The Awesome Fender Supersonic 22 gets Even More Awesome!
The Awesome Fender Supersonic 22 gets Even More Awesome!
Hi speaker friends! Today I deliver on the promised Supersonic speaker shootout. First off, I gotta say that this amp probably makes my top-10 list of all time. It’s an absolutely marvelous little Deluxe Reverb sized grab-n-go amp that will fit many gigging situations with nothing more than a guitar and a cable. It’s cleans can hang in there with the very best vintage blackface cleans, and it’s gain channel is probably the best you will EVER find in a stock Fender amp. The spring verb is, once again, second to NONE, and the boost and effects loop switches on the included 4-button footswitch really nail the “no pedal board necessary” vibe. If, like me you just gotta have a delay (I think of reverb and delay as the audio equivalent of meat & potatoes … while chorus, phasing, flanging and the like are but mere spice) … then it’s oh-so easy to keep a delay pedal in the back of the amp hooked up to the efx loop and switched with the amps footswitch … so ELEGANT!
Okay, now on to the speaker upgrade shootout. Here is where I need to come clean and say that I was dead wrong going into this shootout. I thought I LOVED this amp just as she is, but it turns out that amp-love can be a fickle thing; once I heard her with the proper speaker, I find I can never go back to loving her just the way she was. Does this make me a bad person?
Okay, anyway. On this one, I’m not going to give away which speaker I perceived as the winner … you’re just going to have to watch the video to find out. Truth is, ALL the speakers I tried sounded better. The real surprise to me was in the amazing improvement in the “burn” channel. That channel actually was what I would consider a total transformation with the right speaker. Okay, so now that I’ve teased you enough, let’s roll the video. Please, please, please post your comments here and let me know your thoughts on this very close shootout.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Az9BG21ZzHw&feature=youtu.be
- VAUGHN SKOW's blog
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It's a very tough call to make and all the speakers sounded great using decent desktop speakers on my computer. Although the Ret30 may add some chiminess that doesn't translate well on the videos, I'm giving the Reaper a thumbs up here - I thought it sounded the most even, especially on the overdrive channel. The ET90 sounded great too.
Great speaker comparison and worth the time it takes to watch! Much more informational than just hearing a sound sample. My vote went to the ET-90 as the winner and the Retro 30 second. I liked the punch of the ET-90 and the definition it retained in overdrive. Truth be told, I'd probably like either of them in my amps. Keep up the great work!
Hoped you'd demo the Green Beret in the Supersonic. Fender has a model of the SS with a Celestion Greenback in it, but haven't seen one yet. Your thoughts??
Of the tests, I thought the Ret 30 was the best clean, but liked the Reaper a tad better dirty... But clean is everything to me..