Laney Amps Guitar Amplifier Cabinet (IRT30-112)

I had been searching for a tube amp that can keep up with a drummer, fit in my car, and rock the bedroom without waking the neighbors. This is all possible due to the power soak that takes this thing from barely audible to rattling your chest. My choice was between this, a Marshall DSL 40 and a Blackstar HT-5R. The Marshall is a Marshall but wasn't as feature rich as the Laney. The Blackstar was nice in the bedroom but turned fuzzy when trying to push 5w to drummer levels. The Laney had the widest tonal variation, highest gain saturation and by far the most features.Pros:- Power soak: Take the amp from 30w to >1w with the twist of a dial.- Heavy duty blemish free construction with built in handles- Built in footswitchable pre boost- Footswitchable mellow reverb that falls after the effects loop- 3 footswitchable channels (Clean, Rhythm and Lead)- Built in tilt bar to lift your sound off the ground- Front facing controls (seriously who wants to constantly be stretching over the back of the amp?)- Sweeping EQ with push/pull to further the range allows you to dial in an incredibly broad range of sounds- Global Tone (Treble frequency range) and Dynamics (Bass frequency range)- Includes 4 button footswitch- Ability to use the power amp/speaker as a slave by plugging directly into the effects loop return (Awesome for effects that provide amp modeling)Neutral:- The standby jewel was flickering upon initial inspection, reseating the bulb rectified this.- Box it came in was beat up bad, but not a scratch on the ampCons:- No cover. Easy to make your own.- Treble heavy: While you can compensate for this with the EQ it's just really really bright without doing so.- Limited bass response: Obviously not a full range speaker but breaks up significantly at max volume producing less of a 'djent' and more of a 'fart'. Not a problem 99% of the time even with crash cymbal heavy drummers. But if you try and max this thing expect a flatulent tone.Final verdict:There is absolutely nothing in this price range to offer all of these features. You get a high end product for a working man price.

I play a lot of different styles, from pop and AOR to jazz to many kinds of metal. I had been using rack gear and amp modelers for years, since I'd been doing home-studio recording exclusively and had no foreseeable prospects for a band situation. But I realized I missed playing through an amp, and started shopping for something in a 1X12" tube combo that didn't need high volume or pedals to go heavy. I don't have a lot of options to try different amps where I live, but I did get to hear a few: Marshall, Blackstar, Orange - the usual suspects. Then I stumbled on some reviews of this Ironheart, and the consensus was "they don't make that many, and they can be hard to find, but they're terrific - if you find one, buy it." Who'd have thought that, with that backstory, I'd have found it on Prime? I took it as a sign, and bit.Design and build quality: It's very solidly constructed. I love the tilt-back feature. The footswitch is rugged, and the proprietary footswitch cable seems like it should take some abuse. Knobs and switches have a satisfying, substantial feel. For me, a center handle on the top would be slightly more convenient, but it's heavy enough that I understand why they went with two handles, on the top edges.Sound: This is where it loses a star. I'd heard the lead channel was dark - good for 7-string work - and it is. I mainly play 6-string, but I do have a 7, and the Ironheart handles the low B just fine, without getting flabby and uncontrolled. But no matter how I set the tone, I can't seem to dial out that darkness. For palm-muted low chords, it's fantastic. Menacing and well-saturated, but still articulate enough to distinguish individual notes. But that's only a part of what I do. I also wanted more classic metal tones, and AOR Neil-Schon-ish soaring, liquid solos, and this just ain't got it. It's also pretty weak for pinch harmonics / squealies. I've got a Kramer SM-1 with EMGs, so I should have a lot easier time getting a good squeal out of a note. I know it's about technique, but I can pull them off much more easily with other amps/preamps/sims. I'm sure I can chain some pedals or rack gear to expand the tonal range, but despite the many variations and combinations you can dial in, if you want high-gain but not doomy, the native lead-channel tone will fight you. The onboard digital reverb is good enough for practice, but when I'm recording, I leave it dry and add any reverb in the DAW. The direct out is way better than most I've tried, though I really want to A/B it with my ADA MicroCab, which I love on rack preamps. I'm getting good results recording both mic'd and DI, then mixing and matching in the DAW - the DI is chunkier than I'm getting through an old Yamaha dynamic, and of course it's darker than a large-diaphragm condenser I'm using to capture the air and space. With those three sources, I can generally find a tone I can use, and mitigate that darkness with EQ, but at least on the lead channel, the Ironheart really only truly shines for brutal, modern metal. It's also pretty noisy at high gain, but I guess no amp avoids that completely. The cleans are nice and clear - it doesn't sparkle, but I can get a nice smoky jazz sound with my hollowbody, and it sounds nice with a poppy bridge-and-center-pickup tone on the Kramer, or on my RG. I don't do much mid-gain, gritty blues or anything, so I can't really comment there. Nor can I play at high volumes, so some of the tonal issues above may resolve when the power tubes really start saturating. The "watts" knob changes the volume, but doesn't really seem to change the character of the sound, so it's kind of useless. The "dynamics" knob doesn't seem to do much for the dynamics per se; it mainly just sounds like a low-mid EQ. It helps to combat the darkness, but the name is somewhat misleading.I'm interested to try different tubes - it seems like there's a lot of un-tapped potential in this amp, and I have heard that re-tubing these can really even out the tonal character. If and when I get around to that (or to trying it with the MicroCab), I'll come back and update.Features and ease of use: Laney made some odd choices with the interaction of the two channels, and the "boost". You need the boost up pretty high for metal, but then if you kick over to clean and want the boost off, the volume drops out and it's useless. So you have to keep the clean channel up high, and make sure you click the boost off when you switch to clean, or it'll be way too loud. I wish they'd found a way to assign the boost to the channels separately, but as far as I can tell, it's either on or it's off, so you can't do a one-pedal switch from boosted lead to un-boosted clean. No big deal for me in a recording environment, but it's frustrating for practice, and for performance it would be a major hindrance. Again, the "watts" knob seems pretty useless to drive the power tubes at bedroom volumes, and the "dynamics" knob is of limited utility. The standby switch is nice; if nothing else, it avoids the loud "pop" on power-off.I feel like I've kind of panned this amp, above, so let me clarify: I really like it, and I'm keeping it. For a lot of what I do, it sounds fantastic, and where it's got shortcomings, they're not so glaring that I can't "fix in post." No amp is perfect at everything, and the combination of good cleans, ample gain at any volume, and a good onboard reverb make for a very competitive amp at this price point. But just know it won't do everything, and if you have the option to try before you buy, then definitely do.

I give this Amp a 5 star....First let me start out by saying, its built sold, and heavy duty. The tubes give it that warm sound, with really nice tone and great gain control. Love the Laney amp, would buy another Laney amp....

This has been a seriously awesome amp for me. It is in no way just a metal amp. The clean channel sparkles and the lead channel is great.

Great amp. Glad I got it