Acoustic Image Coda R Series 2

Well thought out. 2 channels; instument with high and low inputs for acoustic and electric with 4 band eq and notch filter and a mic channel with 4 band eq and phantom power. Both channels share the reverb with seperate level control. Each channel has an effects loop. There is a direct out with ground lift. Speaker configuration is a down-firing 10 a 5" mid and 1" tweeter-very hi-fi. I wish it had two things more; independant effect for each channel and a direct out for each channel but it's great also the way it is.

Great sound. Very hi-fi as I said above, a warm almost tube like hi-fi sound if you know what I mean-not brittle. The eq is very natural sounding. It emphasizes the sound of the insrument as apposed to affecting it if that makes sense to you. I had an Ultrasound pro-100 that I had to fight with like hell to get the guitar sounding right because the eq on it was so awfull. The guitar just sounded bad until after much f#@$ing around you finally got a passable sound. The Coda is the exact opposite; you could completely screw up the eq settings and you'd still be starting with a better sound than the Ultrasound after much tweeking. Anyway, the Coda is a very natural sounding multi instrument amp. I use it with classical guitar, archtop, semi-hollow, steel acoustic and a fender fretless jazz bass.
I've also disconnected the cabinet and ran two PA speakers in a small-med size club with it for vocals and it worked like a charm and in fact has better sound than most PA boards. Very, very versitile amp. Here's the one problem I have with it; while the speaker cabinet sounds great on its own in a quiet room or very small venue it does not have the throw needed to be usefull in a multi-instrument setting by itself. You can run it through a PA via the DI out and if it is close to you on stage you can use it as a monitor but only you are going to hear it. Other musicians on stage will need additional monitoring to hear what you are doing. This has not been a problem yet for me but I could see how it could be. I'm not playing in a death-metal band either just jazz and soul stuff. If you want to use this on its own you need a more conventional type speaker cabinet. eg; I played a bass gig with the Coda running a 4x10 cab and it had lots of punch though the cabinet is at its weekest for guitar. For guitar a Raezers edge cab might be nice but you definately need something that pushes more air out front. I took a point off for this but nothing else is wrong with the sound of this amp.

So far so good but I haven't had it a long time so I wont rate this. It seems very solid.

Great amp. Nice concept in design. It's the amp I use the most. It's not my favourite, that place is reseved for my 1964 deluxe reverb, (sorry all you pure tone, Polytone loving jazz heads but there's NO SUBSTITUTE for a classic tube amp like that). Speaking of Polytone, you can get those kind of sounds out of this amp, nice for archtop. A really nice sound I tried the other night was to run my semi-hollow into the Coda and then run a cable from the effect send to my pedalboard and then to said Deluxe Reverb for a great sounding faux stereo set up. The sound guy did a soft pan with both amps and apparently it sounded great in the club too. Anyway, if you are considering an amp like this for acoustic instruments and bass it would be hard to do better. If you are more single minded about what you will be using this for you might consider a Clarus R and get whatever cabinet that would serve your purpose. Like if I only played archtop I would get a Clarus and then search for the right cab. nuf said