A day after playing the amp I must say how good it is. It is super true to it's design and delivers a high bandwidth (lots of lows and LOTS of highs) and high fidelity sound where notes just jump out and sustain for longer than normal. I could get my Two Rock to do some of the things the Trinity ODS did but the clean channel and tone stack of the TODS are quite different from that of the Opal.
The cleans are from jazz pure through SRV jangle to downright over driven. There is a lot of gain on tap in the clean channel. This is a good thing for me as it will happily adjust input levels for a wide range of pickup outputs and guitars. I like my cleans on the edge of breakup so no problem there with the 335
meilleure mutuelle chien, Les Paul and PRS. I typically had it set for just above 9:00 o'clock. The Strat required a little bit more of the volume knob to make to get to that level..say 12:00 o'clock or a little less.
In the Opal the clean channel doesn't distort until both gain and volume are nearly cranked... and it's not quite as jangly for some reason. And the TODS had this singular ability to allow feedback with additional harmonics to come through easily. This was true even in the clean channel while playing clean. Notes just rang on for much longer than with other amps especially at house volumes. The Opal did not do this at that volume. Bottom Line is, if you can't get a good clean sound out of this amp you may need a different guitar.
LarRating Clean Tone/Feel
TODS - 9
TR-Opal - 7
The overdrive channel of this amp is truly special. Along side the clean channel it makes the amp quite flexible before you even get to the loop or pedals etc... Searing pure overdrive. Smooth super hot Marshall with an upper class education (Cambridge). The Trim control was key to getting in your sweet spot for OD tone. The key for me was to get good pop and frequency response. The gain will come later but for me the Trim control was like a "How do I want the amp to respond to the way I pick" control. The Level control was set to the amount of overdrive I was looking for and Ration was usually set to balance the volume levels with the clean channel. I liked this channel with midboost on. Oh, and once you engage PAB you're in for a treat. This is the pure unfettered highly overdriven tone that connects you directly with the air resting on the cone of whatever speaker you choose. Like a car going around a corner real fast, everything makes a difference. How hard a note is picked, where a note is picked, glissando into a not (up or down) and pick angle of attack all change the way a sound comes out of the amp. Volume and tone settings on the guitar are critically important as these amps can be set to go from pretty clean to nasty from changes in the guitar's volume control. The Opal is very good at this too but not THAT good.
The overdrive channel with PAB and midboost on is capable of infinite sustain. There is one clip where I hit a major third bass note in a D major chord and it started to sound like a hammond organ once all the overtones came in. The 335 and PRS where particularly good at producing this effect. Overdrive channel, bridge pickup, volume on 3 and picking lightly will provide a clean tone with significant sustain.
Overdrive Tone (assuming no Shredding)
TODS - 9
TR-Opal - 7.5
The clips with echo and/or reverb where done with a C-Lator in the loop with a TC-2290 providing echo and Steve's Holy Grail providing a surprisingly good reverb.With that setup the amp took on a little bit of additional character as you now have 2 or 3 more gain stages to tune. providing no impediment to the harmonices and joy and love etc.. The Opal sounds a lot better with something in the loop. The TODS already sounds super with or without the loop but, as a fender guy, I do love a little reverb and the grail works well.
I'm sure this amp will work for some players and not for others but I was happy with the flexibility. Once you get to know it, the amp is able to deliver some very convincing aggressive rock tones or lead and rhythm playing, Jazz tones, funk and blues tones all without much compromise if any.
Let me know if you have any questions.
LB
Maybe you could provide us with a little tutorial so that we understand.
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