This is an excerpt from an email I sent to Stephen earlier today. I did extensive play testing this afternoon with my new TC-15 and also Stephen's prototype Trinity 18. The 18w impressions are posted over in that forum... Also, Stephen made a couple of changes to my TC-15 from his prototype - I found that I was using cut at it's extreme on the prototype so Stephen made the travel faster so I have more cut... secondly, he added a hi/lo switch which cleans up the tone a bit. Ask him for a technical explanation!!
Holy crap Stephen! Well, I just had the most fun I've had in about 2 weeks! My head is spinning, and I'm not sure I can type fast enough to get all my thoughts down, but I'll do my best. I played both amps at length on both channels - I'm TOTALLY blown away!
TC-15 - my favourite amp in the room - hands down. It's F*%#ing INCREDIBLE (can I swear here?!?!?). and significantly different from your prototype. Not sure if that's a function of the build, of the changes you made, of new vs. old, or what, but whatever, I don't care - it's AMAZING. First things first - the taper on the "Cut" knob is PERFECT. I think it'll live around 1 o'clock for the most part, but I love the range of it now. Second - the "Hi/Lo" switch is subtle, but in use really not so subtle for me. With a Les Paul, it made the difference between being able to get a truly clean tone or not - amazing and VERY useful. With a Strat, it not only cleaned up the tone a bit, but also made the amp sound like it had less headroom - a bit like the "bold/spongy" switch on a Mesa. This is cool because even though there are plenty of clean Strat tones as it is, this gives a different flavour of clean. For my money (even though I'm obviously biased. "biased" - get it??? Ha ha) both the mod to the "cut" control and the "Hi/Lo" switch should be standard on this amp.
Did I mention this is the prettiest amp I've ever seen?!?
OK - real mind blower here: I think something is up with Ch.1 - EF86 on your prototype. it was good on that amp, but Ch.1 on this amp is WAAAAAAAY better. Like crazy gain that the other one didn't have. This channel gets downright NASTY (in a good way of course!). In the HI input with crunch switched in - YOW! - with either the LP or the Strat.
My revelation with this channel makes this amp SO versatile. As a matter of fact, it makes it a "desert island" amp for me. I could use this amp on ANY project - right from the cleanest tones up to the gainiest record I would make. I'd venture a guess you could even do metal with this thing with a good pedal in front (I don't do metal though, so I probably won't ever find out!!). Anyway, this channel is the "soul" of this amp. It really "speaks". LOVE it. Oh, and "Contour" is perfect - flipping around here gave me EXACTLY what I would have dialed in with EQ as I changed pickups or the guitar.
Ch.2 is as I remembered it from the prototype - beautiful glassy cleans (with much more controllable "glass" due to the new "Cut" taper!!) right up to a roar. But I did have a couple of revelations with this channel as well. Clean tones obviously live towards the bottom of the gain knob - but what I didn't notice before is that at the bottom of that knob's travel, it's not THAT much quieter than when it's all gained up! I mean, for sure the higher gain tones are louder than the clean tones, but the difference is not as remarkable as with any other amp I own. So what is the genius behind this?? I'm curious - it's a fantastic thing that I wish all amps had. One of the frustrations with cleaning up amps that do lots of gain is that they don't push any air when they're clean - so you end up with an anemic small tone. The TC-15 stays big and forward when it's clean. Also, with the new "cut" taper, I can dial out some of the "Matchless"-ness now. With the prototype, I found that no matter what I did, that quality was always there - I didn't mind it - it's a great tone and I figured that it was the signature of the amp. But the beautiful thing about the new taper is, I can tame some of that quality by using more extreme "cut", and by doing this the signature of the amp changes. Dare I say it becomes more "Marshall"???!!! Anyway, it's cool, and just upped the ante on versatility for me.
Anyway, spent the whole afternoon plugged into my Mesa Recto 4x12 with V30's. I suspect this is still my favourite cab with this amp, but with my revelations on some of its new tones, I suspect I might have more love in my heart for the cabs I didn't like as much with the prototype. Can't wait to play my new '59 Danelectro RI I'm picking up Saturday through this amp. I think it's going to be phenomenal.
Still lots of testing to do with both since I only used the one cab and only one of my strats and one of my LP's, but today was really fun.
Incredible amps Stephen. I'm glad to have made your acquaintance.
More to come - talk soon.
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Brent Bodrug
Producer-Engineer/Songwriter
www.slyfichapel.com
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Seriously though, the thing DOES rock, and cleans up awful nice too... 
