Epiphone Firefly 30 DSP Combo

Ok this is my 3rd (and final!) review of this amp - after being forced to use it out of necessity i have found one way in which it can sound usable - dare i say even quite decent:
bridge single coil > clean channel(with stompbox of choice)

that's it. if you're thinking of using humbuckers or the distortion channel you can forget it.

so, based purely on setting it up that way, i will give that sound a 5

Nice features on this amp, i got it about 8-9 months ago now and hasn't disappointed me. The only problem for me is, the weight of it seems much heavier than it should be.

Playing this through my Line 6 Floor Pod with my telecaster sounds great. The sound is very powerful and always delivers full potential.

This amp has never failed on me. Played two gigs with it and has always been great.

I think it's a nice amp, but more for clean sounds maybe acoustic or some eric clapton sounds. For distortion not really, but for powerfulness through a pedal its great to use.

2 Channels, effects, reverb, aux in, ext speaker jack, headphone jack, 30 watts, 10 in speaker.

The effects are fairly useless, except for playing around with. the reverb is not the best. The higher you set it, the worse it sounds. Channel switching not needed - will explain later in the review.

Here;'s the deal - If you play a strat with single coils the clean channel sounds spectacular. Les Paul or SG or crappy shredder guitar with humbuckers, forget it!

Whoever says this amp is noisy is just wrong - unless they are playing single coils, have the gain cranked to 10 with crappy cables. then it's probably noisy as hell on the gain channel. Here's the solution - Don't use the crappy gain channel!

The gain channel is garbage. It sounds like someone poked holes in a bad speaker with a pencil and called it overdrive.

The clean channel is where it's at. Turned up to about 7 it's perfectly clean. As you approach 10 it starts to break up, and all the way up it has a driven tube amp sound. Very full and rich sound - with single coils.

Here's what I am doing. I have a digitech RP155 running into the amp on the clean channel. For SRV sounds I set the RP155 to the Bassman amp with the TS-9 pedal model. It actually sounds really sweet.

No problems to report. Built like a tank.

No idea.

I have been playing for 30 years. I have played through all types/makes of amps. This amp has great cleans, and plays well with the Digitech pedal on the clean channel. It's a heavy amp, but to mean that means durability, and probably contributes to the full sound.

Would I buy it agian? It depends. If I found a killer deal on a Fender tube combo, I might go in that direction on my next amp.

If you find one for under $100 used, it might be for you. If you play hard rock/metal, look elsewhere. If you want an amp to do it all, ook elsewhere.

i believe mine is a 2007. plenty of features. most i never use. i use this amp inmy studio and for gigs. solid state, tube sound.plenty of power.

i own 17 guitars. of course this amp sounds better with some than others. that happens with all amps. but whoever claims this amp is noisy must of got a lemon. mine is quiet. the clean channel on this thing is where it shines. one of the best clean sounds of any amp i have ever played and that includes fender, vox, crate,gibson, marshall and a host of others. at times, depending on which guitar i use [mainly single coils] you cannot tell this isn't tube. effects are so-so and high gain distortion is muddy and poor on most guitars. but i got to give this thing a 9 just for the excellent clean channel.

i gig with this at times depending on the situation. i have never had a problem with this amp. but it is a heavy amp. hard on the back. i have a 30 watt vox that i actually use more for gigs as it weighs half of what this beast weighs....

never dealt with them.........

i have been playing off and on for over 30 years. i am actually a fine artist[ painter and sculptor] with an art noise band. we play sort of a no wave punk blues art noise jazz kinda thing. abstract music. right now i have 2 vox amps. one 15 watt tube and one a 30 watt valvetronix. a crate and this epiphone. lots of guitars.danos, supros, airlines, kays, harmonys, etc. [ total of 17]all vintage and mainly single coils. i use a 80's korg analog pme 40x board with a number of different effects on it. i love this amp for its great clean channel with and without my effects board. i dont use it for much else. oh yeah, it's also very cool looking. artists are visual and this things got it. if it were lost or stolen not sure what i would do. there is so much out there to choose from and so little time.

Mine is a 2006. I mainly use it for home as it's got a nice tone for that use, quick to fire up. It has two channels, though I mainly use the clean. The effects are crappy to be honest. The reverb OD are very poor at best. I do wish it had a good reverb, effects loop jack and 12" speaker and a 15/30 switch. The amp is BEAUTIFUL to look at period, and that was the main drawn when I saw it a West LA Music in Santa Monica, although I actually bought it through EBAY for the price. I couldn't afford the tube version at the time. Wish I could have though. It has enough power for what I do with it.

It works best with my Fender American Deluxe Tele and not bad with my Fender Eric Clapton and Eric Johnson and Taylor T5-C1 and Taylor 314ce. Sounds HORRIBLE with my Epiphone Sheraton II, too dark muffled. Again the reverb and and effects this amp is suppose to have are LOUSY. For the Epiphone company, I believe if Mr. Epi were still alive he would never have allowed this to go through on the quality control it did. Perhaps they already fired the design engineer(s)for embarrassing the company as I would have. I love the Epiphone line, having also a Casino, Dot and looking to buy a big box jazz model.

SO far so good, and it is built heavy and solid. Never had to open it up so well keep our fingers crossed it a durable model.

Haven't need their service as of yet. Hope never to need to either though I hope they respond in a positive manner if I ever do.

