While I am looking at the 20 watt version, there are 50 watt and 100 watt versions. PRS was granted incredible access to the original in order to map out what was in this renowned head. The design is based on one of Jimi Hendrix’s modified Marshall heads. There are five speaker outputs allowing for 4 ohm, 8 ohm and 16 ohm loads as well as monitoring ports for tube bias. ![]() The HDRX uses three 12AX7 or ECCC83 preamp tubes or short bottle 6L6 power tubes producing 20 watts output. The HDRX is a tube head rated at 20 watts and as I find consistently, will take a 100 watt solid state amp out behind the school and kick the crap out of it. The Epiphone does an amazing job of fighting feedback and the only way to get a bit of howl was to raise the master up past noon, and honestly that level of volume hurt. This Epiphone is a better Les Paul Custom than my long gone early 80s Gibson Les Paul Custom which was massively heavy and muddy sounding. There are still people who see Epiphone as a lesser instrument and I am sorry for them. I was impressed because I find the Epiphone Probucker 2 and Probucker 3 pickups a bit dark at ten and they are best at about 8. Rolling off the bass a bit helped along with kicking in the mid switch and the bright switch for a really nice tone in all three pickup positions. At 11 o’clock all the critters in the house had run for cover and the volume had hit the maximum for what I could personally handle in the space where I was. At 10 o’clock it sounded like an old Marshall head with the bass wound full on. At 9 o’clock it was louder still but the bass that had been a bit light was now coming through the cabinet. It started getting loud with the master just below nine o’clock and was a bit strident, so I backed the presence off to noon. As I turned up the master slowly I started to hear some familiar tones. I will talk about why these exist in a bit, but for simplicity think of a classic 4 input Marshall, where you jumper between the Lead and Rhythm channels. As noted I had dimed every control except the master, including the treble volume and bass volume. Initial ImpressionsĪs soon as I turned the tuner off, with the volume pots at 10 on the Les Paul Custom, I could still hear guitar sound out of the cabinet with the amp master volume at zero. The commenters are talented players, so my expectations of the amp were rather low. A number of other comments were made about design choices and “missings” given that it is 2023 as I write this. ![]() I was told by qualified players that it was persnickety and that it was a fair bit of work to find good tone. I had been warned up front that I probably would not like the amp. It might be a myth, but if so the myth works for me. I have never had a tube go in over 25 years because I allow them at least a couple of minutes to warm up before sending a signal and let them cool down at least that amount of time with no signal before cutting the power. While there is a recommended settings top ad, I just dimed everything except the Master Volume and turned the amp on to let it warm up. I plugged my Epiphone White Les Paul Custom into a tuner and the tuner into the amp. I connected the speaker cabinet to the head, and the head to the wall. I brought the amp home and set it on top of the 2x12 Stealth cabinet. As I already own a couple of now discontinued PRS Stealth 2x12 cabinets, I decided to try the HDRX 20 head with one of those, instead of the 1x12. Yesterday, I was at The Arts Music Store and noticed an instore promotion on the relatively new PRS HDRX 20 head and matching 1x12 cabinet. ![]() The DG Custom amp and cab are amazing sounding but out of my price range. I own an old PRS Dallas amplifier which is a 2 x 12 50W combo that is spectacular, but have only (up until now) found another PRS amp that I would spend the money on owning. I have written reviews of the Mary Cries compressor and reviews of the Horsemeat and Wind Through the Trees pedals are coming. As you know by know, I am a fan of Paul Reed Smith guitars.
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