Product: Maxon AD-999
Price Paid: US $356.00
Submitted
07/12/2004
at
02:40pm
by
Anonymous
Ease of Use
:
8
The standard 3 knobs...delay time, repeats, and level. Could not be easier. Larger than I expected, about the size of 3 Keeley Compressors laid side by side. The manual is helpful I guess for someone who has never owned a delay. It addresses all ofMaxon's Vintage style pedals. No tap tempo, and at this price that would be nice..dropping it to an 8 only for that reason, but I knew that going in...
Sound Quality
:
9
Sounds very good. My first analog delay so I am easily impressed, but seriously, it just sounds warm, and adds a bit of character as opposed to my DD5 which sounds at it's best exactly like the note, or at it's worst sort of sterile and cold. I had concerns about the new 9v Power Supply as opposed to the 12v that was standard in the AD900. I and others have pondered what this would mean in headroom terms to the new unit. While I do not have an AD900 for comparison purposes, I can say that the AD999 sounds stellar. Upon first hooking it up, I dialed in some mid delays and played some 2112 ala " All the World's a Stage" era Rush...very convincing. On to a Memphis slap kind of thing into one repeat country type Hellecaster runs...stellar. U2 kinda stuff, whatever...it all sounds good. I don't normally write reviews here, but I did'nt see this model up yet on the boards, so I decided to go ahead...have had the pedal for two days. A guy asked me about loss of headroom with a dirt pedal in front of the delay. I have only tried it with a Java Boost in front so far, so don't know if that approximates an answer or not, but it sounds really good to me.
The unit is dead quiet in bypass mode, and any inherant noise when the unit is engaged is masked by an overall low rig volume, so no problems there...I don't hear any degradation of tone.
I have played around with the unit at max delay settings and maybe pickup a little loss in SNR, but again, no problems.
I am using the delay with a Bogner Shiva EL34 model w / verb and assorted effects, mostly Keeley stuff. I tried the unit in the effects loop of the Shiva with the buffered cable and direct. It sounded fine in both places but I will continue to probobly keep it in the loop. The unit was tested with my Strats and a PRS Standard.
Reliability
:
No Opinion
Heard good things, but it's my first Maxon, so no opinion yet
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
None needed so far
Overall Rating
:
9
If something happened to it, I feel like I would definitely want another. It would be hard to back. I would have been just as happy with the 900, buy hey, ya only live once. I have been playing long enough to be a good bit better than I am. I play a little bit of everything, but find myself dropping the pick more often than not over the last few years and spankin' my Strats that way. I did compare it to other analog delays, from other manufacturers, and to the used Maxons available online from a price perspective. I had pretty much decided on a Maxon based upon the AD900 reviews I read here on the HC. I wish it had a tap tempo feature. Thanks and I hope this helps someone else in their decision making process. This is a really nice sounding pedal that I hope I am fortunate to keep and play through for a long time, and pass onto my son.
