George Dennis Blue Beetle 15 Watt 110 Combo

I bought this amp in September 2004. so I've had it just over a year. I use it every week at gigs and rehearsals. The amp is very versatile and loud enough for many styles of music; I play mainly Jazz in a eighteen piece Big band, although I do occasionally use it for theatre work....Rocky horror/Hair etc. so some rock distortion sounds are required for this type of work. The Blue Beetle has two channels, one clean and one distortion,two inputs/high/low, brightness and mid-tone switching, reverb, bass, treb, gain, contour, volume. The rear of the amp consists of speaker jack, reverb sensitivity, send return effects loop jacks with blend control, cannon D.I. output, power voltage switching, valves two El84s, three ECC83s. 10.0" celestion 30w speaker....wish it had 12.0" but then again it is loud and light enough!!!

I use an American standard Strat through mainly the clean channel for that jazzy sound, switched to neck pickup which this amp delivers very well. I occasionally use my old Hofner Committee archtop, but this suffers from the dreaded feed-back at volume...even with the 'Fs' damped. The clean channel is very quiet even at full volume, but the distortion channel is extremely loud, hissy and noisy when using the gain control to achieve that hendrix/Page/Moore/ effect. I'm sure it wouldn't be that noticeable if I were playing in an all out rock band?? but I did buy it for the clean channel alone. They rate it at 15W RMS but I think this is utter bollocks, this thing sounds as loud as a Marshall Combo when using the lead channel...absolutely deafening!! I have used on occasion a George dennis wah wah pedal with this amp plugged into the send and return blend loop at the rear. It produced a good effect, but it changed the sound of the amplifier completely....made the sound very toppy/treblely and also seemed to render the front treble/mid/bass controls sort of ineffective. I also use a TC chorus pedal, this changes the sound as well, but it does sound quite good. As for the effects blend pot, this seems a duff idea to me....It's a bit like having a volume pot to turn down the intensity of the effect?? not great for wah wah, had to keep reaching to the back of the amp to turn the effect signal down to bring the amplifier back to normal sound. This consequently thinned up the wah wah effect???

This amp is built like an Anderson Shelter (That's WW.2 air-raid shelter to you) and so far has been very reliable (Touch wood) played many gigs with it over the past year. I don't use a backup and I haven't needed to to change the tubes just yet, I do have some spare mullards just in case but I've decided to leave the JJs in for now! I should get a couple of years usage out of them before changing.

When enquiring about purchase, George Dennis L.t.d were very helpful and promptly replied to my emails giving contact names of dealers. There is a Two year warranty with this amplifier.

I've been playing guitar for thirty years. Own too much gear to mention...don't want the wife knowing how much I've spent!!
I took a long time looking for a replacement amp. I think I found it with this one!! all singing all dancing at a great price ###. Not far off a Boogie, Fender Twin or Polytone in my opinion! and almost like a Vox AC30!!
I love the clean channel the most, Jazz/Blues....the lead channel is like a dirty weekend you don't want your wife or girlfriend to find out about!!!
Wish it had a speaker ext. and a 12.0" Forgot to mention, the foot pedal is excellent...extremely well built and comes complete with the amp. If I lost it, or it was stolen I would definitely buy the Bluesman Forty with the 12.0" speaker design...more money but hey what the hell!!

I believe this was made in 2004, two el34s and three 12ax7s. 2 channel, shared eq. 15 watts, bright switches on the clean and lead channel, bright switch for reverb also. Reverb intensity switch on the back panel, pretty feature laden. plenty of power for my use in my spare office/bedroom. No speaker or line out, wish it had this feature, But just disconnect the speaker cable from the speaker out and plug a 2x12 cab in there.

I'm using a Peavey Horizon ll guitar, with split humbuckers. I'm currently eeking out the blues ala Gary Moore, I really love that compressed blues crunch in gary's playing. This amp on the lead channel, with my peavey horizon in the bridge position gets a perfect Gary Moore sound, a ral tube crunch, that cannot be emulated by any solid state amp period. I've been wanting a small wattage amp to play in the bedroom, that was able to get a good Gary Moore honking tube crunch, and I found it with this amp, and I don't even need a pedal, just straight in the amp, the lead channel is naturally compressed, not too much, but just right, at least for me. I wanted a small tube combo with a nice crunch channel, it doesn't get real distorted in my opinion, just right for a great blues crunch, this amp rally shines with humbuckers. If you listen to Gry moores Live blues, and listen to that honk sound he gets when stopping on a note, that's it, right here with the blue beetle. Now of course the base response in not there, due to the 10 inch speaker, but to get a real nice tube distortion honk, at bedroom volume, well, look no further. The reverb is excellent and is not noisy at all, the amp is very quiet at all settings, even at the highest gain, unless you have single coils of course. The clean channel is nice, not fenderish chimy, I don't know though, maybe with a strat and a tube screamer in front it may sound killer, but I don't have a strat right now to try it. Now if I could just play as good as Gary.

I havn't had this amp very long, So I can't comment on the long term reliability, but it's built real solid, it looks like it's made of a real hardwood of some sort, definately not plywood or particle board junk, but real quality, has a nice weight to it, yet small and very portable, the amp isn't much bigger than it's ten inch speaker, very similar to blues junior in size, but much cooler looking, and ten times better sounding. There is some noise coming from the amp, when I first turn it on, kind of sounds like static, but dissapears as soon as th tubes warm up, in a couple of minutes, could need a tube replacement, maybe I'll do it soon. I don't know if the amp is all handwired, or partially handwird, and or has a small circuit board inside, but whatever is inside that chassis, it works beautifully.

I emailed George Dennis and asked a question, I did get a response, it too a week. I guess this is fair since they are in The Czech republic.

