PRS Sweet 16 review

[Aslan]

I got the PRS Sweet 16 head in 5 days ago and traded it in for a Victoria Bassman 45410 today and here is the reasons:

The Sweet 16 is an interesting amp, the cosmetics are attractive with the black and white tolex. The amp has two 6V6's in a cathode bias set-up and a pre-amp with gain, reverb, treble, middle, bass, master volume. I had great expectations of this amp, especially after reading the write up at an internet guitar store but I had to order it before trying it. The amp was tried with a THD 212 cab and PRS Santana & DGT models with George L's cables and I was trying to get a tone where if I rolled back on the volume control to 7-8 the sound would clean up enough for chords and on full volume there would be a nice smooth breakup. The amp wouldn't clean up much when backing of the volume and the gain is never into high gain territory. I also tried the amp with a Am Std Strat without much improvement.

The reverb is "small' sounding and that's probably due to the small reverb tank, it's not bad sounding but not deep or lush like a Fender combo reverb. I substituted a 12AY7 in the V1 position and this really helped the headroom issue but the overdrive just wasn't very smooth or creamy sounding to my ears. I really wanted to like this amp but it wasn't going to be something I could gig with so I took it back today and traded it in on a new Victoria Bassman 45410, which was probably what I was looking for in the first place. The PRS Sweet 16 is a well built amp and probably has a niche that it was designed for, it just didn't work out for me. Please don't take my experience as the final opinion on this amp because several players on the different forums rave about this amp so it does work for some players.

[Jay Strange]

Thanks for the review!

[Marty McFly]

Thanks for the review. I'm intrigued about what I've read so far about the Sweet 16, but I'm waiting a few months to hear more user reviews and hopefully try one out in person.

[Aslan]

I really wanted to like the Sweet 16, it just wasn't anything like I expected.

[dock66]

Great review.
Thanks.

[MarcJ]

I am interested in this amp. Thanks for the review even if it was dissapointing.

[teleamp]

I liked the cleans, this amp is really responsive to how hot the pups in a guitar are. I recently tried a Sweet 16 at Guitar Rez and was absolutely blown away by the cleans, I was using a CS strat with vintage style pups. When I tried a SG with hot h/b's it didn't have near as much clean headroom. But, clean tone with s/c's is what I want in an amp and the S16 delivers them in spades.

I liked it so much that I pre-ordered a combo version and spec'ed Tung-Sol power tubes, also it will be getting a celestion Blue to replace the stock speaker. As of last week, PRS is still awaiting the combo cabs, so hopefully it won't be much longer. No word as to price yet.