Mojave Ampworks Scorpion 50 Watt Head

No effects loop, but does have a line-out and power dampening. Power dampening allows for the amp to be turned down to workable levels (3 watts). I would assume that its some type of variac. Please note that these are 3 thunderous watts! If you live in an apartment, I would suggest using a HotPlate in conjunction with the PD. Although the overall tone does compress just a tad at full PD and Hotplate, it still sounds terrific! In fact, I would say that there is no real significant change in tone.

I purchased the Scorpion and (2) Mojave 2x12?s specifically to get the brown sound, and it does so rather easily. In fact, I was able to dial in Eddie's early 80s live sound within 5-minutes of playing. Any guitar with a low resistance pick-up (I am using a pickup wound by Genesis Sounds) used with the Scorpion will instantly get you into that territory. I find that running Scorpion 16ohm out into Hotplate, then Hotplate to cab-one; then Hotplate line-out, to processor, to power amp, then to cab-two sounds amazing! To my delight, I have found that the Scorpion is far from being just an early VH clone. By using different effects, guitars, equalizers, etc, I would say that the tone possibilities are limitless with this amp.

I haven?t had the amp long enough to realize its reliability. I will mention that on the second day of playing through the amp, I managed to blow a tube. Even though Mojave Ampworks tests each amp before shipping, tube(s) can sometimes fail right away...I have had this happen before. I certainly do not hold Mojave Ampworks at fault for this. The Scorpion appears to be particularly well made and sturdy, and I have no reason to think otherwise.

Victor Mason (owner) is a terrific guy and very helpful. He is always willing to set aside time and answer your questions, despite his busy schedule. Upon hearing of my tube failure, Victor graciously covered all expenses to have the amp shipped back, repaired (within one-day I might add), and then sent back to me 3-day select! Very, very pleased with Mojave Ampworks customer support!! Thanks again Victor!

I can?t say enough about the Scorpion! I?ve played through many amps over the past 20-years, and for my taste and style, this amp sounds better than any. Since a kid, I?ve always tried to get the early VH tone but could never quite find it. With the Scorpion, I have found that tone along with many more. I purchased the Scorpion along with two 2x12 cabs. Consequently, I am afraid to even open my credit card statement each month, but I must say that I am very pleased and it?s been worth every penny to me. Search is over; I have finally found that amp that I've been looking for. My expectations have certainly been met.

The Scorpion is a 50 watt head with 4 12AX7 preamp and two EL34 power tubes. The front panel eq is Bass, Low Mid, High Mid. There is no master volume, which means no preamp distortion... but a Treble and Bass for an overdriven sound. If you use the power dampening dial on the back of the amp you can get that overdriven sound at lower wattage. There are two input jacks low sensitivity and high sensitivity.

The back panel has a line out and a power dampening rotary control. This lets you dial the power of the amp anywhere from 3 to 50 watts! As you dial down the power you still get the same tone, but the sound compresses a bit. There is no effects loop but the line out gives you great flexibility for wet/dry setup (with a seperate amp). The back panel also has a dedicated 16 ohm speaker jack or two jacks to run 16 ohm cabs in parallel.

My main guitars are a Music Man Axis and a Telecaster Custom. Humbuckers or single coils sound great. In my opinion passive lower output pickups sound much better than the hot pickups or active pickups. That being said: I know a lot of players want something they can just plug in and play so I really wanted to post this from that perspective. I will update this review with a more wet sound setup later. One of the features that was a big reason that I bought this amp was the line out to a seperate amp for effects. The tone is so good with no effects that I will post an updated review later devoted to the dry/wet setup. The first week I had the amp; I didn?t even change the settings on the amp. I was so struck with the tone of the amp, I wanted to learn some of the characteristics of the amp?the way pick attack effected the tone? rolling the volume down on my guitar? harmonics ect. What an amazing concept? I wanted to see how my playing affected the tone of the amp, not tweaking the amp seeing how it affected my sound? I was actually focusing on playing technique and how that interacted with the dynamics of the amp. If you are somebody that thinks tone is in the fingers?this amp will confirm it. My setup for this review is a music man axis (with a floyd rose, volume control and pickup selector)? guitar cord, and amp plugged into a Marshall 4x12 cab with vintage 30?s. That is about as basic as it gets? yet the versatility of tone at my finger tips feels to me like I can get any lead or rhythm sound that I want. With a strong pick attack and volume up on my bridge pickup; I can get a driving great rock tone. or can greatly soften my pick attack and get amazing clarity of chords? hearing all the strings with or without rolling back the volume on my guitar. The harmonics obviously are a function or guitar setup, strings and technique, but I was amazed at the way the amp made them sound like they were just exploding off the neck?pinched.. tapped? accidental, palm harmonics...(running my palm down the strings)? I could get anything I wanted.

