_ChowMayne_

Their presence on countless classic records have made them the golden standard of rock/metal guitar tone. It's nigh impossible to improve upon greenbacks. Mine are older late 80's UK made examples that have broken in magically over the years. My favorite speaker of all time.

One of my favorite speakers and probably the best out of the WGS lineup. As they've broken in they've gotten sweeter and sweeter.

Besides a costly and bulky strobe tuner, this is the most accurate and consistent tuner I've ever used.

Besides a costly and bulky strobe tuner, this is the most accurate and consistent tuner I've ever used.

One of my favorite speakers and probably the best out of the WGS lineup. As they've broken in they've gotten sweeter and sweeter.

There has been a lot of marketing over the past two decades to sell "new, more vintage-correct" wah pedals from every company under the sun. Chances are, if you're listening to a CryBaby wah on a classic rock or metal record, it's one of these. They're not the most "vocal', or "soulful" or all the other BS terms that guitar forumites use to justify their new $200+ wah pedals. But they have a certain magic, and mine cuts through the mix and sounds just plain mean. The buffer isn't the greatest, but a decent buffer pedal before and/or after the wah will clear up any tone-suck it has going on. I've tried lots of different wahs, a few recent era Vox's and countless Dunlops - this one just has THAT wah sound, the one you've heard on records by Zeppelin, Metallica, Motorhead, etc.

This pickup has consistently sounded great in every guitar I've tried it in. I mostly use older non-logo 80's and early 90's DDJ and DDL's. I find them to be a little sweeter and warmer, possibly just do to the age of the pickups themselves. New production pickups sound 90% the same, just a little sharper on the top end.

I lusted after one of these USA-made Kramer reissues all through my teens and managed to score a NOS one on eBay a few years ago. It came to be basically straight out of the box after sitting unplayed for close to 10 years. Needless to say it needed a bit of a setup, and honestly a novice player or even a moderately experienced repairperson would've had trouble dialing it in. A tapered shim was needed on the bass side of the neck pocket to stop it from shifting, as well as a very thin shim at the heel to slightly correct the neck angle. If I had been able to afford this guitar as a 16 year old guitar noob, I wouldn't even have know what was causing the playability issues let alone how to rectify it. Now for the positive points. The difference since tightening up the neck pocket, and a proper setup is totally night and day. It went from being kind of a disappointment and not performing at its full potential to one of my best sounding and playing guitars. The neck on this guitar is truly wonderful, and feels very similar in shape and contour to an EBMM Axis (no shit sherlock). Frets are nice 6105ish size, VERY nicely dressed and leveled. I've got the action lower than all of my other guitars and it has the least fret buzz...go figure! Hardware and electronics are all top quality, choice components. I wish the Gibson 84T pickup was still widely available...this is the best pickup for classic "brown sound" that I've ever tried. Fat, clear, tons of harmonics and just the right amount of high-end shimmer and midrange grunt. Seymour Duncan makes about a half dozen "EVH" type pickups, but none of them sound this accurate to my ears. It just NAILS the "Fair Warning" era tone and beyond. I absolutely love this guitar, and for what they went for brand new they were a total steal. I still got a good price on mine, and even though I had to do some work on it the value was incredible. I've tried the current Korean-made versions and they're nowhere near as good, and also a little more expensive thanks to inflation. If you find one of these old USA-made ones, don't let it slip through your fingers!!

I've tried countless clean boosts (BBE, EHX, TC, and MANY boutique brands) and this is by far the best one. Out of everything I tried, this one actually does what it says on the tin. Through the front-end of a tube amp (Marshall) it will actually give a perceivable volume and "presence" boost instead of just adding gain or compression. This is about as transparent as it gets too, and honestly most of the hype that surrounded this pedal when it was introduced is absolutely dead-on. This is the one pedal that I never play without.

