• Rich Tone; Solid Build

  
  As reviewed by Tim Hayosh on 2/21/2012

  I bought the Special 12/20 without ever hearing it. There are no good reviews I could find on YouTube. But based on the feature set, I decided to take a chance since it had everything I wanted. This is the first 6V6-powered amp I have ever owned. The tone is full and rich. The low end is impressive and not flabby nor undefined. The DEPTH control will adjust the amp at the low-end to account for humbuckers or single coils. I play mostly single coil guitars, but also use one that has HighOrderPickups.com PAF clones. The amp makes the choice of pick-up all the more important as you will hear your instrument with a clarity that most amps cannot reproduce. This amp is unique in my experience in terms of the gain structure and volume. The WATTAGE knob could be thought of as a headroom control. It seems that as you turn the WATTAGE knob down, the power amp section is pushed harder and you begin to hear the 6V6's start to overdrive. It becomes much more important to watch your right hand as it gets very touch-sensitive. From my guitar, the signal goes to a Seymour Duncan Pick-up Booster (which I don't use much anymore), into a Seymour Duncan Doubleback Compressor (used mostly for clean tones). Next, into a Seymour Duncan Classic Overdrive, then a Radial Texas Bones, then to the Special 12/20 input. I only use one distortion box or the other. With both off, I am using the pure sound of the amp for cleans. Whether clean or with overdrive, the amp is punchy, dynamic, and responsive. I have the TONE control set to about 1/2 and the WATTAGE set to about 3/4. I use the VOLUME control to set the overall volume of the amp. I was very surprised at how loud 12 watts can be. However, if you play metal, it won't be enough. Of course, if you're playing metal, you're not reading this. I run a Line 6 Modulation Modeler and Seymour Duncan Deja Vu Delay in the effects loop. The volume of the EFFECTS SEND and RETURN affect the overall volume whether there's anything in the loop or not. It's easy to push too much signal into your pedals, so if things sound strange, adjust the EFFECTS SEND level. I replaced all of the tubes with Groove Tubes, but didn't hear a radical change in tone. It's good to have spares anyway. I may get a set of 6L6's just to hear it at 20 watts. The 6V6's are pushed pretty hard at the volume I play, and it's enough to get over everyone else in the room, but still stay clean when needed. I use in-ear monitoring, so once set-up, I'm not really listening to the VHT speaker directly. I have used the LINE OUT and have put a Hughes and Kettner Red Box in-line with the speaker. The LINE OUT is after the effects loop, but before the power amp section. The Red Box is in-line with the speaker, so it hears the power amp. Both sound good. There is no cabinet voicing on the LINE OUT. It would be good for recording clean parts. Both of these outputs sound good in my in-ear monitors. The amp weighs 43 lbs, and appears to be made from real wood instead of some kind of particle board. It fits behind the driver seat of an extended cab small pick-up. It is a ridiculous amount of tone in such a small, affordable package.

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