[Harp-L] Avenger Pt.1




After much anticipation my Sonny Jr. Avenger arrived yesterday. Even though I said I may have to settle for
the Cruncher, Sonny and my wife helped make it possible to get the Avenger. Serial #22.


So now I have my 3 perfect amps until I put the Avenger through a workout then someone might be out of work.
Early 60's Blonde GA-5 for recording, 1948 Ampower amp custom fitted to a Weber Tweed cab for low to mid volume gigs,
and the Avenger for mid and high volume gigs. Space and convenience will determine which amp I use on medium gigs.


There is so much too comment on I don't know where to start. Just this year alone we've traded 48 emails from the time I first considered
the Cruncher to 2 emails this morning about buying a tube bias meter.


Sonny works hard to make the sale but he doesn't push you to buy. I think pretty much anyone that has bought a Sonny Jr. amp has
done their homework first.


I can't give a full review yet. That may come in a month or so after using it on different gigs and getting band and audience feedback.

The first thing I noticed after unpacking it is it has a longgg power cord. I'm use to short cords that require the amp to be very close to an outlet. The second thing I noticed is when I turned the amp on and plugged a SM57 mic in was that there was no hum. Virtually non. Not even with the amp cranked up. It wasn't until turned on the mic and cranked the amp that I heard pure raw tone of the harp and nothing else. The good thing about the amp being so quiet is that now I know if my cables are bad or connections are improperly grounded. The only hum you hear is from the mic or pedal being plugged in and not the amp. Several nearly new cables are headed for the trash.

The amp comes with a copper rectifier installed. I played it a little bit with the copper rectifier then switched over to the spare glass tube rec.
The tube rec. is too clean IMHO so I switched back to the copper rectifier which is what the amp is bias for to begin with.


The owners manual make some recommendations as well as the set up card. I haven't been too happy using my biscuit w/ hot crystal on my other amp or the DR that I sold. It just didn't sound right. Loud but that's it. Using one of the Avenger setups I can reproduce either a warm or bright sound for the crystal. After about a 1/2 hour of playing with different setups I pulled the biscuit out of retirement.
Great crunch and thunderous tongue slaps and rich tone.


I also pulled a couple more mics out of retirement since there are a lot of choices in finding the right settings to bring out the best in good mics. I logged my favorite settings for each mic as a starting point then adjust to the room at gigs. Like I've said in the past I use at least 2 different mics per gig depending on the songs we're playing. Now my gig bag is packed with 5 mics. I'll probably narrow it down to 3 over time.

After 24 hours I can honestly say I have no buyers remorse purchasing this amp.

IT won't give you tone if you don't have it. It won't give you punch if you are a weak player and it won't give you chops.
But what it will do is allow you to take full benefit of all those things if you put your time in.


The most helpful feature for me is the high amount of headroom I have to dial in volume and brightness.
I can only crank the GA-5 and DR up to 2 1/2 before they feedback. I'm able to sit in a bedroom with an SM57 or 545 plugged in, cranked to 7 and blow the walls out. Now that's an amp built for harp players. Not a rip off of some guitar amp.



Michael Easton www.harmonicarepair.com






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