Sorry Epiphone / Gibson, but if I lost it and found out who stole it, I would tell the police not to prosecute for possession of stolen property as it wouldn't kill me to loose this particular amp, beautiful as it is. I'd love to see Epiphone redesign the guts and electronics and keep the cabinet as is, then perhaps they would have a killer amp for all ages. The 3 is for overall rating although if it were for looks alone it would be a whopping 10+. I did buy a foot switch later through Sweetwater for $20 bucks which considering now I only use clean, it isn't needed

The features are nice. Pretty much as has been described already. I'd emphasize that it's one of the best-looking amps I've ever come across. That's what sold me . . . unfortunately, as it turned out.
It is big. Bigger than it ever looks in photos. And even on top of that, it's heavy for its size.

I generally played a variety of humbuckers & single coils through this. Only single coils have a chance of sounding okay. The amp is noisy. The clean channel can actually be rather tasty though it's missing a top end. There are certain situations where it's exactly the sound you need. For me, though, that's rather rare as I can't get over the missing top end.
Let me join in the crows by saying the hi-gain channel is just unbelievably bad. I can't imagine an amp has ever been made, at any price point, with a worse-sounding channel. Back in the days when I used to use this amp, I got all my distortion by using pedals on the clean channel.
The effects are pretty useless since they're all on one knob, but they don't sound all that bad.

Well, it appears to be built like a tank. My guess is these things will still be around collecting dust for a very long time.

I've been playing guitar for nearly four decades. I've at various times owned (inexpensive) Marshalls, Fenders, Crates, and now a Line 6 Spider. This is to me, by far the most beautiful amp I've ever played. But that's where it ends. I find the sound pretty useless so right now it's in the corner of my studio serving the role of eye candy.
I suppose if I were gigging and needed nothing more than that exact sound I get from the clean channel, it could serve a purpose.

I bought this **** for 170 and can't begin to figure out where the break is. The tone quality was always muddy and distorted ranged. A chord sounded like separated pitches. They said it's discontinued and I wish I knew how to trouble shoot the solid state from speaking to qualified techs.

To the first time I used this the clean channel sounded alright but got harder in the short time it was in action. I never thought this was to be a 10" speaker without a solid head until I tried additional amps like the Line 6 spider III and the BC30 combo. I was hearing all kinds of radio stations in the background. Redoing the configuration of this crap is too time consuming.

This thing is built like a tank and weighs a ton. It won't fall apart except for the electrical circuitry that doesn't pan out with the ride. If you take time out to analyze the fault it may just be easier to fix another way that's faster.

I have bought Epiphone equipment years ago in the 70's from an acoustic to electric and find the quality has made Gibson noted the the Gibson SG standard and Les Paul to be the fore runners of this pruduct and precision captive instruments to this date. If I were to say, this balance of fusion the sound will be a better quality
between guitar and amp.

I was professional at 16 and I'm in my 50's. I don't know what I would do if it were stolen. I think twice about doing things like fixing this amp and I just may get lucky. It probably was engineered in another garage that that used to be riddled with users who didn't find the time to think at all. Or, they might have gotten sharp and the system failure had gotten to me electrically. In any case, I need input on how this **** operates.

this is a follow-up review

unusable distortion channel. worst i've ever heard, bar none

clean channel - muddy and dark with humbuckers. i'd go as far as to say unusable with most typically-voiced humbuckers. can sound nice with single-coils. strangely noisy for a clean channel, there is a subtle background fizz to it.

dsp fx rendered a bit useless by all being on one dial.
odd fake-sounding (seems gated) reverb which i actually quite liked

i've had a chance to use it in every situation now and its just plain crap. its also unbelievably heavy (and quite large) for an amp with just one 10" speaker. and no there's nothing wrong with it, it's just bad... at any price! i'm selling it ASAP and from what i've read the behringer gmx210 sounds like an excellent replacement... then again i bought this amp only from what i'd read (no shops in my area had it to test)... seems like all the bad reviews came in after i bought it. people, please do not buy his amp, there are MUCH better amps out there for the price

this is a follow-up review

unusable distortion channel. worst i've ever heard, bar none

clean channel - muddy and dark with humbuckers. i'd go as far as to say unusable with most typically-voiced humbuckers. can sound nice with single-coils. strangely noisy for a clean channel, there is a subtle background fizz to it.

dsp fx rendered a bit useless by all being on one dial.
odd fake-sounding (seems gated) reverb which i actually quite liked

i've had a chance to use it in every situation now and its just plain crap. its also unbelievably heavy (and quite large) for an amp with just one 10" speaker. and no there's nothing wrong with it, it's just bad... at any price! i'm selling it ASAP and from what i've read the behringer gmx210 sounds like an excellent replacement... then again i bought this amp only from what i'd read (no shops in my area had it to test)... seems like all the bad reviews came in after i bought it. people, please do not buy his amp, there are MUCH better amps out there for the price

It has a decent set of features for such an inexpensive amp: clean channel, dirty channel, 3eq, reverb and some DSP effects. I never really used the DSP... it's not very convenient to stop playing and try to mess with a little single dial. Plus, there are 9(?) settings total. No customization. That's what pedals are for.

The clean channel is quite beautiful. Crystal clear, picks up notes, good full sound.

The dirty channel is absolute garbage. It sounds like running a lawn mower over some sticks. Never use it.

The DSP effects are pretty useless. They are a bit cheesy sounding and you can't really customize the effect. Use pedals instead.

Never had an issue.

Never had an issue.

I like solid state for acoustic, not so much electric. I'm a tube kind of guy. However, if you're in the market for a really inexpensive clean channel, this may be for you. Don't buy it for its overdrive or effects... all of that is complete junk.

Also, this thing is a beast. I'm guessing it weighs between 40 and 50 lbs, but more importantly, it's just incredibly awkward and large. Not a good gigging amp.

There are plenty of better amps out there for about the same price as a secondhand one of these. I actually sold this shortly after buying it. I made the mistake of buying before I heard it. I wouldn't recommend it to my friends. But hey, maybe it's for you. Just play through it first.