Like I said for a week or so I didn?t alter the setting on the amp? then I used the power dampening to dial down the wattage? what a great feature. To me it seems like the tone stays intact, but maybe compresses the sound just a bit. The power dampening is with a rotary dial.. not a switch?so you really have a lot of control over the tone and volume? as it is a 50 watt head so obviously can be very loud.

The Clean overdriven tones from Van Halen to AC/DC are in there and using the line out for a wet sound you can get a HUGE sound. A great sound, I couldn't be happier with this amp. This is the amp with the tone I have been looking for. I do have a 4x12 Mojave cab on order... but this is by far the best sounding amp I have ever had, and I have had a lot of high end amps. For tone this has my highest recommendation.

I haven't had the amp for two months yet, but I can tell you that I have no concerns regarding reliability because of the quality of the parts used and the quality of the construction. There is no reason to doubt the reliability. As a matter of fact another reason I purchased the amp was that the Mojave people also have a lot of experience working on the classic vintage amps, and are intimately familiar with some of the frailities that go along with the great tone on vintage amps

I have talked to Victor at Mojave several times by phone and email, and he has always been patient with my questions and does return emails and phone calls. They have always answered all my questions before and after I bought my amp.

My primary guitars are a Music Man Axis and a Fender Telecaster Custom. If it was lost or stolen, I would replace it ASAP and probably not think kind things about the person who took it. The best idea for picking somebody to custom build an amp is somebody who has experience working on all the classic vintage amps, who knows their strengths and their faults. A great amp.

The main feature of this amp is that it has no master volume or effects loop. This amp is designed for experienced musicians who want a real sound. It is only versatile in the fact that every sound it makes from super clean to beautiful overdriven tube distortion is unbelievably real and killer. It has a low and high sensitivity input, which is also very useful. If you are looking for a multi-channel head with pre-amp gain this may not be the right choice for you but, if you are looking for unadulterated tone look no further. I would definatly suggest the "Power Dampening" option it really helps to get overdriven sounds without going deaf. This is a very loud 50 watt amp. The EQ section is very well laid out, and because of the nature of this amp, a real blast to experiment with.

The best way to describe the sound is that it is very real. Very articulate and punchy. I have tried many different pickups and guitars and they all sound great but, my favorite is a Les Paul with stock pickups. Pushing the amp hard makes for a nice growly, chirpy distortion. Very reminicent of older 70's rock. If you want a more high gain distortion you will need to add it. The clean sound is awesome, it has to be heard to be believed.

I Haven't owned it very long but the build quality looks superb. Mojave Ampworks are cutting no corners with their amps and it shows.

Mojave Ampworks have been very helpful and patient with me and my many questions. The people there are real helpful when it comes to getting the sound you are looking for. They seem ultra knowledgeable. I believe the warranty is 5 years.

I have been playing for 20 years. I own alot of different guitars Strats, teles', Pauls etc... My other main amp is a Bogner 101B which I love very much but I was looking for something different, something more real sounding. I have owned many amps over the years, too many to list and I still own a couple of small amps like a Fender Blues Jr and a Marshall combo. The Scorpion is my new addition and have a feeling it is here to stay.

