New amp day!

aja

I have been wanting one of these for ages. I liked the 20 watt 4x10" - nice cleans but it sounded too punchy for me when driven (have a look at this model if you want your sound to stand out from the band, the mids really come through well). The 5 Watt 1x12" was nice but not enough clean headroom to play with other people and the 30W speaker was not working hard enough - I like speakers driven hard. The 20W head and 2x12" cab was too much to lug around and again, the speakers were not driven hard enough. So I settled on the Lionheart 20W 1x12"!

It has a Celestion G12H(55) speaker, the "bass" reissue with the 55Hz resonance frequency giving really smooth overdrive, not punchy like the 75Hz lead model. I cannot praise these speakers enough, definitely my favourite modern speakers and much better than the small magnet "greenbacks" IMO.
http://celestion.com/product/25/heritage_series_g12h55/

In case you didnt know, the amp has a three band passive EQ that acts on the preamp and an additional master tone that acts on the poweramp - when the master tone is maxed out you get pure AC30 top boost tone, cut it back and you get a Fender type sound, cut it back some more and you get that British Vox/Marshall thing going.

The bright switch adds presense to the clean channel, but it enhanced pick attack on the drive channel, quite interesting to play around with. It can do vintage blues/rock and it can do modern high gain rock without any extra pedals...

To be honest I cannot understand why Laney amps are so underrated in SA. So many pro's use them! Yes some have reliability problems but so do other brands like Peavey and they seem to fly off the shelves.

Some amps having a picnic: ?

Also got these two goodies at the Toms sale:

psyx

Damn nice gear man!
Happy NAD and NPD!

aja wrote: I have been wanting one of these for ages. I liked the 20 watt 4x10" - nice cleans but it sounded too punchy for me when driven (have a look at this model if you want your sound to stand out from the band, the mids really come through well). The 5 Watt 1x12" was nice but not enough clean headroom to play with other people and the 30W speaker was not working hard enough - I like speakers driven hard. The 20W head and 2x12" cab was too much to lug around and again, the speakers were not driven hard enough. So I settled on the Lionheart 20W 1x12"!

The 20Watt 1X12 is probably the best combination of all the things you need... Just enough headroom and not too powerful for practice!

Psean

:applause: I like! Very much. I also think Laney's are underrated! I love my little VC-15 110.
+1 for the master tone and the bright switch on these. Enjoy ?

aubs1

Congrats Aja....... nice amp!

FruitarGeek

Ooooh. This looks interesting. I'm on the market for a new amp. I need something that is

Easy to cart around to gigs
Loud enough for band practice (if unmiced)
Does not distort too early when you put the volume up (I like my cleans)
Handles pedals well

Does this amp do this all? There arn't too many solid demo reviews on the tube

arjunmenon

Congrats Aja! That is an awesome amp.

The Lionheart really is a dark horse! IMO, they've got a nice vintage vibe (tone-wise).

Jayhell

Thats what I want! Nice ?

aja

Thanks for all the congratulations. You guys make it sound like I accomplished something hehehe ?

Adrian Rogowski wrote: Ooooh. This looks interesting. I'm on the market for a new amp. I need something that is

Easy to cart around to gigs

Loud enough for band practice (if unmiced)

Does not distort too early when you put the volume up (I like my cleans)

Handles pedals well

Does this amp do this all? There arn't too many solid demo reviews on the tube

Indeed it does!

However I would suggest that you go try out the different speaker combos if you can, they are quite different. You might like the 4x10 because of the cleans - more defined than the 12" but not quite as sweet/warm. The 4x10 has Jensen speakers in it, so think fender clean for country or clean blues. The clean channel does get quite compressed and does start to overdrive (in a very musical way) if you use a guitar with hot pickups, so you will have to try it out to determine if there is enough clean headroom. I suppose a fender blues junior would be a good comparison in terms of clean channel overdrive.

There are some good videos of the other lionheart amps by laney themselves and other people - that should give you a good idea of what the amp can do. They tend to use it on higher gain settings on the drive channel, but it sounds very vintage if you max out the master volume and keep the drive gain low. Set like that it sounds similar to my 1950's epiphone 15" you see in the background - some very usable vintage rock/blues sounds. Crank the drive gain and it would keep up with the blackstar HT or stage series amps, too!

Sebber

aja wrote: Thanks for all the congratulations. You guys make it sound like I accomplished something hehehe ?

You did! Pulling the trigger is always an accomplishment (when it comes to purchasing something awesome, trigger being metaphorical of course). I've heard great things about these Laney Lionhearts and I've been meaning to try one out one of these days.

Keira-WitherKay

awesome amp......... loved my laney ........ and this is way better spec'd can't wait to hear it

ZarK

Cool gear! Congrats!

Nicholas-L

Awesome bud. ? . From the clips these amps are awesome!

shaunf

Congrats on your new amp! I like the Laney amps, and I whole heartedly agree with your assessment of the 55hz Celestion G12H30's. My old Marshall 4x12 that I restored has 4 vintage originals and I really enjoy the character of these speakers.

guidothepimmp

Nice one Aja..

I too love my Laney... its just too damned loud for me to use it to its full potential... awesome tones though..