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Mills Custom Compass Hybrid

Stanny Bouchard

Stanny Bouchard

Oct 11, 2016
29
101
SWMO
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#1
Has anyone played/reviewed the Mills Custom amps Compass Hybrid? I heard one like 5 years ago at a guitar festival and loved it. I recently threw down the bones to get one and realized I have not even heard a good review. There is one review on YouTube, but the guy is a friend of the companies.

Attached are some of the gut pictures from their all tube jobber, as well as some aesthetically pleasing photos that drew me into them.

Any first hand experience out there?
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Screenshot_20181117-202748_Instagram.jpg
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#2
That picture of the amp's guts is from the Compass Amp that Mills built for me in November this year. It's a very cool amp. I use it with an Ampeg HLF Heritage 410 cab, Fender P bass w/ flats or a Rickenbacker w/ flats. There are a lot of options on the front panel to get a wide variety of sounds. If you saw the actual amp, you'd think that there is only a power switch and no stand by, but the fact is the power switch is on the back and the stand by is on the front. Just wanted to clear a misconception from a previous post about these amps. It's my first all tube bass amp, and it took me a little more time to work around it than a guitar tube amp. I really dig it, and so does my band. Real tight low end, nice balance, and you can get some life to it. I've had one small issues with a bad batch of caps but Justin at Mills fixed it quickly, no charge, and free shipping back to me. Good guy, and he stand behind his builds. I'm happy to support a Made in USA amp, and from a local producer. My other amp is an Aguilar Tone Hammer 500, which has taken a back seat to my Mills Custom Compass. :)
 
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#3
Haven’t played the hybrids but a studio where I recorded has a few of their amps and cabs. Dude really likes them and highly recommended their amps. Sounded pretty good for guitar. I was considering one of the higher powered models at one point but was turned off by the mixed tube/mosfet preamp/PI design, if I’m going with a tube amp I’d prefer an all tube signal path. Good for a clean pedal platform type signal path at least but I ended up buying something else which was more in line with my tone goals. All around seems like a good company to work with and solid products though.
 

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