As I write this week’s entry in the 52 Amplifiers article series many fellow Queenslanders will be watching the State of Origin series. If you’re unsure what any of that means, never fear. All you need to know is that the State of Origin is a sporting event that I’m not interested in. Having said that, I figured I’d try to tackle this week’s Blog post with as many football innuendos as possible. Tying in these innuendos to the Traynor DH15H shouldn’t be too hard really. You see, the DH in DH15H stands for Dark Horse which is exactly what New South Wales was before the State of Origin began.
But enough comparisons. Clearly the DH15H has an incredible advantage. It’s an all-tube amplifier head. Not only that, it has a 2 watt and 15 watt setting. Perfect for my home playing needs. It handles these settings by providing two different tube settings (6V6 mode for 15 watts and 12AU7 for 2 watts). Such details are perhaps too difficult to understand in sentence format. I’ll put these details through a list conversion.
- 1 x 12AU7 poweramp tube (2 watts)
- 2 x 6V6 poweramp tubes (15 watts)
- 2 x 12AX7 preamp/splitter
- 8 ohm and 16 ohm speaker outputs
- Gain, Bass, Treble and Master volume controls
- Pure/Brit/USA tone switch
- 2 watts/15 watts/Standby switch
Much easier to understand (which was clearly my goal). Obviously when writing about something as amazing as an amplifier, you need to be able to see and hear the tones that the amplifier in question is capable of. Luckily Guitar World are always on top of their game and have this awesome DH15H video which makes the appeal of this amplifier easier to understand again. Normally I supply two videos in these review articles, but I don’t believe there is a penalty for only providing one video. Especially when the video is as informative as this one. If you’re still interested in more though, the official Traynor DH15H website does have a few decent sound files to listen to. You may have discovered those on your own, but I felt it best to pass that information on just to be safe. I don’t like to do things by halves.
The Traynor Dark Horse is also an awesome looking amplifier. Being as superficial as I am, this means a lot to me. It’s not everything though. I am buying an amplifier head after all. I’m not buying a prop. When I do purchase my first tube amplifier head I don’t want to just run with the pack and buy what everyone else has purchased. This is an important purchase. I want my amplifier head to look good. I want my amplifier head to sound good. I want my amplifier head to be an extension of who I am. The DH15H looks like it could do that easily. Score!
Disclaimer: I’ve not played through this head. I have not experienced the sound or tone of this head other than through video. That doesn’t matter. It looks awesome, it’s obviously played by winners and I want one.