You can read gobs of info online about the KH 100's, 55's, KHR's K-Tre's, etc. But there is scarce info on this sleeping beast, and I can't figure out why. I'm absolutely stunned at how incredibly versatile this amp is. All of the typical Rivera buzzwords certainly apply in this case - "Fendery Cleans", "Marshall-meets-Mesa distortion", "Clear and quiet operation". I hate to sound like another overly-positive reviewer parroting other user's enthusiastic musisings, but I simply must agree. I come from the single-channel-Marshall type world, and am used to being able to get all of the gain and clean tones I need from careful volume-pot adjustments on my guitar. Every other high-gain, multi-channel, modern style amp I've tried seems to sacrifice the touch-sensitivity that I've gotten so used to for more options and buttons. From my experience, a guitar which cleans up beautifully through a JMP or JCM800 will get muddy and lifeless through a mega-channel-gain-monster type amp. Sure, a 4-channel Boogie or JVM IS versatile, but to really get the most out of those kinds of amps I find myself tap-dancing all the time, trying to get the varying levels of breakup that other amps can easily achieve with slight volume adjustments. That's not to say you can't operate a Rivera in much the same way - with footswitchable boosts on both channels it's definitely set up for that, but I find that once you get either channel dialed in JUST RIGHT, you'll never want to plug the footswitch in. I primarily use channel 2, set for a boosted-marshall type tone that honestly sounds better than my '86 JCM800. That was a big surprise. A lot of owners say that Rivera amps are a "jack-of-all-trades..." type situation: "It'll never REALLY sound like a Marshall...". I beg to differ. I think what throws people off is what an immense range the EQ and gain controls have, the voicing of the channel can change much more drastically than on a lot of amps. There is a learning curve when it comes to dialing it in, and as a general rule of thumb, start with everything at about 5 and slowly add or subtract one control at a time. There is a riduculous amount of bass on tap, as the KHII's were made during the nu-metal fad - don't be afraid to dial the bass control back to 3 or 4, any more can be overwhelming. I keep all of the push-pull pots in the "down" position, but even more extreme tone sculpting abounds when you start pulling them. If you want to venture into crushing, scooped mids tones these are the ticket. Channel 1 is kind of a love-letter to Fender tones, and is probably really similar to some of the circuits Paul Rivera designed while working for them. Keep in mind that when I say "Fender" I don't mean just "sparkling blackface cleans" like most people assume when they hear the "F" word. Utilizing the push-pull controls will yield anything from the aforementioned cleans to tweed-esque breakup and beyond. I used to own a '65 blackface Fender Bassman which sounded godly when cranked up, and the KHII does a really close approximation of that. For me, having this channel is just a bonus - whenever I feel the need to rip some SRV it delivers in spades. For someone in a cover-band doing multiple genres and styles, the dichotomy between Channels 1 and 2 would be invaluable. It really is like having two amps in a box. Sure, if you choose tubes and speakers to work best with one channel over the other, it might not deliver 100% in all areas. I think this is where the naysayers are drawing their experience from. Obviously, a Fender type circuit run with Tung-Sol 12AX7's into Vintage 30's isn't going to sound as "chime-y, sparkly, lush" etc. Conversely, a hot-rodded Marshall with RCA Long Plate 12AX7's and 12AT7's into alnico Jensens isn't going to have all the "crunch, aggression, brown-ness" etc. It's just a matter of finding a happy medium. For recording, you could have two sets of tubes and a couple cabinets with different speakers set up for either channel, and I'd bet if you did even the most omnipotent cork-sniffers would be hard pressed to tell the difference between it and the "real deal(s)". Build quality and engineering is second to none. It's "built likea brick sh*thouse" to use the parlance of our times. Head-and-shoulders above what most current big-names are doing. Out of any amp I've owned (Mesa, Marshall, Soldano, Peavey, Vox, Orange, Fender) it has the lowest idling noise BY FAR. At a loud stage volume it has barely any hum or hiss. I don't know how they achieved that and still made this beast as ungodly loud as it is. The biggest tip I could give with this amp is to use the effects loop as a master volume. I keep the front-panel volumes set to 10, then I run a short patch cable in the Send and Return jacks. Paul Rivera advises starting with the Send and Return levels both at 4 and using the front panel Masters, but through experimentation I found it sounded best when run with the channel masters dimed and setting the "Send" level to 10. Then I use the "Return" level as my master volume, and it works beautifully. In truth, running it without this gives the amp a completely different character. It's a lot more boomy, and is painfully buzzy until you hit about 5 on the channel master volume, which is ridiculously loud for most applications. Running it as I've described with the settings I use sounds really similar to some of the PPIMV modded Plexi clones I've been lucky enough to try. My settings for an awesome, classic hotrod Marshall tone that's got enough juice for solos and still cleans up: Pres: 5, Focus: 5.5, Master: 10, Treb: 5, Mid: 5.5, Bass: 3.5, Gain: 7 I run my guitar(s), usually loaded with Duncan Distortions or JB's, straight in with a high quality cable and get everything I need out of one channel and my volume pot. YMMV, but for me it's just about perfect.

