Rivera R100 Duo 12

Some of the best features on any amp. However, missing the wattage control, an on the fly bias control, and pent/tri control on other Riveras. So, have to use a power soak as an alternative. Also, not a pretty amp to look at, very utilitarian - sort of ugly really.

Clean is epic. Dirty side is old school sounding, modern hi-gain isn't possible - go Knucklehead if that's important. The original 55w speakers are mid-rangy amd smooth but lack a decent bottom end. It you want very bright tops and low, booming bottoms you have to add cabs. (No comment on the 85w Celestions)

Couldn't be better, if you don't mind the tube hassles.

Be careful with older models and their 55w Celestions. I ended up dumping them. With the trend toward multi-power & modeling amps this monster is a throw-back. I think the m/s line has slightly better features. That all said, great amp - especially if you're playing country. It's a good value used.

Rivera Hundred Duo Twelve, R100 combo amp, early model with the 55w Celestions. 100w, two 12" speakers, speaker jack for external cab, 1/4" out for recording direct off the preamp and reverb, spring reverb, EL34 power tubes, a variety of 12AX7 preamp tubes, two switchable channels, each with a switchable boost, buffered and active effects loop, a switch for moving the notch frequency for the mid eq. The features are all very good, all serve good purposes and add to the quality of this amp. Personally, I would like to have a bypass switch for the effects loop added to the footswitch, and an on-board tremolo would be nice, but as it is it really is a very good amp.

A very versatile, loud, punchy, and rich sounding amp. Two channels: #1 is a Britsh (Marshall) flavor, #2 is an American (Fender) flavor. This amp is very loud...really overkill for a club, but you get a lot of clean headroom. I use it for both guitar and pedal steel guitar, so he ample headroom is important for me. The eq does a lot: channel #1 can go from gritty Marshallesque, to fat and creammy Boogiesque, to a fat smokey clean; channel #2 can do blackface and silverface tones plus sweet fat cleans. There are lots of gain arrangements you can do, you can alos jumper the effects loop for more adjustable gain as there are send and receive level controls. The tone is rich and full, overall it has a warm and punchy quality, and the amp can be coaxed to do all but ultra high gain stuff. It sounds fantastic driving closed-back cabs.

These are built very solid, even perhaps overbuilt. High qualioty components and construction. I've been using the amp for almost three years, every day and weekly gigs, and it always sounnds great.

Rivera's customer support is the best. They treat you like your number one...super accesible, super helpful. After bringing my amp in for a retube and bias after first getting it, and dealing with Rivera, I was so impressed by the whole package of quality, sound, and support, that I bought an S120 head for my second rig.

Great amp. The best all around amp I've ever had. I've got high standards for tone, and to me this amp sounds as good as a Fender or a Marshall, it will do what they do as well as they do, and it's way more versatile and will get the Rivera tones that other amps can't. It's super loud, but I like the headroom, and it's actually pretty compact for a 100w 2x12" combo. I've owned Fenders, Marshalls, Peaveys, Traynors, Magnatones, and Gibsons, but the Riveras have me very satisfied with my sound. I play Strats and Teles, and a Showbud pedal steel, I play a variety of music: blues, funk, honky-tonk, reggae, hard-rock, etc. The other amps I have right now are a Rivera S120 head with two 2x12" cabs (a stereo set-up), and an early 60's Gibson Falcon amp: I can't see getting rid of any of these three amps, and after having the Riveras I don't miss any of my old amps, except for my Magnatones. If I lost this amp I would replace it with another Rivera combo, no question about it.

Mine's one of older 212 with the 55w Celestions. Same features discussed in the other reviews, completely satisfied with the abundance of Rivera features. I use the combo with a second 2x12 sealed back cab. The multiple speaker outs and controllable in/out loop gain are excellent features.

In addition to the boosts and cuts, I aggressively use the send and receive controls on the loop in a closed curcuit, meaning I do directly out and in with one cable. The allows me to further saturate the gain in the preamp stage. At the other end, I use power soaks/hot plates between the amp and double cabs to adjust my volume. With these tricks I can have the great clean sound the Rivera's a famous for and also dial in a variety of ODs and heavy distortions at any volume level, without pedals, but with channel switching and boosts. Like others have said, the controls are very expressive, one small change in the any of the 5/7 channel settings makes a big difference in the tone. It's not a digital cybertwin-type modeling amp, but for a tube amp it has an endless range of sounds and vibe.

6 years, virtually no service, one check-up.

