Egnater Amp Shootout (Rebel-30 Mk II vs. Handbuilt SE20 seminar amp)

  • Good day, tone tweakers - a pair of very new Egnater amps are now in the Rig Exchange: The Rebel-30 Mk II and the SE-20.


    =AMP ONE=


    [Egnater SE20 6V6S Merged]
    [Egnater SE20 SE20 FX Send Merged]


    This pair of profiles stems from Bruce Egnater's recent amp-building workshop, where we all built the latest iteration of his 20W 6L6 "SE20" seminar amp. Bruce is taking preorders (see his FB page) for this DIY "Boutikit" until October 29th, which will be shipping December 1st. There will also be a 50W model. But of course, being a Kemper user the first thing to do was profile it, so here you go. :thumbup:


    The SE20 is a single channel (5 12AX7's, 2 6L6's, 20W) amp with a variety of mods (tight, bright, mid shift, density, lead boost) in addition to the usual knobs. As a Direct Amp profile, the "Merged Cab" here is the Virtual 4X12 of the Behringer ULTRA-G DI used for profiling. The 6V6S profile is taken from the speaker out, while the preamp-only profile taps the FX send. (Which sounds better?) The cabinet, which is being used here only as an impedance load, was a Tweaker 112X closed-back.


    Settings:


    Presence: 1:00, Density: 10:00
    Bass: 10:00, Middle: 9:30, Treble: 10:00
    Gain: Max (with knob pulled out)
    Tight, Bright, Mid Boost: all off


    ==AMP TWO==


    [Rebel30 II 30W-6L6 OD] (also 15W & 1W - nine direct amp merged-cab profiles in all)
    [Rebel30 II 30W-EL84 OD]
    [Rebel30 II 30W-TubeMix OD]


    The Rebel-30 Mk II has only been out a month or two. It's a feature-packed dual-channel 30W mini head with two sets of blendable power tubes (EL84 & 6L6) and power-scaling continuously adjustable (per channel) from 30W to 1W, direct out, tight, brite, and reverb. No Presence, Density or Mid controls on this one.


    The purpose of doing a suite of profiles was to compare the impact of EL84 power tubes vs. 6L6's (or a blend of both) running at the max, min and half-way (15W) power scaling settings. If you've ever wondered what the difference might be, here you go.


    Personally, I think the 30W TubeMix & 6L6 settings sound best. I've only done the overdrive channel here! There is also a clean channel. :P Any gain differences are the result of tweaking the watts & tube mix knobs, and the profiles have been set to similar listening levels for ease of comparison.


    Settings:


    Bass: 2:00, Middle: 9:30, Treble: 9:15
    Gain: Max
    Tube Mix (set as per profile)
    Watts (set as per profile)
    Tight, Bright: both off


    Enjoy!


    -djh

  • Thanks for the listen! Don't be afraid to crank the gain on these and swap in your favorite cab... some nice organic tones & sustain here. Also try doubling parts with the EL34 on the left and 6L6 on the right... :)


    -djh

  • I'm not sure I understand, these to me HAVE to have the cabs switched out as they sound DI as is but sweet with a different cab. Right? GRStudios has a great Egnater cab that works really well with these.

  • They're direct amp profiles with a virtual DI cab (Behringer's) mapped in just for convenience. Swap that for a cab of your choosing and go - rigs with no cab at all are a harsh listen.


    -djh

  • They're direct amp profiles with a virtual DI cab (Behringer's) mapped in just for convenience. Swap that for a cab of your choosing and go - rigs with no cab at all are a harsh listen.


    -djh


    Hi dhodgson,


    I haven't yet had an opportunity to test out these profiles, which I hope to do tomorrow. Thanks again for sharing.


    I apologize in advance for my confusion on terminology...


    Would it be entirely accurate to describe these as "Merged" Profiles? I guess I was under the assumption that, by definition, a "Merged" Profile (in the Kemper sense) always included the physical cabinet that the amp was connected to during the profiling process. If I understand your explanation correctly, you used the Egnater Tweaker 112X guitar cab only as a load when making the Direct Amp profile. The "Studio" Profile, which you used to MERGE with the DA profile, was made using a virtual cab sim that is activated on your Behringer ULTRA-G DI. Is this a correct run-down of your methodology?


    If so, I guess my question is why did you use the virtual cab sim? Why not use the actual Tweaker 112X Cab for the studio profile? Unless, of course, you didn't have the means or desire to mic up the cab...which would certainly be understandable.


    Again, I am in no way being critical. I am just curious as to your thought process behind this.


    Cheers,
    John


    EDIT -- I think I am over-thinking this. I guess you intended these to be DA profiles, first and foremost, and simply included the virtual cab as a merge profile, for our convenience (as you stated in your prior post). Again, thanks for your efforts and sharing these.

    Edited 2 times, last by Tritium ().

  • All good questions! You asked, so here we go.


    Tweaky Discourse On Merged Cab Creation


    The Tweaker 112x cab was being used a generic reactive load because a power amp has to feed something, and it's better to use a speaker for that purpose instead of a PowerSoak because it does affect the EQ spectrum a tiny bit.


    So: Yes, getting that in there was intentional. Whether you're playing the DI profiles with the virtual cab on or off, the profile of the power amp damping is reflective of a tube amp feeding a 12" Celestion G12H-30, which is as it should be.


    The drawback to making DI profiles is that you have to set the amp tone controls while listening through -some- kind of guitar speaker, and since the Tweaker cab is compact (read: midrangey) my best bet was to tweak the Rebel-30's tone while listening to (via isolation headphones) the G-STUDIO DI's "Virtual 4x12" as being representative of a universal generic speaker cabinet. I'm a collector of these types of devices (see http://dallashodgson.info/dhtipsntricks.htm#IRCORNER) and the Behringer's sounded pretty decent.


    So after going through the process of creating Merged profiles from Direct ones with and without the cab emulator, what we have is an example of an amp whose tone controls have been set (hopefully) for the broadest possible application, while still retaining the reactive load of a real speaker. (Or at least that was the idea.) But yes, the primary intent was to generate an idealized suite of Amp Direct profiles with a bonus generic cab that is "Cab Direct" in its own way, useful for creating other Amp Direct profiles in the future.


    -djh