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Ashdown
Engineering "Fallen Angel" 60
watt combo amp Reviewer: Craig McDonald Distributor: Bolt Trading |
I must admit to being excited at the thought of reviewing the new combo amplifier, the "Fallen Angel" from ‘Ashdown-Engineering’. Finally an all-tube guitar amp designed for the modern metal nu-metal guitarist. I awaited its delivery with much anticipation as I'd just purchased a beautiful new 7-string guitar, and thought it would be the perfect axe to review this amp with.
Straight out of its box, my initial impression of the "Fallen Angel", is that it is solidly built and quite heavy, thankfully it comes with castors! It has the usual black material covering with plastic corner covers which is standard on most combo amplifiers, and the finish seems to be of a high quality.
The "Fallen Angel" has a single input with 2 channels - clean and dirty, with a ‘boost’ option on the dirty channel. The front panel is neat and uncluttered with individual gain, 3 band EQ, volume and reverb controls for each channel and a master volume. On the rear panel there is a volume-mix control for the effects loop and options for external speaker connections of 4—8 ohms selectable. There are foot-pedal jacks for the ‘boost’ control, channel switching and a pair of 12" ‘Celestion’ Vintage-30 speakers installed as standard. I found the rear panel also to be neat and uncomplicated.
Apart from the eye-catching retro ‘Ashdown-Engineering’ logo on the front, you are almost immediately drawn to the VU meter mounted on the control panel just above the logo. This meter measures the power output of the amp, and lets you know just how hard the tubes are working. It glows red when in operation and looks amazing. So enough of the specs, lets see just how high we can get that power meter to go!
As soon as I plugged my 7 string in, did some quick settings, wound the gain on channel 2 to full, and struck my first ‘B’ power chord, It became instantly obvious that this amp had some real power. Playing riffs down low sounded so, so heavy on this amp. It handled the bottom end with ease and delivered it with considerable punch. Even at extremely loud volumes, the bottom end never sounded mushy or loose; in fact it only increased with volume! (Through a closed back 4 x 12 cabinet, this amp would really thump!). Going from heavy riffs into fast solos and picking runs, the "Fallen Angel" handled it easily and with brilliant clarity. Big fat tube tone with no sign of thin fuzziness at all. I was having so much fun that I almost forgot, "Hang on - there is a ‘boost’ option as well".
Click on the ‘boost’ and wow! Even more grunt, with a gain increase you could use for that screaming solo or to maximise a heavy riffing section. I had harmonics galore screaming from anywhere on the neck. With the ‘boost’ function on, the "Fallen Angel" is at full tube saturation but still sounds fat - awesome for fast legato solo runs. I grabbed my ‘Ibanez’ RG with Di-Marzio "Super-Distortion" pickups to see how the amp would handle higher output pickups and all I can say is "Yeah - this amp really screams"!
Ok, time to quiet down just a tad and check out the clean channel before my ears where ringing too much! I found the clean channel to be just that, crystal-clean. I could imagine adding some chorus-delay and it would be perfect for playing the intro to Satriani’s ‘Circles’. The tone was extremely clean, not too edgy or bright. Wind on the gain and you can get a nice crunch when on full. It would also be great to use as another dirty channel if required. You could dial up the settings to have 3 channels, starting at ‘tight-crunch’, to ‘very-heavy’ to ‘maximum-shred’! A very versatile amp indeed, which definitely works better the heavier and louder you play. You can clearly hear that the "Fallen Angel" has been designed and voiced for this style of playing and certainly excels here.
I set up this amp side by side with my 'Marshall' JCM 600 for a comparison of both 60 watt all tube amps with an 'A/B' box just to compare the difference in sound and voicing... and it was clear that even though the 'Marshall' has and always will have a solid kick ass rock guitar sound, the 'Fallen Angel' has a much heavier chunk in the bottom end, and the sound of each amp is clearly different from the other. With a price tag around $2900 approximately, it is very good value for an all tube amplifier.
The "Fallen Angel" comes in two combos, 40 and 60-watt. There is a 60-watt head and a huge 180-watt head available as well. Ashdown-Engineering recommends the use of their 4 x 10 or 4 x 12 closed back cabinets for "extended low end and maximum punch". The 180-watt model would absolutely blow the windows out! Oh yeah, you might be asking, how high did I get that VU meter to go? Well, not much past halfway, this amp is seriously loud! And I couldn’t get close enough to read it anyway! If you require a very loud amp and are playing heavy, de-tuned riffs, the "Fallen Angel" may be just what you are looking for.