Jackson RG2 100 watt all tube head

I bought this amp New Old Stock from a Jackson Dealer for $900 about with trade. I didn't know Jackson had made amps but after I played it through a 412 I knew I had to have it I also tried a Reference 50 which was almost as good but lacked the mid-shift sound option that really makes this amp. This amp is a single channel with two gain stages, trebble, 3-way midshift boost/cut mid EQ, and bass, presence and Master Volume. A no nonsense amp I only use one sound -Heavy. Allows you to dial in a wide range of sounds with ease. The midshift on cut allows you to fine tune a hardcore sound better than any amp I've tried or owned. I suprised more amps don't have midshifts for this reason alone. I use a pair of yellow jackets (el84) to cut the power down to (30 watts?) sometimes, but play live with sylvania tubes. I'm satisfied with the features, in my experience extra channels cut down on tone, and electronically it is a fact that Xtra channels never are truely bypassed as they should be.

I like this distortion sound is way better than Boogie or Marshalls. It has a thick heavy distortion' distortion'. Either gain setting alone can get clipping, both together gets high clipping distortion without feedback problems. The high notes are sweet fat and clear sounding and the low notes blast a wall of powerfull crunchy thick distortion, and it is silent when I stop playing. This is in fact the only amp I can get as much distortion as I want out of and still have quite breaks. The sound is unbelievable, It really does sound better than anything else I've tried. I run the amp into two Mesa 412 dual recto cabs, one with celestians and the other with EVs. I use a Jackson Kelly with stock humbuckers and am looking for matching Jackson cabs for this amp, So I can have an all Jackson setup. I also use a Marshall power brake. I run the power amp at about 8 or nine for the best tone, and the first preamp at seven and the second one at eight.

This amp is very reliable. The tubes have never needed to be changed but I put in NOS telefunkin preamp tubes and Sylvania power tubes, as well as an Xtra special set of telefunkin el84's in yellow Jackets, for studio use. The power and output transformers are larger than most amps I've seen. Due to this this amp is heavier than most other 100 watt tube amps I've seen.

I've talked to the guys at Jackson. They are very helpfull and sent me the specs, but otherwise they don't know much about the amps anymore. The guys there said that these amps cost thousands new and didn't sell well so they were discontinued. The amp model was designed by Lee Jackson for Jackson guitars which they thought was clever and was produced by a third company in England which may be Laney- called Jackson Electronics of England.

I think if this amp were totalled I'd either get a new one or if I couldn't find one I'd try a lee Jackson amp to see if it had the magic. I'd also try to get the 50watt head maybe, but as we are playing larger gigs the hundred Watts seems about right right now. I also like this better than the reference 50.

This is a single channel all tube amp with two gain stages(2ax7's), fx loop, power attenuator, mid-boost with 3-way frequency selector, ohms, European Voltage selector. The guy who sold it to me said it sounded like a Marshall(WRONG - he wasn't that bright see the price$), I'd say its more like a hot-rodded blues amp with a PA power amp. It is somewhere between regular and high gain. I gave this rating a seven but ultimately this amp is +very+ versatile. It makes a great BASS amp I've found out, and the power amp section is very solid and versatile. The two gain stages can make a true clean sound to a hot-rodded distortion. I would consider using two of +THESE+ amps as power amps for an all tube PA. I would never do that with these new Marshalls everything is crunched into Marshall tone land(WHICH I LIKE ON GUITAR SOME TIMES).

It sounds good in a 'je ne sais qua' sort of way. I have a Fender Bassman, Marshall plexi(69) and Gibson LP studio with humbuckers otherwise, and I've gravitated towards using this amp over the bassman and Marshall a lot. At first it was because I didn't value it as Much as the others so I played it at gigs but I started to notice a 'tone' and controll that the Marshall and Bassman lack. It has a rich sort of tone, more presence than a Marshall and the power amp doesn't crush the tone into MARSHALL or FENDER land but with the EQ midboost one can creat a sort of plexi tone. The dual preamps does probably make this a high gain amp, it doesn't quite get the rich full saturated tone of some soldano's I've heard, the main difference between its tone and todays high-gain is that the mids exist on this amp, Also the preamps don't sound fully distorted(the same) from 5 to 10(or 10 to 20 as some amps say). I tend to use it at a level where if I play soft I get a blues type partial distortion and if I play it heavy there is saturated tone, the dual preamps set at 5,7, I've heard satana get a tone like this. I play Guitar but I used it as a BASS amp in an adhoc heavy band, and I thought it had a really nice bass sound, compressed deap with a great bass distortion. After playing this amp for a while I've become suspicious of that it may have been made by important people, the preamp section looks a lot like a Lee Jackson design(with the mid-boosts/hot-rodded) and the loud solid PA like power amp section seems like a Hiwatt or something?

The amp has only had tube service done. My Backup at a show is the otherbands amps, or plugging the guitar straight into the soundboard. I think if this amp broke I'd have it fixed.

I've called Jackson and they don't seem to know that there logo is on amplifiers. The amp logo is definitely Jackson (GROVER) not "Lee Jackson" who must have designed this amp for them.

Its a good amp, I wouldn't be too suprised if someday this amp was a classic. But maybe it wont be that popular. It definitely reminds me of the tonal/ouput versatility of the Hiwatts(pete townsend used Hiwatt bass amps for guitar) and Bassman. I would say for the quality of vintage amp it is one some basic level worth more than most amps going for $700 plus dollars. Right now these amps seem to stay below $500 dollars. I'd say most people don't know what they have, and most buyers don't know what they are.