There's a lot to learn about Eden heads. First, that there are three eras of when they were built and that's significant in regards to quality.
Also, besides the wonderful tone, they are known for two things. (1) Being loaded with features - moreso than most any other amp. (2) Having tone that is designed in so that the flat setting is 95% of where most people want to be. This allows a ton of headroom for adjustments.
If I had one knock on Eden it would be that I wish there was more EQ on board. Even though very little tweaking is needed, I'd love a sweepable mid.
The two models that are most raved about on the Eden forum are the 405 and 550. I bought the 405 which they refer to as the Golden Child of the Eden line because it has the superior compressor.
Another plus - they go down to 2ohms.
No offense intended to GB which are also nice amps, but I don't hear the similarities to Eden.
As an owner of a WT-550 and a past owner of a WT800, I have to correct some things here. Sorry to be nitpicky!
Feature-wise, they are arguably not really that laden, as the compressor is more or less useless, (at least on the 550) and the Enhance knob is pretty much useless as well if you add much more than a few clicks. YMMV but the consensus seems to agree with my experiences. The features that do work well are the nice DI and the EQ section, bass and treble, and three band semi-para EQ.
The tone is great with all the knobs at noon except the Enhance. The EQ is quite surgical and as mentioned, is semi-parametric- you can sweep all three bands and the amount of cut and boost can be extreme if you want. A little goes a long way. You simply can't adjust the width of the band controlled by each knob, which would be called fully parametric.
The 405 has a so-called Golden Chip, which is designed to warm up the tone, where the 550 has a tube in the circuit to do the same thing. They behave differently, though, and which you prefer is a matter of taste. I preferred the 550, but both sound wonderful. I usually run mine with the tube disengaged, as I use a VT pedal for some OD instead.
I agree GB doesn't sound a lot like Eden amps, but I've never really heard another amp brand that does exactly. To me they are a relatively flat amp with a bit of high end rolled off- they are never shrill or very sizzly, but do have a lot of presence and no big built-in signature EQ character.
I'm very happy with my amp, and they have held their value pretty well. If I was buying today though, I'd only get one if the price was a real issue and I could find one for under $500in great shape. For the new price I'm convinced there are many flavours of better these days, i.e. similar performance with less weight, or more usable features, etc.
The last few years have seen a revolution in amps and it's worth looking around to see what's out there!
