REVEREND
HELLHOUND 40/60
Underneath the Plain Jane graphics and rather nondescript
control knobs lies a power plant with the bark of a blackface
and bite of the Brits. Reverend chief priest Joe Naylor
and former Ampeg guy Dennis Kager have cooked up one sleeper
of an amp by putting all the bones in the tone basket and
christening it the Hellhound 40/60.
Covered
in tooled black Tolex. the Hellhound 40/60 is fueled by
a deuce of Electro-Harmonix (New Sensor) 6L6 bottles and
four 12AX7s. The very informative instruction sheet hips
you to being able to substitute a I2AT7 in the 1st pre-amp
tube position for getting old tweed and Supro tones should
your ears be so inclined.
Front
panel roll call includes a single 1/4" input, Schizo
switch, Gain, Vol, Treb, Mid, Bass, Presence and Reverb
controls. Back real estate handles the 3 amp fast-blo fuse.
4, 6 or 8 ohm speaker jacks, effects loop jacks and the
40/60 watt power switch. Naylor pushes the tone through
a 12 inch 50 watt Reverend All Tone 1250 speaker from behind
that cool salt and pepper retro grille cloth.
Despite
plugging into a less than solid feeling input jack, the
sounds produced were anything but. With my trusty EMG equipped
Strat and humbucker equipped Gibson Steve Howe ES175D, clean
tones in the US domain were oh-so-deluxe with a pleasant,
transparent bloom. A little tech update from Joe Naylor
had me peeking around the innards and performing a high
end vasectomy to a 50pf bright capacitor. While I dug the
pre-op top end shimmer, the little snip took away some of
the slightly-too-bright glassiness resulting in a warmer,
richer tone. Good call, guys.
The
short pan reverb provides a spacious depth to whatever musical
whimsy comes its way. I found the optimum setting to be
between 1 and 2 o'clock before getting too boingy.
While very clean sounds are had between 9 and 10 o'clock
on the gain, pushing our mainland above and beyond this
position pulled a cocky overdrive with an edge as I upped
the ante. From 2 o'clock to full, the distortion is even
and smooth (sans buzziness) with a very defined tone and
more sustain than any blackface I've had the pleasure to
have known.
'Cross
the pond, the U.K. mode speaks with a more in your face
and aggressive midrange. Squeaky clean isn't spoken here,
but for a chewy Vox type vibe, JUSt set the gain to around
10 o'clock, kick down to the 40 watt mode and set the tone
accordingly. The Hellhound pretty much nails it.
Back
in the 60 watt camp, you can coax anything from an early
70s HiWatt crunch to balls out Marshall. The "chunka
chunka" factor is somewhat limited by the open cab
and one speaker but notes have a confident attack and definition
throughout the gain control's range.
The
Hellhound's affirmative tones and flexibility makes it hard
to find fault with any aspect of this little devil. Perhaps
a heavier duty line cord and speaker cables are in order
and most certainly a foot switchable Schizo circuit. Yeah,
that's the ticket!
And
now with Reverend's recent change to a factory direct company
makes the Hellhound 40/60 an even more incredible bang for
the buck.
No
selling your soul at the crossroads for this one!
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