Fusionshred
Silver Supporting Member
- Messages
- 1,152
Just got an Evans JE200 about a week ago. Evans Custom Amps makes amps well-known in the jazz and steel guitar industry as reliable, portable, great sounding amps. I play a lot of jazz, but I also am playing rock and progressive fusion in a band context. I was looking for something light, loud and clean. Following is an excerpt from a review I just submitted over at Harmony Central:
There are more than enough features to shape significantly the overall tone of the amp to suit a variety of applications. Although this is a single channel amp, it is far from the limitations of the proverbial "one-trick pony." Some of the more notable features helpful in real-world use are the recessed knobs, the well-marked indicators, the on/off switch incorporated into the volume pot, the simple tilt back bottom handle, and the cord wrap. In addition to those well engineered and designed, features, the control layout beckons playing with the dials, the result of which will be covered in the next sections.
The controls are straight-forward. Once you read the manual (not a prerequisite, though) and understand what each knob is for, you are well on your way to messing around with all the wonderful differences that can be achieved with simple tweaking. Basically, the controls go from low bass to low mid to mid to upper mids to treble, with the Buff control adding some upper harmonics much like a tube amp does, and with the Body control behaving sort of like an active mid control, changing the shape of the mids from a thinner almost nasally AM radio quality to a fat warm mid to a dark smooth jazz tone.
It is cliché to say "there isn't a bad tone to be found," but sometimes the cliché is the easiest and most descriptive thing to say! My need was to find something as loud, powerful and clean as a Twin reverb (read below to find out why...) with the same level of tonal satisfaction. Not willing to compromise tone for reliability or weight, I was in for quite a search. Having the opportunity to A/B directly compare the JE200 with a TRRI, I found the Evans to be the better sounding amp. Now, of course, the appreciation of tone is subjective ("TONE" itself is NOT subjective - it can be measured in frequencies) but to me the Evans had a rounder, less scooped, thicker and smoother tone than the TRRI. And the Evans is way more "tweakable." The interaction among the pots allows the user to dial in a sharp, biting, percussive tone (great for a Tele), a fat mid-laden tone (think Polytone) or a warm sound with a lot of acoustic overtones coming through.
One of the most important and unique things about the Evans is that, unlike probably every other "jazz guitar amp," this is a great amp for country, rock, pop, and everything else imaginable. In my progressive fusion trio, Delacey's Fire, all I have is bass and drums. I have to cover a lot of ground. I need a clean tone that cuts through for chord work, and something that will not sound like a transistor radio when I play distortion through it.; My gain comes from a Barber Dirty Bomb set pretty high, and through the JE200, amazingly, it sounds fantastic. Usually a solid state distortion pedal through a solid state amp sounds like crap. It's just too fizzy and buzzy. But I can say that the JE200 takes overdrive and distortion quite well and the EQ at the amp is variable enough that you can dial in your overall final sound with ease.
Loud, clean, powerful, smooth, warm, bright, clear, and a great platform pedal.
Here's why I have this amp in the first place. Unfortunately, having arrived unexpectedly quickly at middle age, I am faced with significant bilateral shoulder injuries, resulting in the need for surgical intervention and, in the interim, the inability to lift or carry anything of any significant weight. This condition has rendered my venerable Fender Twin Reverb Reissue useless. My musical requirements for a loud and perfectly clean sound left me with few options. The objective was to find an amp that is virtually as powerful, loud and clean as the Twin Reverb; could be carried with ease with one hand; has an excellent clean sound; can be used for a variety of clean applications, and can take high gain overdrive and distortion pedals well. This set of objectives seemed at worst mutually exclusive, and at best fairly elusive. I knew that I needed at least more clean headroom than a Deluxe Reverb could offer. I knew that the reviews for the JE200 were excellent. I knew that people spoke highly of how the JE200 took pedals. So I gave it a shot. Having owned and played an Evans AE100 for several years (the AE100 was a 100 watt combo with a single 8" speaker, great for solo jazz guitar) I knew that Evans was a great company with a great product. But now I needed something bigger. MUCH bigger. The JE200 is NOT a small amp. It is a decent sized cabinet, which is good, because that wood produces some fine warmth and bass response. Over the years, though, as it has evolved, the JE200 has gotten leaner. Back in the day, I recall the estimated weight to be somewhere in the mid-40s. Now with a Neo speaker and a new power section, it is a lean, mean 30 pounds (approximately). Plug it in, and you immediately realize that all that great sound is still pumping. So there it is. All the power, tone, ease of use, and portability anyone could possibly want.
