Mastervolume
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OK - I have been out of "reviewing" products for quite some time now. It seems like for every single product a guitar player can purchase there are 1000 different shades of grey that are marginally different from one product to another ex: it is like a tube screamer with more...insert description here....
It is rare for me to be genuinely stunned or overly impressed with any piece of new gear. It is also hard for me to justify spending double the price on a piece of gear that is doing the same job as something that works well for me….. see the tube screamer argument again……
This summer a customer sent me an ASW KTS70 to put in a 1x12 cab that he was having made. I couldn’t believe that he was willing to spend that kind of coin on a ceramic speaker but to each his own and who am I to Judge. When the cab was finished I was AMAZED at the tone. It literally destroyed a 2x12 loaded with my favorite combination of G12H30 and Blue. The 4 of us who were playing through it were awestruck.
A few days passed and the cab was off to the new owner… I quickly discounted the tone I heard as the planets lining up at the same time as the chimay went down. It could have actually been new strings or perhaps I just WANTED to like it more.
Fast forward a month or 2, another customer comes over with one of my 1x12s loaded with an elegante…..It made me want to cry. There wasn’t a bad frequency to be had. Everything sounded better. I had 3 other alnico cabs to compare it to and none were remotely close. It was after he left that I made the decision to only load my cabs with ASW. The difference in tone was something that just couldn’t be compromised. When I can justify 400.00 for a boost pedal that I will use 30% of the time is seems silly not to spend less than that for a component that will be used 100% of the time.
Now with that said here is how I hear the speakers.
Elegante – Big full and smooth with the right amount of low end and mid emphasis. Highs never get piercing but have a complexity that great alnico speakers need. They compress when driven hard in a way that is smooth and rewarding. Never brittle, never harsh. Good with cleans good with OD. A very tough speaker to beat and my fave with EL84 amps.
KTS70 – Big and Punchy. Lots of low end and low mids. Loves to be overdriven and yet still gives complex cleans. It has a high end that is more American than the Elegante or the KTS60 and really sits in that full range get out of the way tone that you might find on an older EV. The difference is that unlike some of those big old ev and jbls these have a sweeter midrange that never makes you fell like something is missing. Great all around speaker for all styles. Perfect for the player that has to cover everything with one amp/ cab setup.
KTS60- Aggressively laid back, this speaker is all about the midrange. I can see how they compare it to a G12H30. It cuts like a knife and likes to get up and growl. The mids are more present on these and with a higher gain amp they purrrrrrr. Super fun speakers to play and I think they work great in open or closed back cabs. I love this for Americana rock, roots and the like.
I currently have an Absolute on its way to me and really look forward to hearing how this one compares to the Elegante.
I know this is a stupid long post thanks for hanging in if you made it this far. I just think that these are some of the greatest tone tools being manufactured today and wanted to share that indeed this emperor is fully dressed and sounds stunning!
It is rare for me to be genuinely stunned or overly impressed with any piece of new gear. It is also hard for me to justify spending double the price on a piece of gear that is doing the same job as something that works well for me….. see the tube screamer argument again……
This summer a customer sent me an ASW KTS70 to put in a 1x12 cab that he was having made. I couldn’t believe that he was willing to spend that kind of coin on a ceramic speaker but to each his own and who am I to Judge. When the cab was finished I was AMAZED at the tone. It literally destroyed a 2x12 loaded with my favorite combination of G12H30 and Blue. The 4 of us who were playing through it were awestruck.
A few days passed and the cab was off to the new owner… I quickly discounted the tone I heard as the planets lining up at the same time as the chimay went down. It could have actually been new strings or perhaps I just WANTED to like it more.
Fast forward a month or 2, another customer comes over with one of my 1x12s loaded with an elegante…..It made me want to cry. There wasn’t a bad frequency to be had. Everything sounded better. I had 3 other alnico cabs to compare it to and none were remotely close. It was after he left that I made the decision to only load my cabs with ASW. The difference in tone was something that just couldn’t be compromised. When I can justify 400.00 for a boost pedal that I will use 30% of the time is seems silly not to spend less than that for a component that will be used 100% of the time.
Now with that said here is how I hear the speakers.
Elegante – Big full and smooth with the right amount of low end and mid emphasis. Highs never get piercing but have a complexity that great alnico speakers need. They compress when driven hard in a way that is smooth and rewarding. Never brittle, never harsh. Good with cleans good with OD. A very tough speaker to beat and my fave with EL84 amps.
KTS70 – Big and Punchy. Lots of low end and low mids. Loves to be overdriven and yet still gives complex cleans. It has a high end that is more American than the Elegante or the KTS60 and really sits in that full range get out of the way tone that you might find on an older EV. The difference is that unlike some of those big old ev and jbls these have a sweeter midrange that never makes you fell like something is missing. Great all around speaker for all styles. Perfect for the player that has to cover everything with one amp/ cab setup.
KTS60- Aggressively laid back, this speaker is all about the midrange. I can see how they compare it to a G12H30. It cuts like a knife and likes to get up and growl. The mids are more present on these and with a higher gain amp they purrrrrrr. Super fun speakers to play and I think they work great in open or closed back cabs. I love this for Americana rock, roots and the like.
I currently have an Absolute on its way to me and really look forward to hearing how this one compares to the Elegante.
I know this is a stupid long post thanks for hanging in if you made it this far. I just think that these are some of the greatest tone tools being manufactured today and wanted to share that indeed this emperor is fully dressed and sounds stunning!