One easy check-up, essentially no charge. Always prompt to answer questions and offer advise about do's and don'ts.

Have been a full-time working musician, owned lots of high end gear but have little patience with trying different amps, relearning where the sweet spots are. With this Rivera I don't miss my old BFs and can dial pretty much any sound at any volume. Plenty good enough, built like a tank and not that expensive for an amp that comes close to boutique quality.

2 channel, 100 watt 2-12 combo. Both channels accessible via footswitch, as are the various boosts, etc. I use this amp for small club gigs. Certainly loud enough, but "loud" doesnt get you a discernible place in the mix!

I use my various Strats through the clean channel, and my Les Paul Custom through the dirty channel. The clean channel is warm and snappy, and is what sold me on this amp quite frankly. The "notch" switch, and ninja boost on this channel offer an array of tones. The dirty channel is suppose to emulate a Marshall type sound, and it pulls that off rather well, at low volumes. However...I dont like the shape it takes when cranked. There simply is not enough bottom end, and the "crunch" seems to get lost as well. This isnt a problem when the amp is miked through the Pa, but when you need to crank the amp to a decent stage volume, you will be lost in the mix due to the lack of dynamics.

I cant really comment on this,as I have never really had any malfunction. However.....see below.

I made the horrid mistake of buying this amp at Guitar Center. I tried one about a year earlier, so when I purchased this one, I didnt really inspect it the way I should have. When I got home, I realized the el34's where comprised of 3 different manufacturersm as well as the preamp tubes. I emailed Rivera to ask if this was standard, and I got an autoresponse that basically said, "dont expect an answer." True to thier word, I never did. I called them a few days later, and I was informed that someone at Guitar Center must have stolen the tubes, and swapped them, as Rivera only uses Svetlana power tubes and Sovtek preamp tubes. He also told me this was not thier problem, and I needed to take this up with the store. This is in stark contrast with Mesa, who sent me new tubes free of charge as an act of good will, when they failed earlier than they should have. I think a company as small as Rivera should pay closer attention to thier customers, respond to email, and back them up when they have a problem such as mine. The least they could have done was call Guitar Center and bitch them out, after all - this particular store is listed on thier site as an authorized dealer. I was also missing the footswitch when I bought the amp, and when I filled out the warrantee card, I wrote a little note about this asking they help me secure one. No one ever responded. Rivera.......you get a big fat zero.

Probably the best clean channel this side of a vintage Fender Super...but the mediocre dirty channel, and the poor customer support I experienced, has left me feeling a bit cold. I wouldnt buy it again..

Bought this amp a couple years ago in my quest for a do everything "perfect" amp. Independent channels, one Fender sounding, one British. Boosts in each channel via footpedal, channel switching, full eq. achieved by pull pots on the midrange/treble controls to trailor the response. Controllable loop, presense control & reverb. Capable of being extremely loud clean or dirty. I use it all and it's all good.

In addition to the full range of clean and dirty sound variations I want, I also want to be able to pull them off at very low volume or very high volume. This modern config. amp does that. You can run with the volume maxed and gain way down and get the arena maxed sound at literally no volume. There is virtually no sound I can't dial in with a little practce. I went from primarily using a black face to this amp getting tired of the one dimensional sound. Haven't missed my old amp for a second. I've sold off two of my pedals, and one Bristish amp, I can do the same things with the amp's footswitches. Looking for negatives, the bottom end and very high end isn't as prononced as with other amps I own.

Built like a tank, I'm still using original tube set after three years. For a 2x12 combo it's one heavy mother though.

No experience, but hear good things from others.

Playing for 25+ years, rock & blues, play vintage Fenders and Gibsons through this amp, occasionally acoustics, use delay effects, chorus and phasers. I also use background identical twin amps with horns for stereo delay effect. This is the best combo amp I've ever owned. Gets every sound I want, loud or low. Tremelo is missing, but that's in my pedals. Amp's a little utilitarian looking, if I were to buy a new one again I might look at the higher-end cabinets - then again it's not suppossed to be furniture. If you by an expensive amp and don't at least check these out you're blowing it - it you buy a vintage black face over an modern config. option like this you'll be real sorry in a month or so. It's wonderful to be able to stop thinking about the limitaitons of your amp and get on with playing.

