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This thing is a beast! I'm running it into my Mesa/Boogie 4x12. It's one of the old 4yb cabs with the expanded metal grill. It's loaded w/ 2-Evm12L's and 2-Celestion Vintage 30's. Devastating tone! You've got to run 2 noise gates though. As is the case for all tube amps in a high gain situation. One before the amp input and one in the effects loop. Again, nothing new here. I've been playing for 28 years. This is only the second tube amp I've played that the tone immediately grabbed my ears. The other was the Mesa/Boogie Mark IV. I know there plenty of amazing sounding tube amps out there. But this one's got the sound I like. After I listened to the amp demo on YouTube I placed my order within days. Check it out. ExesForEyesMusic RD100H Metal tone test. Dave Sheldon's guitar sound will rip your face off!

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First of all, just wanted to say, thanks to Zzounds for such a quick shipment. Ordered it Friday morning and was delivered to my house Saturday. GREAT service and great price!! Thanks for letting me own, yet again, another great toy with your flexible payment plan. In summary, the amp sounds really bassy, full, and very round in the highs (no high fizzes like you'd hear in the Marshalls). The amp does not sound as aggressive as many reviewers have claimed or even demo'd on YouTube. IMO, the RD100 emulates more of the classic rock and some 80s stuff (not all). The amp tends to sound really smooth with lots of mids and bass. There's not a hint of "thinnest" to it. All FAT. If the bands you like to play uses Marshall amps with those searing highs and fizzes, you may not like the RD100. However, I do find that it emulates Dream Theater and Rush quite well in addition to all the classic rock stuff. I believe if I want to continue doing the Ozzy, Van Halen, and G&R stuff, I may either have to switch out the 6L6 tubes for the EL34's or just stick with my Marshall TSL100. The clean channel is super nice and very clean indeed. It's kinda like my JC120 meets Fender Twins (well, not as clean as the Fender but it's certainly clean enough to do great clean tunes). OD1: is super nice and it's not too heavy and can get lots of chunky rhythms. Lots of bass and mids for sure. You can even activate the "boost" switch and you'll have this channel operating like a lead channel on its own. OR by turning OD1 gain all the way up, you can do a nice lead or solid metal rhythm on its own (with slightly less gain and saturation than OD2, of course). My one and only complaint with this amp is that there isn't any REVERB function. The clean (especially the clean) and OD channels tend to sound quite dry. If you do a lot of soloing, you'll really miss the reverb option. Dang it Randall, why didn't you guys just put it in? Well, I suppose I can always buy a reverb pedal as that can be an easy fix.

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When I first got this amp, I did noticed a few things. ONE, it definitely is a darker sounding amp and a lot more rounder in the highs than what I'm used to. I got this amp to support my addiction to Metal (lol)...but the darker tone does require me to boost my presence and treble knobs a lot harder than usual. I play this amp thru my 2X12 (V30s) and of course, my V30s seemed to help push the MIDs and Mid-treble a lot more than I'd care for. Just when I was getting ready to buy another amp, I decided to try a new pair of speakers (Celestion G12H-75 Creamback) for one last attempt. hahaha...and when I got the speakers and plugged this amp into it, I immediately noticed a huge difference in the amp's sound. The Mid was reduced by at least 6 on a scale of 10, and the highs got much brighter, which allowed me to back off the high settings to noon. Now, everything is set to NOON and my amp sounds rock'n. One thing I learned from this experience is, the RD 100 is quite sensitive/responsive to the type of speakers you use. While my Marshall's natural fizzy, thin, and trebly sounding circuit embraced the V30s, my RD100 didn't. But my RD definitely works well with my new Creambacks. YES, from this experience, it appears you have to be careful what kind of speakers you use with the RD. I almost gave up on my RD until now. SOUND: OD1 and OD2 - In my opinion, this is where the magic is at. This amp's overdrive is build with a metal guitarist in mind. OD1 is the mid/high gain/crunch channel, but has enough gain to do all rhythm and lead. I don't even use OD2, which is the hottest of both. There's a lot of gain in OD2, that I don't even go past 1 o'clock. IMO, anything past 1 will start to sound muddy. that's because there's too much gain. CLEAN channel - Well, I think this is where the RD looses out in the competition. If you are looking for a nice Mesa, Marshall, or Fender clean, it ain't happening here. But if you use this channel for strumming chords in the alternative rock genre, then it'll do just fine, but it's definitely not a "clean as a whistle" kind of clean. So, if you buy this amp for its clean, you're looking at the wrong amp. But for Rock and Metal, this beast rocks. Here's what I like about my CLEAN channel now (with these new creambacks). The clean, now sounds a lot more like an acoustic clean...kinda makes my clean sound as if I'm using an acoustic pedal. - kinda scooped in the mid with a bit spark in the highs.Lol. This actually works well in my favor because I generally use the clean for acoustic style strumming anyway. DIRECT LINE OUT - Yes, this direct out is much better than my Marshall (IMO). I've been recording a lot using its direct out feature and it just sounds awesome. So not needing to mic it at all is great. Couldn't do it with my Marshall, cuz it'll just sound thin and fizzy. Now I can record into the late evening without disturbing the family and still get a quality recording that sounds like it was mic'd. It is a feature I really like. I didn't give this amp the full 5 stars because of the flaw in the clean. But the OD1 and OD2 itself deserves 5 stars on its own. Great for palm muting (but be careful what kind of speakers you use as this can really change your sound). A great investment for the Metal guys.