I regret all those years of lugging around the giants, or schlepping a bunch of weenie amps to practice only to find crunchy tones when I needed clean. OR how about the time the output tubes blew an internal fuse in the middle of a set at an important gig! The Evans JE200 has NO compromises. The sound is glorious, the portability is essential, and it WORKS.
There are more than enough features to shape significantly the overall tone of the amp to suit a variety of applications. Although this is a single channel amp, it is far from the limitations of the proverbial "one-trick pony." Some of the more notable features helpful in real-world use are the recessed knobs, the well-marked indicators, the on/off switch incorporated into the volume pot, the simple tilt back bottom handle, and the cord wrap. In addition to those well engineered and designed, features, the control layout beckons playing with the dials, the result of which will be covered in the next sections.
The controls are straight-forward. Once you read the manual (not a prerequisite, though) and understand what each knob is for, you are well on your way to messing around with all the wonderful differences that can be achieved with simple tweaking. Basically, the controls go from low bass to low mid to mid to upper mids to treble, with the Buff control adding some upper harmonics much like a tube amp does, and with the Body control behaving sort of like an active mid control, changing the shape of the mids from a thinner almost nasally AM radio quality to a fat warm mid to a dark smooth jazz tone.
It is cliché to say "there isn't a bad tone to be found," but sometimes the cliché is the easiest and most descriptive thing to say! My need was to find something as loud, powerful and clean as a Twin reverb (read below to find out why...) with the same level of tonal satisfaction. Not willing to compromise tone for reliability or weight, I was in for quite a search. Having the opportunity to A/B directly compare the JE200 with a TRRI, I found the Evans to be the better sounding amp. Now, of course, the appreciation of tone is subjective ("TONE" itself is NOT subjective - it can be measured in frequencies) but to me the Evans had a rounder, less scooped, thicker and smoother tone than the TRRI. And the Evans is way more "tweakable." The interaction among the pots allows the user to dial in a sharp, biting, percussive tone (great for a Tele), a fat mid-laden tone (think Polytone) or a warm sound with a lot of acoustic overtones coming through.
One of the most important and unique things about the Evans is that, unlike probably every other "jazz guitar amp," this is a great amp for country, rock, pop, and everything else imaginable. In my progressive fusion trio, Delacey's Fire, all I have is bass and drums. I have to cover a lot of ground. I need a clean tone that cuts through for chord work, and something that will not sound like a transistor radio when I play distortion through it.; My gain comes from a Barber Dirty Bomb set pretty high, and through the JE200, amazingly, it sounds fantastic. Usually a solid state distortion pedal through a solid state amp sounds like crap. It's just too fizzy and buzzy. But I can say that the JE200 takes overdrive and distortion quite well and the EQ at the amp is variable enough that you can dial in your overall final sound with ease.
Loud, clean, powerful, smooth, warm, bright, clear, and a great platform pedal.
Here's why I have this amp in the first place. Unfortunately, having arrived unexpectedly quickly at middle age, I am faced with significant bilateral shoulder injuries, resulting in the need for surgical intervention and, in the interim, the inability to lift or carry anything of any significant weight. This condition has rendered my venerable Fender Twin Reverb Reissue useless. My musical requirements for a loud and perfectly clean sound left me with few options. The objective was to find an amp that is virtually as powerful, loud and clean as the Twin Reverb; could be carried with ease with one hand; has an excellent clean sound; can be used for a variety of clean applications, and can take high gain overdrive and distortion pedals well. This set of objectives seemed at worst mutually exclusive, and at best fairly elusive. I knew that I needed at least more clean headroom than a Deluxe Reverb could offer. I knew that the reviews for the JE200 were excellent. I knew that people spoke highly of how the JE200 took pedals. So I gave it a shot. Having owned and played an Evans AE100 for several years (the AE100 was a 100 watt combo with a single 8" speaker, great for solo jazz guitar) I knew that Evans was a great company with a great product. But now I needed something bigger. MUCH bigger. The JE200 is NOT a small amp. It is a decent sized cabinet, which is good, because that wood produces some fine warmth and bass response. Over the years, though, as it has evolved, the JE200 has gotten leaner. Back in the day, I recall the estimated weight to be somewhere in the mid-40s. Now with a Neo speaker and a new power section, it is a lean, mean 30 pounds (approximately). Plug it in, and you immediately realize that all that great sound is still pumping. So there it is. All the power, tone, ease of use, and portability anyone could possibly want.
I regret all those years of lugging around the giants, or schlepping a bunch of weenie amps to practice only to find crunchy tones when I needed clean. OR how about the time the output tubes blew an internal fuse in the middle of a set at an important gig! The Evans JE200 has NO compromises. The sound is glorious, the portability is essential, and it WORKS.
