Customer Reviews

Really really great amp!
Review by Jon S

Rating

I can\'t understand why this amp isn\'t insanely popular. Great amp for the price? No. Just a great amp period. I was looking for a small amp to use at home. Just about every low-powered amp I\'ve tried has had loose, muddy low end, and no headroom. I couldn\'t find a DarkHorse anywhere to try it out. But the Youtube videos sounded great, it has what looked like a lot of useful features without being too \"gadget-ish\", and ProAudioStar\'s price for a NEW DarkHorse was comparable to USED amps in the same class from other places. I took a chance and got one.

Here\'s a run-down of the settings.
USA: This setting alone is worth the price of the entire amp. It sounds like a 60\'s blackface combo. Lots of clean headroom. Full, round, yet tight low end. This can most likely be attributed to the stock JJ 6V6\'s, which have been noted to have lows approaching 6L6 territory. Bell-like harmonics, crisp highs, slightly scooped mids. I\'ve played enough vintage blackface combos to know the sound, and here it is.

Pure: Bypasses the tone stack. More mids, less headroom, more raunch, slightly more volume. The amp sort of gets into \"tweed\" territory here. This setting loves pedals. I use this setting with a Rat type OD pedal for band practice. Think Social Distortion or Supersuckers... that\'s what I\'m going for. Yes, at 15 watts, this amp hangs with a drummer (a POUNDER of a drummer), another guitar player, and bass. I\'m running a closed back 2x12, and it is plenty loud, and still stays defined.

Brit: This is what most people site as the weak point of this amp. It sounds kind of weak... until you put the right OD pedal in front of it. Then it comes alive. With a Rat (or something in that family... I use an Ibanez Fat Cat because I have a weird thing for the 10 series pedals) you can get firmly into 80\'s butt rock territory. And really... is there anything more awesome than the intro to Round And Round? I mean, except for Hold On Loosely. But that\'s obvious.

The two watt setting is awesome. Especially in Pure and Brit mode. More compression, easy feedback etc... The USA setting is best with as much headroom as possible... so I just use it in 15w mode. The 2w setting IS too loud for late night noodling if someone is trying to sleep. But if I\'m in the basement, and my wife is watching TV, she doesn\'t yell at me for at least 10 minutes. So that\'s cool.

Overall, it\'s just a killer amp. It has plenty of options, sounds great, and takes pedals extremely well. I have guitars with humbuckers, P90\'s, regular single coils (Strat,Tele), and it likes every guitar I plug in. There\'s no effects loop, but given the features that are there, and the size of the head, it\'s not that big of a deal.

Look up Traynor\'s history on the web, and buy with confidence. This amp is that good, and should earn its place in Traynor history right along side the legendary Bassmaster. I don\'t understand why these things aren\'t insanely popular. (Posted on 5/8/11)