Genz Benz El Diablo Head

I just wanted to say that I have owned this amp for a while now, and I have already reviewed it; this is just a follow-up. Right now, the amp sounds amazing. However, I just needed to state that I went through a period when I didn't think it sounded that great, and it confused and disappointed me, because I didn't know why... But I figured it out.
This was because of the way my GUITAR was SET UP; I had played around with my pickup height, and it made MAJOR changes in the sound of this amp. I had the guitar set up so that it did not sound good. It adjusted the pickup heights and got it to sound muddy, fizzy, blown-out, and so on. Then I decided to take the guitar to the store to get some help. The adjusted PICKUP HEIGHT and POLE MOUNT HEIGHT (much differently than I had had it, before), and the amp now sounds wonderful.
SO-- ONE THING THAT I REALLY NEED TO ADD TO THIS POST-- The way your PICKUPS are adjusted makes HUGE changes in the sound of this amp. I don't know about others, because I never really messed with the pickup height and pole mounts with other amps a lot. I had my guitar adjusted at the store a few days ago, and this amp sounds gorgeours now. Before the adjustment, I was getting a really muddy sound, and then fizzy sounds when I tried to adjust them myself on my Les Paul. The shop adjusted the pickups way differently than how I had set them, and it now sounds AMAZING!
I was just thinking that that might have something to do with some of the poor reviews of this amp, as the amp went from sounding disappointing to wonderful after the adjustment of the guitar.

+++ As a side-note, it also seems to take a bit of time to adjust to a new sound when you're used to hearing a different one. I think the body just gets used to listeing to certain aspects of the sound, and other amps can then not sound as good at first. But, boooooy, can that change! I used to play Marshall, and, at first, the Mesa tones sounded hollow. Now I think they sound fuller and great... Sometimes I think you just need to adjust a bit. Just as a side-note... They sound great, now...

Most versatile amp I have ever played. 2 basic channels Warm and Hot with Clean and Vintage on Warm Channel and a variety of combinations on the hot channel. Tons of other features which you should read about at their website or the many other reviews below mine, but this is a Cadillac when it comes to volume,tone and control features. By the way the "Blue Glow" is absolutely too cool for words. I normally don't think about this much, but it looks great on stage. It was very easy to change the power tubes to a quad of the new Mullard EL 34 (Killer) but very hard to get the preamp tube srewed down retainer loose. After struggling for a while I just pulled the amp out of the chassis.There is a switch to rebias from 6L6's to EL-34' which is brilliant.

First off, I usually don't comment on other people's reviews but there has been some extreme bashing of this amp on a couple of reviews that leave me scratching my head. I have owned many amps, '66 Fender BF Vibrolux and a '79 Marshall SuperLead 100 and sold a Marshall TSL 122 to buy this which I don't regret it in the least. I consider this "up there" and a better amp in many respects than others I've owned (a dozen or so) or played (hundred's) although all amps have limitations. I would hope that you can actually play one of these or any amp your considering buying, but in these days of E-Bay (how I bought mine) and internet discounters and not everybody being blessed with music stores that have a great variety of amps to check out this can be tough. There are some professional reviews by guitar magazines and such that are a good reference point as well and what I consider more balanced. 'Nuff said. The warm channel has Clean and Vintage. The Clean is pristine and sounds sparkly clean and beautiful. A lot of amps can never attain this wonderful tone much to my dismay. The vintage channel sounds like old Fender Blackface. I owned a '66 BF Vibrolux, a '79 Supertwin (still got it sounds fantastic with 6-count 'em-THD Yellow Jackets instead of 6L6's)and a '59 bassman RI as well as a Holland Brentwood combo that is basically like a 60's Bandmaster and Vintage is similar to those. I like this channel for Blues and Jazz and would say it's my main channel. More gain than the clean and just enough fatness to fill things out. There was kind of a volume boost I had going fom Clean to Vintage that I seemed to have calmed down by putting a NOS 5751 tube for the first preamp tube, V1. I did the same to my Holland and Bassman for the V1 spot and suggest anybody who loves a clean tone should check this option out. I also put in a quad of the new Mullard EL 34's and they are killer especially after about 20 hours break in. The amp is scarily quiet on Warm Channel (I had play somethin' to make sure it was on a couple of times)and the Hot Channel is as quiet as you'd expect and quiter than most. I think the Hot channel absolutely rocks. It also has several optional boosts you can kick on Classic or High Gain, Dynamic or Compressed. The main way I set the hot is tweaking the gain and channel volume control. There is a tube contour that set to one extreme pronounces the mids and the other direction scoops the mids. Very Sweet. The tone contols are extremely dynamic and are separate, thank God, for Warm and Hot channels. By dynamic I mean they will actually lower or increase overall amp volume. I also like the detented knobs. You want to tweak the control a litle at a time and really play with it. I use this amp with many effects mostly Keeley for OD, Fuzz and Compression and a Bi-Clone Chorus and SupaTrem and SIB Echodrive. They all sound great. I prefer going straight in but the effects loop is good for chorus tremolo and delay if you want to bypass the preamp. I leave the Global attack on all the time and it adds a little sparkle to everything, not just the screamin' rock stuff. I would recommend this amp to anybody who is into rock or blues and would go so far as saying it has great tones for Jazz. We do at least 3 jazz songs at most gigs-Blues for Alice, Take 5 and an original-my saxophone player is a Charlie Parker freak) as well but doubt any serious jazzbo would be caught dead with an amp that glows blue and is called "El Diablo". It also seems to be suited for Metal especially with the scooped mids option as well glassy clean channel, but other than the occaisional Palm Muted riff I play little Metal. I would like to give the sound category a 9.5 but that is not an option, apologizing for this in advance I will have to say 10 because of some of the extremely low scores, especially considering all of their other commments, others gave in this category. Once again my and everybody else's opinion on music and tone is s

