L] Re: Another Gear Orbit..which 4x10?

["Gary Bohannon" <beauxart2@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I just got a Sonny Jr. 4x10 the other day.  I've had the chance to play out with it once and the tone flat out floored me.  The amp's a thing of beauty from a visual standpoint... Sonny hand rubs the stain on the tweed and then has it sealed, all in all it a labor of love to do this.  So, for visuals it's a "10".

Build quality:  The amp I have is a special one built by Sonny to recreate a "New Old Stock" Bassman.  '59 trannys, hand picked Astron tone caps, mil.-spec NOS pots, handpicked NOS '59 P10R's, NOS mil.-spec tube sockets and so much more stuff I can't begin to list it all.  Ok... you gotta put all this stuff together so it works, right?  Every solder joint is clean, shines like a mirror and has the perfect amount of solder.  The lead dress for the wiring is neat and tidy... perfectly routed for no talkback or occilation at high volume.  Best workmanship I've ever seen.

Tone:  now the fun part starts happening.  I fired up the amp, let it warm up awhile and took it off standby.  No noises other than the usual hiss when everything was dimed.  I've owned a LOT of Bassmans over the last 3 decades and currently own two nice '59's.  This amp killed 'em tone wise... no questions at all!  I had a friend come over to check it out, just to make sure I wasn't hearing things, and he was speachless... totally slack jawed  HUGE, fat, resonant bottom end; mids that are stuffed with overtones and the sweetest high end I've ever heard.  And all this considering it was biased just the way I like 'em... a tiny tick on the cold side.  I could nudge the bias up (it has a bias pot) a notch and the Tung-Sol 5881's will really start to sing.

Granted, my amp is a one-off amp that probably won't be done again... it took Sonny a long time to get everything together for this... but build quality is build quality and this amp has it in spades.  I can't imagine something better than this... couldn't even dream of it!

Gary B.
Nashville, TN