REVEREND'S
GOBLIN 5-15
is the brainchild of Reverend founder Joe Naylor
and Dennis Kager, of Pignose and Ampeg fame. The
Goblin was designed as a simple single-channel,
all-tube amp with certain boutique features in
a small package.
At 16 3/4" x 13 1/2" x 9 1/2" and
22 pounds, the Goblin is certainly transportable.
It's lack of weight can mostly be contributed
to the 10" Jenson neodymium-magnet speaker,
which weighs about half of what a standard speaker
weighs, but delivers better low end response and
power-handling capability.
Like other Reverend amps, the Goblin employs an
all-tube design and switchable power amp section
with a matched pair of Electro-Harmonix 6V6 tubes,
a pre-amp with hum-eliminating DC filament 12AX7s,
and a 12AX7 tube reverb circuit with an Accutronics
tank. The all-plywood cabinet is covered in black
tolex with hardware and spun-aluminum knobs in
black, and a black faceplate white silkscreen.
The checkerboard grille cloth and retro-style
Reverend logo add vintage flair.
Like a lot of other U.S. manufacturers, Reverend
uses imported and American-made parts, then assembles
and tests its amps in the U.S. All controls, switches,
tube sockets, and jacks are mounted to the chassis,
as are the PC boards.
Controls on the Goblin included Gain, Volume,
Treble, Midrange, Bass, Presence, and Reverb,
as well as Reverend's trademark Schizo switch
for punching up three voicings; the "US"
setting has transparent mids, crisp highs and
beefy low-end for a Fender sound; the "LO-FI"
uses more mids and softer highs, for a warm vintage
tone, and the "UK" has even more aggressive
mids and crunchy highs for that British sound.
The back panel layout includes a switch for setting
output at either 5 watts or 15 watts. It also
houses 1/4" send/return jacks for the passive
effects loop and three 1/4" speaker output
jacks -- one each for 4-, 8-, 16-ohm speakers.
The "one jack for each impedance" setup
is arguably better than the typical impedance
switch (which is often forgotten when going between
cabinets) or the confusing multi-impedance combination
jacks.
With a Fender '60 Relic Strat plugged in and the
Schizo switch set to "US," the amp delivered
a remarkably big sound for a 15-watt 1x10"
combo -- clean, crisp highs and big low-end you
would expect more from a 12" combo. Dialing
in some of the Goblin's tube driven reverb made
the sound even bigger, with a lush ambience. Even
with the bass and volume turned up, it stayed
tight and responsive with all three pickups. Moving
the Schizo switch into the "LO-FI" position
fattened up the mids and smoothed out the highs,
and added a bit of grit to the sound -- all without
losing it's round, Fender-like tone.
With the Schizo in the "UK" setting
and the gain control straight up, the amp started
to break up nicely with that British bite in the
upper midrange. One very notable absence was noise
and microphonics from the pre-amp tube; it was
nice to hear (or not hear) that quality tested
tubes were used in the preamp section.
Next we plugged in a Duncan humbucker-loaded Hamer
Studio, and again the "US" & "LO-FI"
settings produced a spacious clean sound that
could be dirtied just playing a little harder.
The "UK" setting had more bark with
the humbuckers than with the single coils, though
it got a bit mushy if we pushed the gain too far.
The preamp stayed together better with the lower-gain
single-coils in the Strat.
We checked the Goblin's performance running straight
into a Celestion-loaded Randall 4x12" with
the Hamer. We were pleasantly surprised as it
delivered a loud, crunchy British-flavored overdrive
that wasn't mushy or harsh. The note separation
was good and, with the Schizo in the "UK"
setting, the amp offered a fair amount of gain.
The 5-/15-watt power feature definitely made the
amp "apartment friendly," allowing it
to be used more as a practice amp -- without sucking
the life out of the tone. In the 15-watt mode,
the amp is plenty loud, both clean and overdriven,
for rehearsals, studio work, or even some small
gigs. And it's a breeze to tote.
The Reverend Goblin 5-15 is a remarkably big-sounding
little amp. It's versatile Schizo switch, quality
construction, and tube-driven reverb make it a
very nice, very versatile bargain. It's easy to
scare up good sounds with this Goblin!