Dean Guitars GA40R 112 Combo

Nice features, especially on the distortion channel. Has electronic reverb.

The clean channel has the bass, mid, and treble and yes, I agree with the other reviews, it doesn't sound like a loud 40 watts.

The AC cord problem might cause a problem fallin out, but that wouldn't damage the amp. It is nice to have a standard AC cord that's replaceable. Solid state, should last a long time.

I hope I never have to use them.

I got this amp for recording. I like the 12" sound and the distortion channel is one of the best I've heard on an amp at this level. The clean channel sounds fine, but lacks loudness. When cranked up all the way, there's just a mild overdrive, but a solid sound, although not punchy. The best tone is in the overdrive channel. It has contuour and prensence controls. No low, mid, or high controls on this side. The contour and presence work great and can produce all kinds of tones. The amp does sound louder through this channel. But the distortions are WARM and SMOOTH with no high end breakup like some amps. The reverb is electronic and sounds fine, although you might want to keep it at lower settings. Also, the reverb cuts out when you use a foot switch with the channels. (Not a big deal, but I don't why they designed it that way.) The reverb will stay on for both channels when maually pushing the putting on the control panel. We know, Dean isn't a goood name associated for guitar amps, but the $200 this is a great deal. It's worth it just for the distortion channel!!

The other review for this amp pretty much somes up the features this amp has-- including the cool knobs- so we'll go with that.

I use the amp with a modified squier strat ( has fender pick-ups in it) and a Samick les paul copy. Both these guitars get different sounds from this amp so i'll cover both. As for the clean channell, its not very bright sounding, kinda jazzy bluesy sounding. Its great for rythem on the samick, but sounds horrible on the strat unless you really crank it up. Its really noisy at all, i've used it in gigs before, both the clean channel and the distortion... and the thing gets prett loud, but if you turn the volume past 6 on the strat or past 5-ish on the samick it start popping and rattling, besides the volume planes out anyway after 5. The amp has great distortion-- the reason i orginally got it. Its distortion is pretty much anything you wanna make it. The only downside to the sound is the clean isn't all that great, but a zoom 606 and a dod grunge pedal fixed that..

I had this amp for about a year and a half now. Its heavy, and i think bullett proof. I've had no problems with it at all-- very reliable

havent dealt with them, came with one year warranty and i had no problems, and its still awesome so, i'd say its good i guess?

I've been playing for about 2 1/2 years
i'm looking at getting a bigger and louder amp (like the fender 100w 2x12) Because this amp does get drounded out by my friends 65w fender princton, but its still a great amp, especially for distortion, which i think it was made for. great amp for the price

First off, I'll start by warning you that this is a somewhat long-winded review, but since Dean is not exactly a well known amp maker, I figure it may be the only review you'll ever see on the GA40R.

This is a (supposedly) 40 watt - as per the Dean website: http://www.deanguitars.com/amps.htm - solid state amp with a 12" speaker, spring reverb, and one input. I also saw some article claiming that it was only 25 watts. The speaker is rated at only 30 watts. It seems strange to set an amp's output at a higher power level than the speaker can handle. After playing it, I believe it sounds louder than 25 watts, so the 30 watt speaker remains a mystery for now...

On the front panel there are separate controls for two channels. The Drive channel has controls labeled: Gain, Shape, Presence and Level. The Clean channel has controls labeled: Level, Treble, Middle, Bass. There is also a control for Reverb as well as a channel select switch flanked by two LEDs (red & green) to indicate channel assignments. Finally, the power switch (and its accompanying LED indicator) rounds off the controls on the front, all mounted to an attractive chrome plated panel. Oh yeah, I almost forgot about the cool chicken head knobs!

On the rear panel are three output jacks labeled: External Speaker (4-8 ohms), Phones and Line out. There are also two footswitch jacks; one for Reverb and the other for Channel. Finally there's the fuse holder as well as a removeable power cord socket.


Feature wise it has a lot to offer, but that doesn't stop me from complaining... ;o) It does have all the stuff I was originally looking for; Decent power (oh yeah, and tone!), a 12" speaker and reverb.

I'm pretty happy with the control options on the front panel since I'm able to get the sounds I like. Although some people may prefer to have more tone controls on the Drive channel, Dean did such a good job voicing this channel that it really isn't necessary in my opinion. The rear features are another story...

Although it's nice to have both the Speaker and Line out choices, I'd take an Effects Loop over the headphone jack anyday. It also seems like the two footswitch jacks could have been easily combined into a single jack (you know, the way everyone else on the planet does it).

I?ve seen these list for $239 with a street price between $195 - $215. I paid only $90 for mine (display model). Considering all the features (especially the 12" speaker and reverb) I got a smokin? hot deal for it! Even at $195, it would be fairly hard to find another amp with comparable features. Anyway, all the (popular) amps I found, in the same power range WITH a 12" speaker AND similar features, were going for much more than I paid for it.

I'm sure there are comparable amps out there similar to the Dean GA40R, but I don?t think I'll get any of them for $90 bucks. Of course you can probably find the other brands used for a good price, so by all means shop around!

I am primarily an electric guitar player, but I got this amp for another reason (don?t laugh): I use it to amplify my acoustic! Don't worry, I gave it the token test it with my electrics too.

Ok, here?s the story: I started playing in a group with several electric guitarists and didn?t see the point in adding another electric, so I decided to start playing my acoustic instead (a Fender DG-22CE). At the time I didn?t have an acoustic amp, so I just used one of my electric guitar amps.