I have had the amp for about a year and a half. I have only had one problem. The switch that changed it fromWarm to Hot was scratchy one day. It was not the footswitch but the amp itself. I took the amp out of the chassis wiggled all the tubes and put it back in and it started working again. I have gigged without a backup many times but alwasys carry spare tubes. ask mew again in ten years. Thisb is a tough category but I usually give the benefit of the doubt unless I have a reason not to.

I have asked emailed Jeff several times usually with tube questions and he has always gotten back right away. You can download thier manual on line which everybody in amp manufacturing land should have.

I have been playing over 25 years. My band "Frayed Knot" gigs and we do Jimi, Stevie, ZZ, Carlos, Nirvana, STP, Jazz, Weezer, Surf Music, Toadies, Albert King, Joe Bonamassa, Kid Rock, etc...I love this amp. I would buy it again if lost or stolen. I feel lucky that I found this amp. I am sure that there are other good amps out there that I like but most seem substantially more expensive or don't have as many options such as the great Clean and Vintage tones on the Warm channel that is a button push away. I wish more amps had clean tone this good as well as the OD High gain sounds.

I have to say it is really loaded with features. You can go from clean, to AC/DC crunch, to 80's Metal, and to High Gain Metalcore/ Death Metal. The channel switching is laid out well, and the footswitch is too. The lead boost is a really neat feature too.

Here is where I had a problem with this amp. It is really hard for me to narrow down exactly what just didn't sit right with me, but I will try my best. First of all the High Gain on the amp was not articulate and well defined distortion, it was what I call buzzy, or fizzy. I like my distortion sound to be agressive but I like to hear the notes clearly when played. I also did not like the bottom end this thing put out, to me it was not tight enough, really woofy and to loose. I was running through a Vintage 30 loaded 4 by 12 cabinet as well. The clean channel is OK but not very spanky or Fender style clean, just OK. The harmonics did not stand out enough for me, kind of weak, and to me it lacked some dynamics. By the way I sold the amp on ebay and lost some money.

To me this thing was built very good, like a tank, no qualms with build quality at all.

After I got the amp I was not that satisfied with the tone, and the loose, flabby/woofy low end. So I sent Jeff Genzler an e-mail about it explaining to him that I wanted the low end to be tightened up some. He told me to try a different preamp tube in the first position and sent me one for free. It did tighten it up some, but not enough for my liking. But his customer service was excellent, and I appreciate that. Something like this would have never happened with the Marshalls and Mesa's of the world. That is talk directly to the main man about a problem.