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I'm more of a classic metal tone kind of guy and that's not what you get here but its working. I love the amp it is powerful it looks good and it had a good modern tone. VERY VERY LOUD. Be careful with the volume lol

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So I first purchased the Blemished version, it arrives on time, not mark on it, plug it in and immediately loud scratching and thumps come from the speaker and I see electricity emitting from the power tubes in the amp, which freaked me right out but luckily nothing caught on fire. I sent it back to zZounds who promptly sent me a brand new one at a discount. After playing it for about 2 days, I have experienced 2 power failures in the amp where it just loses volume and fades in and out for a few seconds before going back to normal, no idea what that is, but clearly these amps are just not reliable. I first thought it was the tubes being loose, they were not loose however the sockets the tubes sit in are VERY loose in the head, not sure if it's a problem as I'm no tech, but no other amp of mine has sockets that loose. *I would like to stress that I have many amp heads and play them regularly, good reliable mogami gold cables and always have amp heads hooked up to matching impedance and have more than enough watts to handle.* As far as the sound, after spending several hours with it and REALLY wanting to like it as I have been wanting to pull the trigger for months and give Randall another chance- I found that this amp can only either sound hollow and muffled or dark, or it sounds way too thin and cheap, it depends on where you keep the channel volumes which IMO were the biggest tone changer in the amp. The higher the channel volume the thinner it sounds, and the same for the master volume. So in short, the amp seems okay on the surface, but upon closer inspection is built cheap, sounds cheap, and is completely unreliable. I'll be returning it, and I would suggest you not buy it. zZounds however has been helpful, so at least there is that

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Ok, so now I've been playing this thing for more than a month now and I want to give it a more accurate feeling about the RD100. The amp is "ok" but isn't the greatest. I can only get a nice overdrive sound when using my EQ pedal thru the FX loop, but doesn't sound that great without the additional EQ. Even by dropping the Mid all the way down to "0" it still sounds very midsy. There seems to be this annoying mid-high frequency that's just there and you can't seem to get rid of it (at least not without an EQ pedal). When playing palm muting it lacks the heavy mute you typically hear in metal. The clean is not as great as I initially thought. In fact, it's NOT clean at all. The amp sounds more muddy than clean. I've never had a sound quality problem plugging my GT-10 thru my TSL100 or any PA or cheap solid state amps; but thru the RD100, my god, the GT-10 sounded awful. The amp makes everything on GT-10 sound super cheap. I can't even dial in a decent sound from my pedal playing thru the RD100. The amp is basically a stand alone unit... The FX Loop isn't that great. Has NO way to assign FX loop to any specific channels...it just loops thru all 3 channels, whether or not you like it. The clean will generally have more Bass sounding than the Overdrive channels....so if you turn down the Bass when playing on the clean...your OD1 and OD2 basses will reduce significantly. Most importantly, I couldn't find anything online about whether or not you can change out the 6L6 tubes for EL34's..well, no wonder when putting in my EL34 tubes, I'd lose like 95% volume and then the amp just plays like crap - kinda like the amp's blown or something. Contacted Randall and "YES" they told me you CANNOT change out the 6L6 tubes for any others...so you are stuck with the 6L6's. Too much MIDs!!! Well, not only that, it's too much of that annoying Mid frequency that makes you wish there's a Shaping knob on the amp so you can tune out that crappy mid. Sorry Youtube demonstrators. The amp DOES NOT sound anything like the way people demo on the web, man. Camcorders does not capture the true sound. And guys who recorded it had to have mixed it thoroughly before posting on YouTube. Everybody claims that there's no "POST" eq done on it...but I find that hard to believe as the amp does not sound even close to that. Now I can't use my GT-10 because the amp just kills it. And no, it's not my guitars or speakers as I have always used my Gibson LP double cut, Gibson Axcess, Ibanez S670 and my JEM guitar. I use a dual 12" Vintage 30's cab. So I know it's not my equipment.

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