Jad Freer Sisma Mega Thread.

[gtirard]

You may be able to achieve more of the clarity you desire with an Aguilar AG series than with the TH series.

As tempting as the Sisma is, based upon what you've said, the absence of an on-board variable HPF is a deal breaker for me; I've become such a believer that I won't consider an amp that doesn't have one.

FWIW Jad Freer told me that Sisma has an always on HPF, so you can't control the frequency like on a Mesa Subway, but at least it's there and it does the job (with whatever value they decided to give it).

I'm not an expert, but from my experience I believe it might be true. I never had a problem of muddy low frequencies with Sisma during rehearsals or gigs.

@Andrea Lo you may like to provide some clarification about HPF?

 

[gtirard]

I'm currently recording a song, for which I'm trying to decide if I'm going to use Sisma's preamp, or Jule Monique, or the Mozztronic DI-2, or a boutique 50W tube amp (with the line-ou taken after the power tubes through a load box). All four sound great, I haven't decided yet which one I'm going to use.

But something obvious Sisma has compared to my 3 alternatives: it's the only one which has all these qualities together:

1. Sounds great with everything at noon, like @Jeff Scott said. Turn on, do nothing, play… and smile.
2. Very precise and versatile EQ, lets you do extreme things and work precisely on any part of the frequency spectrum.
3. No bad setting - whatever you do with the gain and the EQ knobs, it always sound great.

These 3 qualities together in the same amp must have required a lot of thoughts from Jad Freer.

For example Jule Monique and the boutique amp have the qualities #1 and #3 but not #2, and the Mozztroncis DI-2 sounds great but only with one very specific setting so it has none of the 3 mentionned qualities.

So I may finally choose one of the 3 others for that specific song I'm recording now, but if I had to sell 3 of them and keep only one, it would be Sisma.

 

[Andrea Lo]

FWIW Jad Freer told me that Sisma has an always on HPF, so you can't control the frequency like on a Mesa Subway, but at least it's there and it does the job (with whatever value they decided to give it).

I'm not an expert, but from my experience I believe it might be true. I never had a problem of muddy low frequencies with Sisma during rehearsals or gigs.

@Andrea Lo you may like to provide some clarification about HPF?

It's built in to cut sub frequencies. I mean under a B string.

 

[Andrea Lo]

First off, there are some little things I'd like to see that would make this a better amp, for me, anyway. As note by a couple others above, I can see the very long bat on the power switch ending up broken as it is quite prominent and unprotected.

The three switches on the left side of the front panel (Mute, LPF, and Deep) are virtually impossible for me to see. Perhaps white circles silkscreened around them, or maybe the buttons can be a lighter color, say, white or grey, possibly?

I wish there was a dedicated Tuner Out instead of using the Line Out which is more useful for other "chores", so to speak. At the moment, I have my Stroboflip connected to the Line Out but the Gain control has be up turn up a bit get a signal out to it.

I would like to see the Bass and Treble controls with center detents, as there are such on the Level controls for the two mid-band filters.

Hi and thanks for the review. Here are a few consideration from our side:

- Power switch: we could not find a 10A switch with a smaller lever and we did not want to put a big black or red button like on a slicer machine (or some bass heads). Sorry about that. It could get damaged if mishandled but it's an easy fix.
- Tuner out: sometimes when choosing features you have to sacrifice something for other. We 'd assume almost everybody use a pedal tuner these days. There is not enough space in the Sisma to get everything in. For example some players would trade the Line out for a second, parallel, line IN.
- Bass and Treble controls: we did this 100% on purpose since its not active eq but a passive baxandall style. The flattest curve is "aournd" noon but for us it did not make sense to put a center detent on these controls.

 

[12bass]

- Bass and Treble controls: we did this 100% on purpose since its not active eq but a passive baxandall style. The flattest curve is "aournd" noon but for us it did not make sense to put a center detent on these controls.

Based on experience with my Eden WT-500, having a detent can make it more difficult to make subtle adjustments near the center position, as the control will try to lock-in, or out, of the detent. However, I get the desire for having a known "flat EQ" position.

Something I like along those lines is having a pure direct, EQ-bypass, switch that removes the EQ section from the signal path, giving flat response without the coloration of the EQ circuitry. In my experience, the fewer components between the instrument and speaker the better, at least in terms of fidelity, though tonal manipulation is often desirable with bass guitar, making the tradeoff worthwhile when the tone circuitry is in the signal path.

 

[Andrea Lo]

Something I like along those lines is having a pure direct, EQ-bypass, switch that removes the EQ section from the signal path, giving flat response without the coloration of the EQ circuitry. In my experience, the fewer components between the instrument and speaker the better, at least in terms of fidelity, though tonal manipulation is often desirable with bass guitar, making the tradeoff worthwhile when the tone circuitry is in the signal path.

We did this with the Volta

 

[Jazzdogg]

Use an outboard HPF?