I have been playing for over 25 years, and I am not going to go over my equipment becasue it seems silly to me to brag about it on here. Lets just say everything I own has humbuckers in it and I play clean stuff, 80's metal, and Metalcore. It can't be stolen I sold it and I am glad it is gone now, even though I lost some bucks when I sold it on ebay. I loved the versatility of it, and I hated the tone, and buzz saw/ fizzy distortion, not articulation with distortion. I compared it to many other products, just wanted to be a little different tone wise, and the features were awesome. I would suggest to anyone that is buying this amp to listen to it first becasue you may end up with something you are not happy with. Now I have ordered a custom built Peters amp from James Peters, they are the bomb and I can't wait to get it in 4 to 5 weeks. Check out his stuff at http://www.petersamps.com

This is a 100 watts tube head. It is a real versatile one. There is two channel, Clean and distortion. The clean channel offers 2 different sounds controlled by the footswitch, one is a regular clean and the other is a bluesy crunch sound. The distortion offer 2 different sound controlled by the footswitch, one is high gain and the other is low gain. You have a reverb level for each channel and a master reverb. There is a gain and volume for each channel. There a compressor/texture feature on the distorion channel and an attack feature that boost mid freq. The footswitch control all these features. There is 3 effect loops, one for each channel and one for both. Two ouputs and other stuff on the back panel...
I forgot...most of manufacturers do not care about how the amp looks, but Genz Benz added a few features so that this head looks better than any other head. It may sounds strange but everybody talks about the looks of my amp!

My guitar is a ESP with EMG Hz pickups. My signal goes first in a standard Dunlop crybaby wha pedal, a korg pedal tuner and then right in the amp! My cabinet is a Behringer 4 x 12" (400 w).

I play most of the time metal and punk rock stuff. I really like when my lead tone screams and that my rythm tone sounds loud.

This amp is really great. I tried lots of stuff, racks and pedals, and I ended with this head. There is 3 things that is fantastic about the head.

First, I play with the gain in maximum position and with the low gain set up this amp is so quiet....it's really rare for that type of head. When you're on the high gain you can get a normal feedback that you can stop easily with you're fingers.

Second, all the possibility that you can do with the amp (that you controlled all by the footswitch). I use low gain for rythm parts, high gain for little lead parts and I just pushed the attack button (that boost the mids) of the footswitch for my solos. I always use the compressor that adds some distortion to the tone. For lead tone this amp really screams and you have a really nice natural distortion that sounds big and loud for rythm. With high gain at maximum gain you can hear every note.....as a matter of fact, I've changed the chords I used to play in lots of songs. Now I can play 6 strings instead 3 and it sounds much better.

The clean channel sounds good but I don't use it that much.

The reverb is not so good but I bought an amp not an muti-effect device. It does a regular reverb sound.

I have it since a month!

I was wondering about what settings should I use (4, 8, 16 ohms) because sometimes I use 2 cabs with different loads. I e-mail the company and Jeff Genzler answered me in less than 24h!!!

I've been playing for 9 years, I owned Fender, Boss, Crate and Rocktron amps. If it was stolen I'd sure buy another. I love the fact that I can have 3 different distortion sounds (low and high gain, and compressor) and a solo channel (attack feature) that I can controlled with a single footswitch. Great sounds with great looks !!! I'm really tired of seeing Marshall and Mesa Boogie everywhere....there are like Microsoft! I'm glad I've found a different head with a top quality sound that I'm sure I do not pay for the trademark. Great gear Genz Benz!

I won't bother to go into the features - you know them already or you can find them elsewhere. Suffice it to say that the feature set is close-to-perfect enough to rate a 10.