Amazing amp, the perfect-sized single channel Marshall. This gets you that vintage JCM800 tone without breaking the bank or your back. Great for both thick crunchy rhythm and searing leads, it cuts through the mix like a machete that's been welded to a sledgehammer. Easily loud enough to get through any gig that doesn't take place in an Enormo-Dome.

I've had my Saxon for about 4 years and in that time it's seen many gigs, rehearsals, parking lots, and muddy truck beds. It has never let me down and remains looking great, which is not as much as I can say for most other cabs I've had. The covering on Marshall cabs looks great, but tends to tear like tissue paper. Whatever Saxon uses is much tougher. The jacks and hardware is all top notch as well. I really can't say anything bad about these cabs. It was a real bargain too at the prices he charges, but I'd still be just as happy with it if it cost half again as much.

While far from perfect, this thing is a godsend. I use this as a part of my live rig and my tone has never been better. I'd been looking for a way to split my signal into two amps that was more interesting than an A/B/Y or stereo delay pedal. Build quality is great, feels very sturdy and well engineered. The casing is one of the best designs ever I think, to access the battery there's a large set screw on the back that is wide-threaded and can be unscrewed with a quarter. Much more convenient than the typical 4 screws on MXR type boxes, and less fragile and less moving parts than a BOSS style casing. Reliability so far has been perfect. The stereo ins and outs are a nice feature for those putting this at the end of a stereo effects chain. The controls are marked "Tightness", "Effect" and "Dry". "Tightness" controls how much of the "Mimiq" effect is blended into the signal. When used mono, the "Effect" and "Dry" knobs do what they say on the tin. In stereo, they are essentially volume controls for the left and right outputs. Fairly intuitive, except that the "Tightness" control works backwards from how you'd expect ("0" is the most "tight", while "10" has the most amount of the "Mimiq" effect) One small issue is that it seems to eat batteries quite quickly, about as fast as an average digital delay (it has a power consumption of 100 mA). It would probably last a good while on a battery if you were using it as an occasional effect. But, if you plan on switching it on at the start of the gig and switching it off at the end like I do, definitely use an adapter. Thankfully, if you're stuck using a battery and it does die mid set, because it's true bypass it'll just switch off and won't kill your signal. I play hardcore punk and metal and when set to the most minimal settings (1 Dub, "Tightness" at 0, "Dry" and "Effect" at 10) the clarity and definition that it gives is something I've been chasing all of my guitar-playing life. I tried using it with just one amp and it was pretty underwhelming. This thing really shines through two amps, with one set fairly midrange-heavy and clear, and the other more scooped and saturated. I can't say enough about what a game changer this pedal was in that scenario. I did find that setting the "Tightness" control above 11 o clock brought about some subtle tracking issues when doing fast leads, especially on the treble strings. This was exacerbated when adding more dubs, and at times can sound slightly artificial. Keeping the "Tightness" control set very low (ie, most "tight") This pedal has become completely indispensable to my live rig, when used subtly it can really fill out the sound of a power trio or add some body to the mix when one guitarist drops out to play a solo. While it might not succeed in fulfilling its goal of providing a 100% realistic double tracking emulation, if you work within its limitations it will yield amazing results. I'd buy it again in a heartbeat if I had to replace it, and might stockpile a couple extra just in case they get discontinued. It's that good.