I bought this amp new in '98 in Houston. I couldn't find many Rivera dealers in austin. I was in a rapcore band at the time and mainly used one channel pushed all the way. I now am in a southern rock/stoner rock band and still use only one channel but the flexability on this amp is amazing. It has two totally independent channels that can each be overdriven seperatly with seperate tone controls for each channel. This amp is loud as shit, I play it through a 4x12 cab and you will never see 6 on this thing. Any tone you want this amp has. Absolutely amazing...

I think i've said it all. If this amp where any more perfect it would walk on water.

All I can say is one night my amp did a nose dive off of my cab and landed square on its top. After we finished the song and i changed my pants(I shit them) i picked it up, flipped the surge protector back on, and haven't had a problem since. Insane...

I had some problems with my warrenty and getting my footswitch serviced but nothing major. If you buy from an authorized dealer in your hometown you should have no problems.

Ive had this amp for three years and i cant imagine my life without it. There is no other amp in any price range i would care to have over this one. Go play one...You wont be sorry. Ask Mr. Scott Sevall why he cant get the tone he wants and he is so jealous of mine.

Very straight forward design. Extremely expressive tone controls. Very useful in a live situation.

My present main giging guitar is one that I built, Warmoth quilted-maple srat, old Fender neck and Alembic Active pick-ups that have the most awesome clean, shimmering, glass-like sound that you will ever hear. I am constantly approached on gigs by people that want to know EXACTLY WHAT I'M USING TO GET THAT SOUND!I had been using a Mesa Boogie MKII 100 watt combo w/15" EV speaker that I used for the past 18 years and dearly loved. However over time, It started to break down quite a bit (tubes, diodes, capacitors, etc.) I currently play in a variety/one-nighter band in which I couldn't afford ANY trouble at all with my gear. I have owned and tried a ton of different amps, but due to my current Band and the radical variety of styles that we play, I needed an amp that would both let my Alembic clean sound shine and also be able to ROCK! The Mesa was abouth the only one that I found that would do that effectively. I tried a Line6 out in my basement and had it sounding amazingly good, however when I took it out to play live it sound WAY THIN and transistor-ish. I then took out a friend Rivera R55-112 and knew right away that I stumbled upon a really nice amp that could do what I needed and sound great. I wound up ordering an R100 Duo 12 because I thought I needed MORE POWER. It is exactly what I expected it to be, although it doesn't have the bottom end fullnes of my Mesa (probably 12" vs. 15" speaker). This is trully a well-made, solid amp that compliments all styles that I play.

I had a few weird circumastances in the ordering of this amp. I ordered the amp throught my local music store and was told that there would be about a 4 week wait, no problem. After about 5-6 weeks I started calling the store inquiring about when it might srrive. I was using a little Peavey Classic 30 as my back up (OK for small gigs but sucked in rock rooms) and I NEEDED this amp. They said it was still being built, be patient. After another couple of weeks went by with still no word, I started getting pissed. Finally, 8 weeks after ordering the amp I got a call saying the amp had been shipped. After
another week and one half I was chompng at the bit to get my hands on this new amp, I called the store to see where it was. They didn't know, they said that they would call Rivera and then call me back. Two days later they called to tell me that Rivera had shipped MY AMP to another dealer and could not get it back, and did I want to start the process over again and order another one. F*%@ NO I didn't, but I really needed an amp soon. I was fortunate to have found another store a couple of hours away that had one in stock and I bought it over the phone and went to pick it up the next day. The amp itself is wonderful. Problem # 2: I also ordered a flight case from the same music store. The Rivera web site listed the dimensions wrong for this particular model, (23 1/2 " wide). It didn't take a great deal of mathmatical skills to figure out that 2 12" speakers side-by-side take up more space than 23 1/2". I called the store, who in turn called Rivera and the case manufacturer. The case manufacturer called Rivera, and was told that the dimensions were indeed correct. the speakers were staggered. When told this I told the store that it is absolutely not correct and I wasn't going to pay for a case that didn't fit.They shipped the case to the music store and guess what, IT DIDN'T FIT. I was nearly ready to go postal on this store and Rivera. The store ordered me another, and now everything is COOL.As far as the actual amp, so far so good.

Based on the shipping fiasco and the wrong measurements, I'm not overly impressed with there attention to detail business wise. HOWEVER, the amp itself is awesome.

Overall the Rivera R100 Duo 12 is a very nice, well-made, great sounding amplifier. It fit's my needs beatifully. One night my band may play a country club playing mainly jazz & standards, (very Quiet) and the next night play an outdoor festival for 2,500 people (louder than hell) and the Rivera handles both with ease. I would absolutely buy another if the need arose, however I feel that this will last me a long time