Is there an "improved" Sansamp?

[nosajwp]

I've been looking for a preamp (prefer pedal) that I can use to go direct (to mixer or poweramp) for some of my gigs. I'd rather have something a little nicer than a Sansamp.

The Koch Pedaltone looks really nice, but I was wondering if there were other good ones out there as well.

[Soulgolem]

In my experience, the sansamp sound cool, but lack a lot clarity and definition, so I'm wondering the same thing as you, could be usefull to have something that can go direct that's almost like an amp, I find the digital route is always a compromise.

Francis.

[trucks]

Palmer PDI-09 is an excellent direct box. I like it a lot more than the sansamp.

[nosajwp]

Some others I've found were the H&K Tubeman, Mesa V-Twin, and the Damage Control Womanizer, but I'd like to get opinions from people who have used these.

[Senor Blues]

I have a Womanizer that I use like an amp, plug pedals in front of it, Reverb and Delay after it and before the recording device. It is a very good sounding piece of gear and responds to small changes in the Knobs. If you try one out in the store spend a little time with the manual as it has some 'sample' settings in it. That will give you the idea of what you can REALLY do with it,. from Cranked 68 Plexi tones to Clean and Chimy.Twist the knobs to the various settings they have for you.Just trying it out by itself with your own knob twisting, without going through the settings will leave you with a false idea of how versatile it is--as some have shown with negative reviews on it--those guys that could only get one kind of sound out of it just are 1) Ignorant or 2) just didn't play with it long enough. This being the 'Net I tend to think 1. It is a very versatile pedal and sounds good, sounds even better when you void the warranty and change the tubes to NOS or other good tubes from the stock EH ones. It has better cleans than my Tone Lab and Better crunch than any modeller in HOW it sounds. It is just not so versatile as a modeller, but the sounds I get out of it are good.The thing sounds great through an amp too. which as I understand it the Tubeman does not.I've owned a V Twin and sold it, it just didn't so much FEEL amp-like to me. The Damage Control pedal does and cleans up nicely with my Guitar Volume knob. The V Twin I had , did not.

[david henman]

...owned three sansamp gt-2s before i finally realized the problem - no sustain.

-dh

[mild]

The Triad is a pretty cool Preamp... not sure if its exactly what you want, though.

[g-nem]

I have a tubeman that I like a lot for going direct- three channels w/shared eq- still possible to get 3 useable sounds- and sounds good direct.

The damage control pedals look REAL interesting to me, but as an amp replacement the fact that there is only one real channel per, and they are made for distorted sounds rather than clean.

The palmer seems to be the consensus standard for going DI.

[drolling]

Have you tried a Morley JD-10? Used to keep one in my gigbag & it saved my @$$ more than once. The 'classic' tones are a bit more convincing than the 'rock' setting, and the speaker emulator's a pretty primitive affair, but it beats the heck out of plugging straight into the PA..