Product: Rivera Suprema 112 Combo
Price Paid: N/A
Submitted
03/15/2004
at
08:59pm
by
Al
Features
:
9
Check www.rivera.com for a full list of features, but simply put this is a 2 channel amp that allows you to play with a "British" voiced channel vs. an "American" voiced channel. Of big import is the following.
1. Each channel has independent gain, master, and tone shaping available. This is a big thing for me, especially since the channels are voiced differently
2. Each channel is selectable by footswitch.
2. The Effects Loops allows you to set both send and receive levels and is in serial.
There are more features, the above, besides the tone, are what is important to me
Sound Quality
:
8
I use les pauls and I truely am going for the both the classic Les Paul into a marshall sound as well as a Bloomfieldish Les Paul into an old twin reverb sound. I can do that with this amp. I am a gigging musician, playing led zepp, cream, zz top and music of that nature and this amp does that quite well. I dont care about bedroom levels or jamming, to me its about how the amp sounds during gigs and this amp does sound as I want it to.. Of particular import on Rivera amps(I have 3 of them)is bias. These amps sound better with a hotter bias than a cooler bias. Even Rivera's recommended bias is towards the higher side of the El34 range. Mine sounds very much in the SuperLead league on the "british" channel (which is exactly what i want), but only if your tubes are biased towards the hot side. I dont want a crystal clear clean sound, I like it to sound like an older twin reverb starting to breath and warm up at 9, which the "american" channel on this amp does capture quite well. I don't use distortion petals on the "British" side, I just crank the amp and use an attenuator for most gigs. This amp really works for classic rock and blues, if you are into that then you will enjoy this amp.
Reliability
:
10
No issues with any of my Rivera amps. I gig every weekend for the last few years and have yet to have any issues other than a dying preamp tube (which you can replace in minutes during a gig). They are very solid and dependable amps..
Customer Support
:
8
Ive called Rivera and spoken with Paul..who was very friendly and helepful on the phone.. I really havent needed much support. I have a local tech who I trust if I need him.
Overall Rating
:
9
I've been playing a long time, I'll just leave it at that and have gone through quite a few amps. I really like this amp alot, it took some time to learn what made it scream (i.e Biasing, which preamp tubes.. etc), but for what I do it's made me quite happy. As I own 3 Rivera amps I guess I must really like them. They are very gig worth amps, reliable, flexible and truely good sounding night after night. I am tone aware, although honestly I'm more concerned about performance than tone during a gig. This amp let's me concentrate on playing as I know the tone will be there.