Yep! I admit I'm spoiled by having a variable HPF built into my amp. But, I've been very satisfied with the two FDeck HPF Pres I own. Better an outboard unit than none at all!

 

[Jeff Scott]

Hi and thanks for the review. Here are a few consideration from our side:

- Power switch: we could not find a 10A switch with a smaller lever and we did not want to put a big black or red button like on a slicer machine (or some bass heads). Sorry about that. It could get damaged if mishandled but it's an easy fix.

Understood.

Not my car.

- Tuner out: sometimes when choosing features you have to sacrifice something for other. We 'd assume almost everybody use a pedal tuner these days. There is not enough space in the Sisma to get everything in. For example some players would trade the Line out for a second, parallel, line IN.

Yes, there are trade-offs to consider. I could see replacing the line out with a rear panel input jack for rackmount use. When I had the Walter Woods Electracoustic Super there was room to run a cable from my Korg tuner to the front panel of the amp, luckily.

- Bass and Treble controls: we did this 100% on purpose since its not active eq but a passive baxandall style. The flattest curve is "aournd" noon but for us it did not make sense to put a center detent on these controls.

Makes sense; I was in stereo system mode when thinking about this (and my current stereo's preamp doesn't even have any tone controls - Aragon 24k)!

 

[DJ Bebop]

Yep! I admit I'm spoiled by having a variable HPF built into my amp. But, I've been very satisfied with the two FDeck HPF Pres I own. Better an outboard unit than none at all!

I dig
I bought a new HPF. It was expensive but Mesa through in an amp for free to go with it!

 

[Jim C]

Can anyone compare the Sisma to the GR One 800?

 

[dwellers]

Can anyone compare the Sisma to the GR One 800?

I'd be interested in this too...I have a GR One 800 and it seems to be all I need. Tempted by the Sisma vibe but it's about twice the price.

 

[DJ Bebop]

We’ll see whats up now…

I'll get back to y’all.

 

[Danny C]

So many happy gigs with this. I've never had a better feel live. Consistent and so easy to dial in. Lovin the compliments. 8 months of solid fat juicy love.

 

[DJ Bebop]

So have the tester Sisma, I'm running this through a Mesa Subway 1x15.

First Impressions:

1) Good thing it comes with a very nice and solid carry bag as this thing must be made of neutron star material as it is heavy for its size

2) Maybe because of that, it sounds phat.

3) I like pegging the gain and running the master down, a nice warm totally over-the-top break-up.

More to explore…

 

[12bass]

First impressions:

1) This thing must be made of neutron star material as it is heavy for its size.

If the Sisma were the density of neutron star it would make a significant dent in spacetime and weigh around 1,700,000,000,000,000‬ kg. That poor WD-800 would be crushed beyond recognition. Obviously class D can't handle the truth!

Would love to hear how they compare soundwise.

 

[DJ Bebop]

If the Sisma were the density of neutron star it would make a significant dent in spacetime and weigh around 1,700,000,000,000,000‬ kg. That poor WD-800 would be crushed beyond recognition. Obviously class D can't handle the truth!

Would love to hear how they compare soundwise.

Working on it

 

[gtirard]

So have the tester Sisma, I'm running this through a Mesa Subway 1x15.

First Impressions:

1) Good thing it comes with a very nice and solid carry bag as this thing must be made of neutron star material as it is heavy for its size

2) Maybe because of that, it sounds phat.

3) I like pegging the gain and running the master down, a nice warm totally over-the-top break-up.

More to explore…

View attachment 5454251

@DJ Bebop I'm glad you joined the Sisma club, and I look forward to reading your Sisma/WD800 comparison.

 

[Jeff Scott]

So have the tester Sisma, I'm running this through a Mesa Subway 1x15.

First Impressions:

1) Good thing it comes with a very nice and solid carry bag as this thing must be made of neutron star material as it is heavy for its size

That is one of the qualities I like about the Sisma; a very substantial feel to it. There's actually something inside the case (lots of something from what I saw; it's packed rather solidly full of stuff [I know what all that "stuff" is; the amp's construction is really superb]). I pulled the top off to see how easy, or not, the 12AX7 would be to replace if necessary.

@DJ Bebop I'm glad you joined the Sisma club, and I look forward to reading your Sisma/WD800 comparison.

Right now DJ Bebop is in loaner mode, he hasn't purchased one yet. Neither have I as of yet, but I do keep thinking about doing so. Maybe after the fine folks at Jad Freer implement some of my suggestions to make Sisma and ever better/more user friendly amp. Just a few tiny things that should be very easy to do.

 

[Jeff Scott]

DJ, are you going to do comparisons between the Sisma and your B-15?

 

[DJ Bebop]

DJ, are you going to do comparisons between the Sisma and your B-15?

I don't have the B-15 anymore. I gave it up to get the WD 800 and SW 115.

I will be comparing it to the WD and maybe a GK 1001 RB series I all through the SW 115.