Did you check out the Reeves C225? Also, I would love to hear your comparison reviews of the above amps.
Hey dude sorry for the 3 year delay…. Over here in the UK we don’t see many Reeves at all so I’m yet to try it. To compare the 3 amps, I toured for a long time with the Orange set up. Reliability wise I initially had a dud, it was fitted with 6550 and just seemed to blow tubes, my amp tech at the time tried upgrading the components however the issue was that the tube basses were fitted to the PCB and used to heat up too much, through endorsement I had use of another one which worked perfectly. Sound wise the Orange Ad200 sounded amazingly deep and rich live, either through PA or turned up loud, after allowing it to warm up for a few hours pre set had, a warm just edge of break up sound. The only issue I had was that anything over gain and master past half way the amp lacked clean headroom. I upgraded to golden Lion KT88’s which gave the amp more clarity and volume over the stock 6550’s
I had an offer to use Hiwatt gear so I got a DR201, I had they build in a little more grit in the preamp on the second channel and used to blend the channels so I got the clean bottom end on the first channel and the high end sizzle of the second channel. I play Indie funk but have a Reggae influence, mainly finger style but some slap. Whilst the orange sounds deep, the hiwatt hit you like a sledgehammer, still deep and full but with that Entwistle grind. I played it with my old Orange OBC410. I can not see anyone needing more power lt was handmade and solid as an ox. Again it was fitted with golden Lion kt88’s. My only gripe with this amp is it sounds perfect for Rock, so many classic tones in there however to me it had too much of a baked in tone.
I could have lived with the Hiwatt despite the size and weight of the thing, however I got the chance to move to Matamp and as I live less than an hour away from the factory decided to meet up with Jeff, I had tried out the MK1 years ago and it had always stuck in my mind. Basically I spec’s up a little less high end in the preamp and a little more grind available in the Preamp, after chatting away to Jeff for most of the morning he told me about his DJ’ing history and that he’s a huge Reggae fan… as he was speaking my language he decided to do the red gold and green design for me and did the speaker cover as a wedding present. Sound wise and after recording and gigging with it I will not be buying another rig. I would describe this amp as clean but full bodied, I’ve even used it for church gigs. It can do old school 60/ 70’s tones but it can also do Modern hi-fi. I play a US joe Osborne bass fitted with an east preamp and a 93 stingray fitted with an Aguilar pickup and the east preamp. I have a Rothwell Love squeeze compressor, always on and use the Sadowsky preampDI I’ve never needed anything else. With the band it just sits in the mix perfectly, they can actually hear new things in parts we’ve be playing together for years!
I think the Orange and the Hiwatt are brilliant amps but have there own character, the Matamp for me is the most versatile warm amp out there, with fuzz I can see why the doom guys love it, but to me it’s so much more !
