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Traynor's site says the dimensions are 7.5''W x 8"D, but after seeing lopee's review (very nice review...thank you!) those numbers seem to be a bit off.
Would one of you SB200H owners be willing to put a ruler to the amp, and let us know the real deal?
Here's my take on the Traynor Small Block SM200H.OK, today Long & McQuade got the Traynor SB200H in for me to have a look at and, with nobody in the store on a Thursday afternoon, I had the opportunity to do an extended A/B with it and the GK MB200. It was quite enlightening.
As you can see from the photos below, the Traynor is actually substantially larger than the GK, at least an inch in each direction. The Traynor's size reminded me of my GK MB500. The weight felt about the same for both these units but, because of the larger size and the lever effect, the Traynor felt bigger, a bit more awkward in the hand, and less able to be stuffed into a small gig bag. (The manuals say that the GK is 2 lbs and the Traynor 1.5 lbs, but the latter number doesn't jibe with my impressions. I didn't have scales with me.) The fit and finish on the GK is better overall. The Traynor has sharp side edges where the panels attach rather than the round, folded corners on the GK. The Traynor's front panel is pretty, with the Traynor logo below the knobs being white on a chromed strip. The knobs felt more fragile and a bit wobblier than those on the GK. The broad base of the GK knobs gives them a satisfying, stable feel. Whether they're more rugged against damage is harder to tell, but my guess is that the recessing helps. There looks to be screwholes on the side of the GK for rackmounting (?). Maybe two of these puppies side-by-side in two rack spaces? There's none on the Traynor. I'd have to say that, overall, the Traynor felt more like a prototype, more pieced together, while the GK felt like it got a bit more industrial design. YMMV.
The extra width on the Traynor front panel allows for the Passive and Active (-6 db) inputs to be separate 1/4" jacks rather than the -10 db switch on the GK. There is a mute button on the Traynor front panel and a tuner out on the back, so that's nice. The preamp controls are identical on both, but very different in practice, and the Traynor has its "Low Enhance" knob versus the Contour mini-switch on the GK (more on these below).
On the back panel, the GK has a Speakon-only port while the Traynor has a Speakon-1/4" hybrid plug. Both have Aux In (1/8" on the GK, 1/4" on the Traynor). Both go into the power amp section after the pre-amp, so potentially useful with an external pre-amp. The Traynor recognizes a mono 1/4" signal in, which is convenient; you'd need an 1/8" stereo to 1/4" mono adapter for the GK which might be both flimsy and a nuisance but it might work for a preamp. If you're using a CD/iPod in for practice, then the GK is more convenient. The Traynor has space for a separate headphones jack which mutes the other outputs. The GK switches between line out and phones. I expect that the line out could be used as a tuner out. Both have a DI out which can be pre/post the preamp; only the Traynor has a ground lift. The GK's power button is on the front with the same pleasing colour display as on its bigger brothers. The Traynor's switch is on the back with a pilot light on the front. The fans in both were very quiet in a quiet store.
To try them out for sound, we plugged both into an 8 ohm Traynor TC410 cabinet that I've used before in backline set-ups: they can get loud and, while a bit barky, this cab wasn't too bad a test bed. The bass was an Ibanez 1205E Premium with Nordstrand pickups. I went back and forth a few times to convince myself of what I was hearing. Overall, the GK was very familiar (I still have an use a 400RB from the 80s), quite hifi in character and rather smooth. The EQ points were sensible and the knobs gave a modest +/- change in the mids and bass, and a bigger plus in the highs. The manual says +/- 6 dB in the mids, +10 in the bass, +14 in the treble. The contour switch, with its one choice gave the Ibby a very nice scooped character if you like that sort of thing. No surprises for me. The Traynor by contrast had some real bite to it, and I could see a rock player finding much to appreciate here. I'm a jazz/blues guy mostly so it was a poorer fit for me. The EQ points are quite different (Bass : 50 Hz, L Mid: 400 Hz, H Mid: 1 kHz, Treble: 8 kHz) vs 60 Hz, 250 Hz, 1 kHz, and 7kHz for the GK. Most startling was that the Traynor goes +/- 15 dB on each point. That's a *huge* range and you can get some pretty startling tones that way. With the GK you mould the tone; with the Traynor you can outright carve it. The Low Expander control didn't really give me much satisfaction: as well as the low mid contour promised in the manual, it seemed to me to substantially reduce high frequencies once you got past noon, muffling the notes. I also didn't get much of a sense of the expanded bass promised by the manual for this effect. For me, this knob produced some artificial and not terribly helpful changes. Again, YMMV.
So, how loud were they? Well the Traynor was loudish with a distinctly punchy/barky character. Once you went past noon on the gain, though, there wasn't much change in volume nor much change in the character of the sound (break-up, distortion of any kind). The manual speaks of the possibility of "crunch distortion" but I didn't really hear that in my set-up. It certainly wasn't pushing the 410 cab. By contrast, the GK was *loud* with the characteristic smooth, warmish GK character. Volume continued to rise around the gain dial and by the time you got past two o'clock, it was rattling the pants out of the 410. Again, not much sense of extra distortion, etc. as you cranked the gain. It was just real loud.
In the end, these are two quite different beasts. The GK is smaller, warmer, more refined in fit/finish, and quite a bit louder. Tone sculpting is effective but modest in extent. Jazz and blues players will like it, as will anyone who likes that characteristic GK sound. The ins/outs are constrained by the size of the unit, the 1/8" AUX IN and the absence of the 1/4" speaker out the most constraining. The Traynor is bigger and less bag-convenient but no heavier, less polished in its package, brasher in character, and not as loud. Tone sculpting can be huge but even with the mids pulled back, there is a punchiness to the sound that rock and metal players will enjoy. The Low Expander baffles me. With the larger chassis, there are are more ins/outs including a separate passive/active input jacks, a MUTE switch, separate headphone and tuner outs, and a ground lift for the DI.
These two are an interesting choice. At L&M, the price of the GK MB200 has been jacked to $340 CDN just as the Traynor SB200H was introduced at $300 CDN. Given that L&M owns Traynor/Yorkville, that's no coincidence I'm thinking.
Hope this helps you guys.
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