For over a decade, my main acoustic amp has been an original California Blonde; no, not the v2, but the original. I got it used from a good buddy, and it has been on stage in several hundred gigs to this point. And even though my Katana 50 serves very well as an acoustic guitar amp, there’s just nothing like the depth of sound that comes out of the behemoth that is the California Blonde.
They’re not made any longer, having a final production year of 2006, and SWR got scooped up by Fender to expand its product line offerings. But these were special amps. Inspired by the WorkingPro 12 bass amp, which acoustic guitarists were finding useful to amplify their guitars, the California Blonde was – and still is for me, at least – an amp that could create super-rich tones, and at 120 Watts, pump out the volume.
It’s a heavy-ass amp at 50 lbs. and I use a handcart or small rolling platform to transport it. But the sound, oh the sound, that the amp produces to me, at least, is unparalleled. Yes, there are some great amps out there like the HK Audio Elements and SoundCaddy. But you’re talking 5-6 times the price – at least! Not an easy expenditure. You can get a used Cali Blonde II for under $400 if you look carefully.
The wonderful thing about this amp is the semi-parametric EQ section that allows you to get the perfect EQ balance. In the tone circuit is also a built-in Aural Enhancer that acts much like presence knob. Plus, it has a side-chain effects loop on top of that! It also has an XLR direct out to plug the amp into a board, which is exactly what I do.
To me, this is an archetype acoustic amp. If you look at the picture, it really doesn’t have that many bells and whistles. The bottom row of knobs are for the second channel. I sometimes use this for solo acoustic gigs (though I use my Fishman SA220 SoloAmp for the most part). It is so plug and play!
All that said, despite the fact that it’s almost 20 years old, I don’t see myself getting another acoustic amp for quite a while. The only time I’ll consider one is when this one breaks. And even then, I’ll probably take it to my amp tech and see if it’s unrecoverable. Yeah, the labor may cost more than the amp’s monetary value, but if the repair gets it back to 100%, I don’t have much reason to switch another.
Admittedly though, I think I’m getting close to that point. The reverb no longer works, and it sometimes makes a funny noise when it’s powering on. But I’m still using it. The effects loop still works great, and there are no problems with the DI.
Speaking of which, the DI signal on the Blonde is actually super, super clean. On top of that, unlike other amps’ DI’s I’ve used, it doesn’t hammer the board. I used to use these great Genz-Benz amps and their DI’s were super-hot, and since it was tied into the Master Volume, it was difficult to get a good balance between stage and FOH volume. I had to turn the master down so low that with a full band, I just had to hope and pray that I sounded okay in the mix because I couldn’t hear myself on stage. 🙂
So yeah… My amp ain’t broke just yet. I’m not in any rush to replace it.
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