I've been playing for about 8 years. I Bought this amp on ebay, I don't think I could have found any amp in the three hundred dollar range , that could deliver the sounds I get from this beauty. Would definately buy another if it were to escape my presence. I wish they had made it with a twelve inch speaker, I hate nothing about this amp, it's too good, and looks cool too.

I have owned particle board marshall junk, many models of tube and solid state, some sounded pretty good, but most marshall amps are pieces of particle board overpriced junk, that pickup radio stations, because they are not shielded properly. I have been down the Modelling amp road, with a Peavey transformer 112, although this amp had a killer base response, that vibrated the windows, at low volume, it had no real tube honk, that I love, and was not responsive to my pick attack at all. I have also owned several fender amps, two of which were very good, a fender red knob eighty five solid state and a princeton reverb ll, hand wired all tube. Two very good fender amps in my opinion, but I believe the blue beetle beats them out for that sound I was looking for, although the PRll is a beauty of an amp, it had way too mnay dials, and I don't care for pull boost knobs, and shared lead/reverb circuits, I still may get another PRll someday, and set it beside my Blue beetle, but the Blue Beetle stays.

My Blue Beetle was made in 1999. I don't believe I've ever owned an amp as excellent as this thing! The tubes pull sounds through the 10"
Celestion I never was able to get through my Marsall HALF-STACK! I also just purchased a Hughes and Kettner half- stack, and I swear- no shit- my Blue Beetle is LOUDER than it. The guys at George Dennis COMPLETELY underestimate themselves. They made me a believer, it sounds GREAT! The features are perfect on it, I use everything on a regular basis. I use this awesome amp in front of crowds from 500-600,
and to as little as crowds of 50- it's perfect. Keep those tubes-George Dennis- they're the only way to fly!!!!

I use my Blue Beetle with a Les Paul Standard with P-90's in it. It's PERFECT for rock-n-roll, which is what I play. The clean channel is usually almost silent, but on the lead channel, because of my pickups, it tends to hum a little bit. If I use a guitar with humbuckers, this problem is gone. It makes everything from a Jimi Hendrix sound, on clean, and a fairly hard distortion sound. It's a fairly versatile amp. The clean channel distorts slightly at the 9- 10 volume range. The distortion is not really brutal, but by no means wimpy, it gets a Noel Gallagher sound (lead guitarist for OASIS) to perfection.

The amp is built like a tank! I don't abuse it, but it does get played, wherever I play, my Beetle is by my side. The amp has never broken down, it's extremely dependable, but I did have a some trouble with the 2- channel plus reverb footswitch that came with it. It's reverb button works fine, but it won't switch from clean to lead.

I honestly can't answer this. As soon as I bought the amp, my manual and warranty information disappeared (I later found out my mom threw it away)

I don't know what year this was made but it looks brand new, not earlier than 2000, I would think. The versatility of this amp is very impressive. All tube, EL 84 power (2) 12 AX7 pre (3) 2 channel footswitchable, Accutronics reverb, also footswitchable. I think the rectifier is solid state. The clean channel has treble, middle, bass and volume, a treble shift switch, a middle select switch and a bright switch. The second channel has gain, contour and volume pots as well as toggle switches for bright and middle select (3 way). The reverb control has a pot as well as a hi \ low switch and a seperate intensity control on the back for the lead channel which is very cool.Single effects loop with blend knob and a XLR DI round out the features. The speaker is a 15 watt 10" celestion. I would give this catagory a 10 if it had tremelo.

This little thing kicks major ass! At 15 watts I would consider it underpowered for a Dude Jones gig (My band). I think of this as the ultimate practice and recording amp. At $350, it will remain one of my savier purchases on ebay. Let me try and describe the sound. To me, the clean channel is the definate star here. With all your EQ and switching options, you can go from crystalline all the the way to barking feedback! The 10 inch Celestion holds up admirably well and you can do all these sounds and the myriad in -between by simply rolling off your guitar's volume. OK, back to the sound. Pushing the Ei power tubes yeilds a tone I've only heard a couple of times before. One is from my '92 Matchless DC-30 and the other is from my completely original '63 Vox AC 30. Pretty good company. That sound is hard for me to descibe. I wouldn't exactly call it swirling, but more like the middle part of the tone has a slow envelope like a filter. It almost sounds evil. Very furry and angry. The envelope part sounds like just part of the tone, the interior part and can be somewhat controlled by the guitars volume and picking dynamics. It can be pushed into even more demonic territory with the advent of a good input boost device or overdrive. Suffice to say that I find it very cool. The overdrive channel is a little more compressed and can get very distorted. It's pretty fun but I prefer the distortion on the clean channel and it's somewhat more dynamic power tube breakup. One cool thing about the OD channel is the contour knob which let's you dial in exactly how much bite you want. Other than that, the amp is extemely quiet which is great for the studio, and gets cool tones at all volume levels.

Everything os pretty tightly packed and I would definately call this combo dimiutive. It's a good bit smaller than the new AC 15's and in my opinion, better sounding and much more versitile. Everything seems very well built and this amp has a cool and classy vibe. (It's all blue). This amp is brand new so I don't really have the experience with it to rate it's reliability.

I bought this on ebay, from a private party.

I play many popular styles of music. I definately gravitate towards the classic rock stuff (new and old). I've owned and played many amps and I love all kinds of tones. I bought this without ever hearing of George Dennis amps. Probably because they are made in the Czech Republic. I have been rewarded for my risk taking, but at $350, it wasn't that big of a risk. This amp definately falls into the modern class A category, even though I don't know if it's a class A amp. This is a perfect illustration of modern amp construction (PC boards and lots of bells and whistles) sounding completely amazing. If I had the money, I'd buy lots of these and give them away as presents to my playing freinds!