Standard and familiar territory here. If you've used Marshalls, Fenders or most 5 band eq amps then this amp will seem very familiar to you. All be it there is one extra you won't find on those other amps, Bass Volume and Treble Volume!. These two little controls add big tone variety that aren't just ordinary but extra ordinary. I would venture to say I could get more sounds with this amp then most any other amp I have thus owned.

This was what made me pull the trigger. Unreal is the right description here. The Scorpion pulled together tones I?ve never had and always tried to get. I?ve been fighting with old vintage Plexis for years trying to get the tone I wanted. The kind of results you expect for amps that cost nearly $3K. I had instant gratification with the Scorpion! Easily dialed up the fat tones I was looking for. There were two really cool sound clips that were what sparked my interest. http://vintageamps.com/temp/bg.mp3 which was the Brown sound in a bottle. The second clip was http://vintageamps.com/temp/scorpionclean.mp3 which was the warmest clean tone I had found ever. These two sound bites were what lured me. When I got my Scorpion I went straight for these tones and was blown away! I had tone exploding from my hands! I asked Victor how to set the tone controls. Victor was very helpful and patient. I worked out the tone settings with him and found both of these tones I wanted to get the sound just like the clips Mojave had recorded. This amp blows away all my old Plexis. I?m only sad there wasn?t a Scorpion around when I dropped the last $10K on amps over the last few years. The Scorpion gets fat warm overdrive in spades. I found a great deal of variety with this amp. Extremely happy with the tone the Scorpion gets.

I'm going to cop to the truth here. I ran the Scorpion with two speaker cabs and found out I had been running 8 ohms on the 16 ohm hook up. I freaked after I found out this was dangerous. Victor told me the amp would have blown a fuse if it had a problem but it never did. I guess I could have done damage if it weren't for the beefy output transformer. Victor told me that it?s just about impossible to break the amp and I proved it! This amp is built like a tank. I've never seen craftsmanship like the Mojave. I have to give the Scorpion a 10 for taking a punishing by my dumb ass and still holding up. Two days straight at full throttle should have sunk it but the Scorpion proved much tougher to my good luck

I bought the Scorpion from Mojave Ampworks directly since there wasn't a dealer nearby. Victor was easy to deal with and answered all my questions. I was told the amp comes with a 5 year parts and Labor warranty. Much better then I expected. After the long phone calls I had with Victor about tone settings and when I freaked about the mismatched cabinet impedance I have to say Victor was as patient and helpful as I could have hoped for. I really appreciate the way they treated me especially when I screwed up. If what I did was any test of their customer support I would say it was top notch. The amp arrived very well packaged in its own custom foam caps and box. I received a tracking # via e-mail so I had no problem getting my package. All around it was easy to deal with them and they were very quick. I received my order within 7 days of ordering it. Most guys were well over a month to build me an amp and I was quoted as long as 6 months for some of the high end brands I checked out. Can?t beat 7 days.

I am 45 years old and have played guitar since I was 14. I can honestly say I have found what I was looking for in Scorpion. There are a great number of good amps out there but the scorpion is beyond belief. I did not have to ask how to get a good sound, I only asked how to get the hardest sound I could try to get and did. Most of the tones I managed to find with my Strat and Les Paul via a Mojave 2X12 G12H30 cabinet. I bought Two cabs because I thought I might need them if I were playing live and things got real loud. Those cabs ROCK!. No need for two but if you want fat tone to die for then try using the Scorpion with the Mojave 2X12 open back cabs. They sound better then my 4X12 Basket weave I?ve had for years. punchy and clear. I was playing through the High Sensitivity jack with my Strat and getting fat overdrive with no pedals. I never got that with my Plexi 50s or my Super lead unless I used a gain pedal. I did play the Les Paul through the low sensitivity jack and found the sound to be amazingly clear and still great distortion tones. I like ZZ top, Van Halen, Jimmy Page the Guess Who and The Who. All these tones are in the Scorpion and I was extremely pleased with the clean tone as well. I never expected the tones I found and I have played for a long time through just about any amp you can imagine. Even my Fender Deluxe Reverb was rivaled for clean tone with the Scorpion! If you drop the $2250 for the Scorpion I suspect you will walk away happy.