My Mesa/Boogie Rectoverb sounded pretty good, but is just too darn big. Next in line is my Carvin X60A tube amp, which is much smaller (and actually sounded even better), but it was still a real pain to move around.

I finally decided to give my little 15 watt Squier Champ 15GR a try and it actually sounded pretty good (and is a whole lot easier to carry). It did a decent job, but after a while I started to wish for a little more. Don?t get me wrong, the output was fine (as amazing as that seems), it just needed a little more "bottom end", if you know what I mean... I figured all I really needed was a bigger speaker - but good luck finding a cheap little amp with a 12" speaker. Thus started my quest for something else.

You may be wondering... why didn't I just get an acoustic amp?

I actually have an acoustic amp, but it?s more like a PA/Acoustic/Keyboard amp (it's an EKO HPE-150). Even though it sounds great, this thing is a monster and hardly something I want to carry around every week. Since the places I play already have their own house PA systems, I only use the EKO for special occassions, were a decent PA isn't available.

As for other acoustic amps, well, I guess the one's I tried just didn't impress me that much. After all, if a little Squier can sound good, then why waste the money right? I also think it's the way I play my acoustic that makes using a regular amp possible. Not that I?m going to crank up the distortion or anything, but in the group I'm currently in (progressive, dynamic styles) I find it fairly easy to tailor my sound to fit, and a regular old guitar amp really works well for some inexplicable reason.

I obviously use the clean channel for acoustic playing. I have the controls set at sort of a "scooped-mids" setting, with the Treble and Bass set higher and the Middle set lower. My guitar's built-in preamp is also set up in a similar manner (mids are lower than the bass and treble). I also use the Level control on the guitar to act like a "Gain" control (since the GA40R's Clean channel doesn't have one). Pushing the front end of the amp slightly seems to give it a good all around balance of boldness, clarity, presence and a nice tight bass response. I should add that I also use a device called an "Acoustic Xciter" made by a company called Aphex. I highly recommend getting one of these if you play a lot of acoustic/electric stuff (they make specific units for guitar and bass too).

I also tested the clean channel with some of my electric guitars (Fender Toronado, Fender Telecaster, PRS Custom 24 and Fender 50's reissue Strat). Overall I liked the sound of the single coil guitars better than the humbuckers while playing through the clean channel. It gave my Strat a nice chime and provided a good attack for my Tele. Basically the single coils tended to sound clearer and more articulate than the humbuckers. That's not to say that the humbuckers sounded bad, but it did take a little more tweaking to set them up for the best sound.

OK, now for the Drive channel...

First off, I must remind you that the GA40R is a solid state amp, so you won't be hearing any astonishing accounts on how it beats the hell out of my Mesa/Boogie or Carvin amps. That said, it actually surprised me the first time I hit the lead channel...

The distortion was rich and juicy - the way I like it. The "Shape" knob acts like a tone contour control and the "Presence" affects the overall

I have been using the GA40R for a couple months now and haven't encountered any serious issues with it.

My only concern, so far, has to do with the AC connector on the back of the amp. Although I like the detachable cable option, the connector seems a little flimsy and loose fitting. I'm worried that whatever it is mounted to may weaken from the constant pushing and tugging of the cable being connected and disconnected during each gig. They should have put this connection on the bottom, that way you could just leave the cable connected if you wanted to. I may move it myself if it becomes a problem.

Otherwise the GA40R has worked like a champ so far (not a Squier Champ mind you, just a regular, everyday, run-of-the-mill champ ;o)

This may be the biggest concern for most people. Not because the Dean company has a bad track record in this area (as far as I know), but more likely because they aren't a well-known amp maker. It's been difficult finding any info on this amp and seemingly impossible to find anyone else who has ever seen or heard of one.

On the other hand, I took the amp apart (I couldn't resist) and the circuitry is very neat and surprisingly simple. I'd say it would be extremely easy to work on if it needed to be serviced, so I'm not too worried.

I have been playing for over 23 years. I own well over a dozen guitars, including several Fenders (Telecaster, 50's Reissue Strat, Toronado, Lead-I and DG22CE acoustic), Gibson Les Paul Studio, PRS Custom 24, vintage 1965 Epiphone Century archtop, Carvin DC200, Epiphone Casino VT and a couple other cheap-but-cool guitars.

My main amps include a Mesa/Boogie Rect-O-Verb, Carvin X-60A, vintage 1965 Ampeg SB-12 "Portaflex", Vox Pathfinder, Squier Champ 15GR, EKO HPE-150 and the relatively new Vox VBM-1 Brian May Special.

For what it does and what I paid for it, I think the Dean GA40R is a very good all around guitar amp.

Pros:
1) Warm, natural sounding clean tone
2) Surprisingly rich, powerful lead channel
3) Good output for small to moderate size gigs
4) Has both external Speaker and Line out jacks
5) Looks cool

Cons:
1) Weak/somewhat distracting reverb
2) Funky, two separate footswitch jacks.
3) No effects loop
4) Relatively obscure model line

Since the Dean GA40R has everything I need (more or less) and is big enough to do the job, while still being light on the back, I gave it a relatively high rating overall.

Would it make a good "MAIN" amp? I would say "YES" if you have relatively modest needs (playing in smaller clubs, etc).

Would it be MY main amp? Well, I can honestly say "NO", since I currently own several highend professional quality amps. But considering the price and features, I think it's great. It may also be useful as a studio amp. If I ever get around to trying it this way I'll write another review and let you know how it works out.

Good Luck!