ADA Cobra

No idea when it was made, but it has good features. The reviewer below pointed out correctly that the features that made this very early hybrid design so rare and amazing have been surpassed by far in much cheaper amps, and therefore it isn't worth much these days by comparison. What it does have are very nice tone-shaping controls and a nice focused distortion.

Very nice distortion for a hybrid amp, but the cleans aren't the greatest. Better off spending your bucks on a Peavey Bandit or one of those Vox Cambridge hybrids. Very versatil, but has its weaknesses.

Preamp tubes have held up well, not too much buzz.

Out of business

The guy who sold this to me actually gave me what it's worth ($100), despite the $850 he spent on it when it was new and "an original design." It's still a good amp, though, and it's great for sustaining, focused metal and prog-rock, not so good for jazz/blues/rock when a looser tone might be appreciated.

Two channels (clean and lead), each with independant 3 band EQ knobs, boost level, and reverb. Master controls for Thump (bottom end reverse-cloak), Hi-cut (top end rolloff) and noise gate/supressor. Two 12AX7 tubes in the preamp, running on a similar circuit I think to ADA's MP1 preamp (a lot of the same tones are possible). Twin 10' speakers produce a focused, compressed tone. In fact, the tone of the amp itself is highly focused/compressed, much like the MP1 preamp it seems designed to present in combo form. Footswitch is 4 button (allowing for direct jump between one channel's normal level and the other's boost mode, which is very useful). Reverb is kinda puny...you can have a longer reverb tank added cheaply at any store that does amp work, which'll make it a lot better. Points off for the puny reverb. Other than that, for a hybrid amp, it's got great features...thought feature-wise (not sound-wise), the Peavey Bandit 112 may be superior. Sound-wise, this wins out far and away.

I play an Anderson HDT and a Washburn acoustic through this at my apartment, as it sounds good at lower volume. All my experience has been with all tube amps, and while this lacks the dynamic distortion of driven power tubes, it's better than the JCM900 Marshalls for high-gain distorted tones. I play a wide range of alternative jazz-rock and worship music, and while the clean channel is decent, the distorted tones is where this amp is great. The clean has some shimmer and thickness, but primarily it's a clear-sounding clean, and the boost mode can bring it into (as a previous reviewer noted) a mellow, silky distortion. Lead channel set to shred is this amp's strong point...you'll find the direct-to-recording tones of the MP1 preamp here. A touch thin at times, they can growl and sing with LONG sustain and do the mellow fuzz thing depending on how controls are set. I have a great medium-gain all-tube setup I keep at my church, but I don't miss it as much as you'd think when I'm using this little-but-powerful-guy...it sounds completely different, but has a responsiveness I like. I'll use it for small gigs in the future, I have no doubt.

They're out of business.

For the price, it was a fantastic value...a combination non-programmable ADA MP1 with knob controls and boost switching, solid state power amp, and 2x10 cab, in a light weight and easilly-transportable combo. Sounds are fantastic for the price. Would buy again at same price, but would look around if I couldn't find one as cheap. ADA was a great company.

This a 110wt. "Hybrid" combo. It has 2 channels; Green (clean) and red (lead). It has 2 12AX7 tubes in the preamp that really make it sound sweet. It also has totally seperate controls for each channel (even seperate Reverb controls). There's a cabinet emulator as well, as for how accurate it is, I don't know. But it IS very useful in shaping your sound further (it can also be bypassed if you don't want it.) In addition, there are Thump and Hi-Cut controls. The two ten inch speakers are both ADA brand. There's an effects loop and recording out too. It comes with a 4 button foot switch (they call it the SnakeCharmer). It has buttons for Green, Green Boost, Red, Red Boost. It seems to be pretty high quality (metal), although the switches are plastic red buttons (almost like on the original Nintendo controler). The only thing I wish it had was a headphone jack. But, with the range of sounds, that can be forgiven. Lastly, there's a noise suppress control too.

I'm using a Jackson "Super-Strat" with two humbuckers. I play mostly hardrock and metal (Aerosmith, MetallicA, GnR, White Zombie...). It can get kind of noisy with High Gain settings, but there's always the noise suppressor that works really well. Set right, the Clean channel can get a really smooth distortion. The actual Lead channel is really sweet. Right now I'm content with a nice Aerosmith kinda sound, but when I first got it, I couldn;t help but to play some White Zombie. Using the Thump control, with the distortion up is perfect for Thunderkiss `65. My wah (a Crybaby 535) even seems to sound better now. I haven't been able to turn it up all the way, but the clean channel has some pretty nice headroom.

Seems reliable. The footswitch I got had a screwy wire, but the store took care of that. You do need a stereo cable though for it. The amp is fine though.

Never dealt with them.

Before this I was running a Boss-GX700 through a Peavey. Mostly, I was just using the Boss for distortion and EQ. But this takes care of that and more. I'd buy it again for sure. I tried out Marshalls before this I couldn't get a good distortion at low, bedroom volumes. But this sounds good quiet and loud.