Johnson JA-20WT

20 Watt all Tube design 1-10" speaker open back design, 2-Channel-Clean and Over Drive with Spring reverb.

I???ve been playing for years with my friends in a little basement project studio through an M-Audio Black box, Johnson J-Stations, Linn Adrenalin, Digitech GNX and ZOOM and a few of the in the box computer amp modelers like Amplitude (and I even have a mini POD). I love them (the amp simulators) and my friends seem to be adjusting just fine to using my virtual amps along with my V-Drums (actually Yamaha DTX) and on most Saturday nights it sounds like Zed Zeppelin is jamming in my 10 foot X 10 foot studio.

Frankly I don???t care to know the values of the caps or the bias of the tubes or whether their starved plate or Triode design. I just know that in my 35 years of using tube amps from Fender, Randall, Vox, Marshal, Peavey, Musicman, Soldano, Rivera etc. that the Johnson/AXL is way better than the Silvertone/Danelectro, Gretch, Magnatone, Supra and even Ampeg amps I had to endure as a kid.

Maybe the sub $500 Johnson amp won???t live up to the uber-expensive Mesa Boogie or Matchless combos but so far my experience with my new amp hasn???t been that bad at all. I noticed that while unpacking the hefty 41 lb. combo that the veneer was scuffed and that the speaker bezel was dinged in a few places but, not through the wood. Even still she powered up just fine and when I plugged my Edwards/ESP Ritchie Blackmore Stratocaster with S. Duncan Quarter-Pounders in the little amp just rang out with bell like tones in the clean mode and super saturated tube-like sustain in the overdrive setting.

The blue color LED and Amber pilot light along with the brushed brass faceplate and knobs give it a vintage look with my only complaints with the amps function being the taper of the volume gain controls and its noisy spring reverb. It seems like in order to keep the little beast from ripping your head off you have to make microscopically small adjustments within the first quarter inch of the knobs travel. A little too much force and you???ll tweak the volume too much. I???m sure that there???s a work around for the large amount of gain at the inputs and maybe turning down the guitars volume knobs could remedy this phenomena. Oh yeah, it???s spring reverb leaves a lot to be desired when pushed too hard, but even still it beats the vibrato only amps of the sixty???s.

In any event when micing-up the amp with an Audio Technica AT4033 through my system it sounded as good as or maybe a little bit better than my M-Audio Black Box being directly injected in stereo.

I could easily match the same amount of over-drive and tone going between the virtual amp-simulators and the actual combo amp. So if you can figure out a good gain structure and you???re OK with using a microphone to achieve a ???studio??? sound then this amp could be as good as any out there and frankly I???d rather have a pair of 20???s then a larger more powerful version.

As a practice or stage amplifier in a live application it should hold it???s own against most $900 combo amps, but it really shines when mic???d-up properly in a studio environment.
Now, I???m off to test on of them under $200 Chinese Vacuum tube microphones. I???ll let you know the outcome. I can only hope it's half as good as my new Johnson JA-20WT /AXL Akita 20!