I use a Knopfler Signature Strat (primarily) and a modded '52 reissue Tele. The only pedals I use (or need) with this amp are a Rocktron Short Timer delay (set so fast and so low that the knobs are barely moved off minimum [so, yes, I could easily do without it]), and a George Dennis Parametric Wah/Volume. My style is eclectic and personal, think a cross between Jerry and Jimi, with some rhythm by Pete, inspired by the sitar master Nikhil Banerjee. Dig?
I like distortion - clean and crisp, with deep, nearly-out-of-control bass feedback, and lots of warble and fuzz in the mids and highs when the note decays. It's very important to me to have transparency - an odd word to apply to guitar amplification, I know - but I want to really hear what the strings and coils are doing when they interact. This amp gives me all of that, to any reasonable degree, allowing me to change exactly the right parameters to develop any subtle flavor of what I want.
I rarely use the clean channel, but it sounds nice and sweet.
I love the reverb of this amp, and the compression is excellent. I suppose one could wish for the latter to be adjustable, but that is a small point. Give me too few adjustments, and I won't be able to get what I want; too many, and I'll be fiddling with it forever.
My only other quibble whatsoever, is that the detented preamp level and master volume controls are too coarse for fine level adjustments. However, I can work around this by twiddling both of them until I get an overall volume setting I like. That said, I DO like the detented controls, because they give me, if nothing else, a feeling of accuracy. The controls on so many amps feel cheezy - these don't.
The amp exudes quality from every pore. Nothing seems overdone appearance-wise (who needs 20 lb. stainless steel faceplates that add $100 to the cost?), except perhaps for the blue interior lights - but they do look so freakin' kewl that I can forgive such a tiny lapse and just enjoy the low-rider indulgence. Compare the look of this amp to Peavey's XXX (trucker mudflap embossed naked girl face plate and "body" and "hair" controls), and you'll know right away which one you want to have representing you in front of the world. Frankly, the only drawback, marketing-wise of such a great look, is that a person might think the amp is out of their price range, as I did. If I wasn't for the heads-up by the salesman, I woulda' passed it and the Diesels by. (BTW, the salesman, whose opinion I trust, has a vintage Marshall; and when I asked him, "So, if you had to buy a new amp, which would you buy?", he unhesitatingly took me over to El Diablo. In fact, he told me personally that he would rather have the El Diablo than the Marshall but that he couldn't afford to spring for another amp just this minute. [Plus, if you ask me, the Marshall nameplate, he feels, has macho points on stage.] In fact in fact, he told me that the Diesel had, maybe, a better clean sound, but distortion-wise, they ran neck-and-neck. And the Diesel is four grand to the Diablo's $1300, the difference between which buys both my guitars)

The amp is made in Scottsdale, AZ, USA, and the owner of the company/engineer-designer is reachable on the phone. This is aside from the fact that the amp appears to be built like a municipal power station in Mordor. Time will tell if its looks are deceiving - but I don't think so. So, yes, I would take it on a gig w/o backup.

N/A

I'm no expert. I've only been playing two years, and I have not owned or even tried in-store many other amps. So I can only go on (1) what I hear when I play, and (2) my gut feelings. But I do have a great sense for music and sound, and nearly infallible instincts. Plus, I've owned more audio, electronic, speaker GEAR of every description in my 56 years that most people will ever see...and I know quality and what makes my ears purr and what makes me run for the door. This amp has all the signs of being a 1st class product - in the upper 5% of all the techno media tools I've ever owned or used - and that?s not something I say often.
Now, I only wish I had enough $$ to buy the matching cab...
Oh, and I LOVE the name!

This amp was made IN NOVEMBER 2004. This amp is very versatile. I just wished it had 3 channels. (TRUE) See below for more features.

I turned this thing on and let it warm up for about 15 minutes. (My usual ritual for my tube amps) I was blown away on how "purdy" she looks when it comes on. So now on to the next task of pluggin her in.
Wow! It doesnt sound like every other tube amp out there. It was nice. Clean channel was nice with a little bit of Chorus (MXR-134 - Latest). IF you are looking to imitate- do not buy this amp. If you do not want to sound like everyone else- get this amp. I found the same quality of sound in my Laney VH-100R. The distortion sound was excellent. I only tap my distortion pedal for the leads.(Pedal is set very low-)
I also use 2 Genz Benz G-flex 212. MY sound guy said that it sounded better then the 412. You can stack the 2 -212's or put them on opposite ends of the stage. Basically he told me that the 212's were ported perfectly. ( they did some kind of sound test with the 412)

In my living room I keep it at 50 watts so I dont get the police called me.

I like that this came with a padded cover but it looks tuff and it seems pretty solid. I have had no issues with it. Right now it is very dependable.

Have had no experience with them.

I think this amp will be the most sought after amp for years to come. Good Job Genz. The big plus is that you can switch from 50 to 100 watt by the flick of the switch.

what can I say? cheaper then a bogner, cool looks, versitile as hell, everytime I play it amazes me what I can do with this thing! 100 watts loud as hell it's just simply a balls to the wall metal amp that can be dialed back to get warm bluesy tones, to crystal clean fender tones. I'd take this amp of any others I've ever played, the only amp that would rival this for me is the bogner uberschall, but the bogner isn't as versitile. the genz is just a straight up sweetheart of an amp and a brutal mosnter.

