I spent the day at Guitartone yesterday, trying out the Reverend guitars and Swart amps. Was hoping to try the Two-Rock amps too, but they hadn't arrived yet. The showroom is small, but good sounding and the stock is all very nice gear. Aside from the Reverends there is also a wall with Gibson and Fender guitars (all US models). Apparently there is a Gretsch White Falcon and a Country Gentleman on the way too...
Pretty much how I think a room should look...
The "other" guitars...
Overall, I was impressed by both brands. Swart amps can be summed up in one word... wow! Reverend are super impressive, especially considering the price range.
The Reverend guitars
The Reverends all have a fairly unique look to them that make them stand out. I wasn't too sure about the headstocks from photos, but in real life they have a lot more appeal. They
all have bass contour controls (which make them all incredibly flexible tonally), locking tuners, graphite nuts and roller string trees (where needed). The build quality is very good and consistent across the range (pretty much what you can expect from any of the
better ranges of Asian guitars), necks are mostly a comfortable width and thickness (not too thin or too fat) and the stock setups are far better than the usual factory setups (still a little room to tweak for the obsessive amongst us though), pickups are a cut above (or two in some cases) the usual Asian generic models.
The Reverends
Standout models for me were the Flatroc and Sensei RT for a Gretschy vibe (to be honest, I was a sucker for all the models with Revtron pickups), The Manta Ray HB for a Gibson scale two humbucker guitar (semi-hollow) and the Sensei 290 is an awesome P90 rocker with attitude.
The Swarts...
I know what all the fuss is about now. Simple, no nonsense amps with tons 'o tone. Not incredibly loud for their wattage ratings, but all without exception amazing amps.
Many of the models can take 6V6, 6L6 or EL34 valves (auto-biasing) - we experimented a little with the STR Tweed and I preferred the 6V6 for my Strat, but the El34 was really nice for giving an ES335 and Les Paul through for a more rock vibe. We didn't have a 6L6 handy, but that should sound pretty similar to the 6V6 with more headroom. Also, while we didn't try it, some amps can use a 5Y3 rectifier to make the amp sag even more.
Gian slaving over hot tubes, swapping them out just to make me happy...
The little 5W Atomic Jr is without doubt the best small amp I have
ever played. It's
not just a small practice amp, tonally it blows away a lot of bigger amps too. It only really falls down a little when compared side-by-side with its bigger brothers as it can't match their low end performance and punch. The STR Tweed is also a 5W amp, but has a 12" Mojo speaker in it that brings it a lot closer to the bigger amps in the low end. The AST Master was my pick from the bunch (18-20W with a Celestion Gold speaker), but there wasn't a bad amp among them.
More pics later... Also I'll be announcing
a Reverend guitar giveaway later today.
