Rivera S120-212

2000 2X12 Stereo Combo 60W per channel. EL34's and 12AX7's. Weighs a TON! Also avaiable as a 2X10, 4X10 and head.

The great thing about the S120 is the range of tone. On the clean
channel, you can go from a very Fendery clean to a nice bluesy
overdrive. The gain channel goes from a thicker R&R type of overdrive to a very warm compressed singing distortion. It doesn't really do the
Dual Rectifier sound... just about everything else though.

It's very well built... good quality components. Should be as reliable as a tube amp can be... only source of problem is likely to be the tubes themselves.

I've had to call a couple of times, and customer service was first rate!

Great amp. I don't use the Slavemaster much... it is like a buffered
mono effects loop with gain. I find it cuts the highs a little too much. Some have had very good success using a EQ in the Slavemaster loop.
I usually use it in "triode/vintage" mode and low power... 8W per
channel... and it's loud enough to gig with a noisy drummer (my son)

The Chorus is very pleasant... a little less lush than the one on my
JC120. There is a caveat here... the current S120 uses an improved
chorus board. They switched sometime in '93. The older board had
complaints of the chorus introducing some harshness to the tone. If you do buy an older S120... the new board can be bought from
Rivera for $150.
Another worthwhile improvement is the replacement of the short pan reverb with a long pan unit... about $30. (you can order them new this way also). There is also a caveat here.... older S120's use a large brace in the cabinet that would interfere with the long pan reverb... it would have to be modified. The newer S120s use a small brace with room underneath for the longer reverb tray.
The Rivera amps are as good as anything on the market,
including some of the very nice, but overpriced boutique stuff. They use best industrial practices to build their amps... best quality components and circuit boards.

The amp has great features, the push and pull on the knobs lets you tweek any amplfier you want out just about.

I play Jazz, Funk, Rock, and some blues. The clean channel on this amp is the best ive heard. With the right distortion tweek you can get the best of both worlds frome this amp great distortion, and clean tone. With its push, pull pots knobs you can also get any sound from british stacks, to the blackfaces and tweeds that fender made so great. This amp also can give some of the most original tones if you want to be totally orignal. YOu can put the chorus into your standard tone and get some incredible tones. Try the speed on 10 and the depth on 2 or 3 ad that to your tone and it is loke nothing else you'll hear...

It is except I have started getting a distortion sound in my chorus and no one in my town can fix it so I am going to haft to send it to Rivera. Other than that problem it is fine. Anyone have any suggestions about why the chorus does this I would love info.

Better than 10 when I first ran into this problem with my chorus. They sent me all the blueprints for the amp. Then they even custom drew me a blueprint for my chorus. THey are extremelly friendly and helpfull.

IT is the greatest amp. When I bought I had alot of cash saved up and I tried VOX, Marshall, Mesa Boogie, Fender, Roland, LIne 6 And just about everything else under the sun and this amp smoked all of them.

I believe this amp is very versatile , it's got 15 pots on the front and all but two has got a push/pull option. you have to spend some time with all the knobs (it takes some time before you learn what the different knobs will do with your sound).It's got two channels +slavemaster(a bost option with its own gain and volume, it can be used on both channels) and ninja boost (increases both volume and gain). This combo is stereo and has two times 60w , and believe me IT'S LOUD!

I play about every music style , exept from hip-hop , and it gives me every sound i need , just not on the same time beacuse it only has two channels. The slavemaster option dissapointed me whenever I turn it on , all the treble dissapeares. One thing that i don't like is the way the footswitch input on the amp works , I use a Mesa-boogie midimatrix to switch channels wich sends standard switch messages but the Rivera needs pulse messages , so to use my mesa I had to buy a rivera box tha transforms the signal.

I have a problem , it has occured twice , when i turn the amp on , from standby , it only makes a weak distorted sound as if the standby still was on and then i saw som sparkles from behind the power button , when I turned it on and off it worked perfectly as if nothing had happened (anyone who might have a idea of what the problem is?).

i would buy it again , althogh it costs a lot , the sound is superb , everything from The Shadows to Robben Ford to BB King to Pantera