I play everything from country to blues, to prog/power metal in the vein of iced earth and seven witches. the genz does it all. I hear people bitch about the reverb but if you turn the master reverb up and then turn the channel reverb to about 3 to get a nice spring reverb. I play a custom shop jackson warrior with 2 EMG 81's in it, a gibson V, and an assortment of gibson pauls, a couple jackson dinky's and a custom shop jackson solist. You can really dial this amp into anything. It really sings thru the emgs. You can get a mesa, marshall, carvin type sounds out of it and it's quite accurate. I use a tone that is uniquely genz. If you turn the gain all the way up on the hot channel, kick in high gain, compression turn the channel volume to 5 tube(presence) at about 8, bass on 8.5-9 mids on 3.5, and treble all the way up with the master volume on about 3.5. Really good crunchy metal tone great for pinch harmonics, sweep arpeggios, and quick modal leadwork. I use an ampeg cab loaded with v30's. great amp, especially for the price. tends to get a bit noisy at loud volumes but that can be partially fixed with a power conditioner, a quality cable, and a noise supressor. only real bitch i have is the fx loop ruins the tone.

gigged with it, pack it everywhere, tough, still showroom condition. I have a core 1 head case for it that is chrome diamond plate. Really great head case, you owe it to your investemant to protect your head.

I support graphic editing software by phone for a living so I am very picky about customer service ratings, but these guys are fabulous.

been playing for 8 years played an assortment of high end heads, mesa's, bogners, vhts, marshalls, diezels. I suppose I'd have to say a bogner and a diezel have a little bit better metal distortion but I have really carved my own sound with the genz. The genz straight up owns marshalls, mesas, and vhts. Love this amp to death, I've been playing for 8 years and this thing is just killer. First practice I brought the genz and my drummer sold his peavey head and went down and bought a genz and the g flex 412 and 212. Great as a 3/4 stack. I've actually run 2 genz heads with a 2 412s and a 212. 10 12" speakers and 200 watts of tube goodness. i could have never been happier with an amp, well worth the money

as written all over this page

I play detuned scandinavian-type of metal/hardcore, so I use mostly 7strings (Ibanez, ESP, Schecter). It had EL 34s inside when I bought it, the distortion was (I don't use clean sound at all, so I can't actualy say much about that) ok, but with too much mids, so I replaced them with JJ 6l6....it was like buying a new amp!!! the distortion now is bbbrrruuutttaaalll...it's kinda Mesa like, but much more original. It reminds me the sounds of Entombed, Bolt Thrower etc. When you realy crank it up, it's little noisy but I'm getting the Rocktron noise gate anyway. I play it through the Mesa cabinet 412 and it suits well...I've actually put a dual recto beside it (with same box) and tried to find out the difference. Mesa has brighter and crispier clean chanel, but when you hit the HOT channels on both of these metal-beauties, El Diablo tops it. The Genz gain is unbearable and loudness just crazy.

no problems at all. heavy duty piece

I needed a schema and they sent it the day I asked. Thanx!

As listed below.

The honorable mention goes to the 115 / 230 converter inside the amp - particularly useful as I ordered the head from the USA.

Im using a brian moore I-1 (which is hugely versatile in itself) and have the amp going through a gflex 4x12 (which i regret buying because its so damn LOUD - go a 2x12 everyone!)
There is a bit of dry noise when the amp is up at loud volumes.
Negatives out of the way though - this amp has a sound unto its own. I bought it not knowing what it sounded like (yes, a kamikaze some might say) but just got back from using it in a recording studio and i couldnt be happier with it. Can range from nice, tight and brutal to a looser messier distortion - and the clean channel is acceptable. No fender, but gets the job done.

No problems thus far.

Jeff Genzler is essentially the Jesus of all the support staff within any guitar amplification company. Within a DAY i have recieved responses to my questions.

Been playing for 6 years now. Guitars I own are a yamaha APX-5NA & Brian Moore I1. Amps consist of this gem and a marshall valvestate POS model.
At this stage im loving all the sounds i can get, but not the fact that i have to kill my neighbours to get it. Perhaps an attenuator of sorts is in order.
Bought it on blind faith vs. an Engl powerball - and was certianly satisfied. Ive never tried to be ultra ballbreaking heavy - this sports a geniune mix of all the distorions i enjoy.
If it were lost, id consider buying another but not without looking around first.
Rating is an 8 + 1 for its price. Pigs arse im going to pay around $4000 for an amp! Carn Jeff!

To the gentleman below, I just wanted to let you know that the Genz Benz El Diablo is pretty picky in terms of speaker cabinets. If you play it through a Genz Benz 212 or 412, you will most likely get a desirable low end out of it. I play through a Carvin 412, myself, and I get a desirable tone out of it. I'm not a gigging musician so I do not play it at its 100 watt setting, though.