I've had one here since Friday. This thing is no joke. I play Les Paul's. Mainly an R7 and a R9. On the middle pick up setting this thing makes my Les Paul's have that Strat neck PU spank that is not easy to achieve with a Les Paul. On the Bridge PU it reminds me of 70's Joe Walsh. Chords are complex and single notes have beautiful bloom and tones. I own some really nice amps, but I'll dare to say this is my best sounding amp. Including vintage Fenders. Tweeds. Several blackface and silverface. Vox. Stock tubes and speaker too. I haven't looked under the hood yet. But whatever they put together, it's awesome. That is all. As you were.
Congrats. I want one also. Need to sell off a few amps to justify. Pictures inside and out would be great.
You may want to cross-post this in the thread already started on this amp. No doubt that thread could benefit from discussion of the amp from folks with first-hand experience!
Great news, congrats on the new amp! This is the second glowing report I've read by a TGP'er who's played the amp and commented how great it sounded/felt compared to their other very nice amps.
He says he does in the post you quoted. I would wonder how this amp compares to any other handwired clone. I find it hard to believe that Fender has some secret recipe for amps with their name on them. But perhaps the R&D team has more time and personnel to experiment with components to get it just right. Vintage blackface fenders have it going on for sure.
Sweetwater. I wasn't expecting it till god knows when. Seemed like these new release amps always are months longer than original stated. For some reason I don't think they are even listed on their site yet. But I let a sales rep there know I wanted one when I first saw news of it.
You got the first one there, congrats! Sweetwater also has the Rivera modified Fender 68 Deluxe which is around $2K, I feel like the one you got would have been my choice due to the hand wire build.
I'm on vacation for the next few weeks and a few people have asked to see the guts so I'll get on it shortly. Other folks asking if I have another DRRI to compare it too, not at this time. I've owned my share, and they are backline at many clubs I play though. I'm very familiar. I had been a bit down on them the past handful of years honestly. Damn glad I threw caution to the wind on this one. If it didn't blow my socks off I would have returned it. It doesn't just sound good. It sounds special. It dresses notes up. That's all I can say.
I have both the 65 and 68 re issues and if I do get the hand wire, I could do the comparison, Edit: but it's not on my list currently, just have an interest. I think it's a good one, and you are confirming that.
Yeah, I'm sure it's only a matter of time before the comparison is on YouTube. Some things just can't come across like that though. For example, this amp seems to compress and sustain notes almost as if there is a pedal on, even when clean to clean-ish. There is something special going on with it.
How do find the amp to be volume-wise, and feel in particular, is there a noticeable difference at all to what you'd come to expect from other DR amps you've played?