Roland Cube-100 112 Combo

I ordered this online as a factory repack unit with full warranty. Even though this is a bass amp I wanted to put a review here in the guitar section because I bought this to play guitar through. I play jazzier stuff, at home but am planning on the occasional gig out. It has plenty of power and good built in effects. The Super Clean model with the chorus on is a good approximation to a Roland JC. The Bassman and Portflex COSMs provide excellent tone. With four bands of eq you can definitely dial in a specific tone. Although the amp has a gain knob, if distortion is your thing you will want to use a pedal.

For clean guitar playing this thing is great. The Super Clean, Bassman, and Portaflex (Ampeg B-15) are most useful. The Super Clean has plenty of sparkle for playing an acoustic guitar through. The Bassman has a little more edge but both it and the Portaflex match well with my Washburn J4AE archtop electric. As I mentioned the chorus/flange and reverb/delay work well although most of the parameters for these are fixed. A totally cool thing is the T-Wah which works great. Put the amp in Octave mode (synthesizes a second tone an octave lower), turn the built-in compressor on a bit, and t-wah setting at max and you can do the Bootsy and Soulive thing with your guitar.

There is a bit of noise in a couple of the COSM models if you turn the treble up and that is the only reason I gave it a 9. But any of the amp models are quieter than most SS amps and pretty much all tube amps. Again, you can probably dial in some distortion using the gain controls but you would be best served using a Tube Screamer or similar if that is what you want. If you need metal crunch, get the Cube 60.

I just got it so I don't know but in my experience Roland and Boss gear is well made.

Never had to use in many years of owning Roland gear.

I have had a bunch of amps over the years including a blackface Vibrolux Reverb that was stolen out of my storage unit (I still miss that amp!). I just sold a Fender Blues Junior that had great tone up to about 4 but couldn't play clean loud enough for me. The low weight (only 6 lbs heavier than the Blues Junior), power (100W), dual speaker 12" w/coaxial tweeter, built-in effects and compressor, multiple recording ins and outs, and versatility make this overall the best amp I have ever owned.

This is a used Super Cube 100 built or released in 1985. It is a 100W x 15" combo, not related to the current bass amp with a similar name. There were 40W x 10" (SLC-40) and 60W x 12" (SLC-60) variants. It looks like the current Cubes, but with a silver tolex finish. Very little information about this amp available on the web, so I'm inclined to think that it had limited production.

Here are the details. 100% transistor, 100% analog, spring reverb. Inputs: Drive and Normal. Controls: Gain 1, Gain 2/Volume, Master Volume, Bass, Middle, Treble, Reverb.
Jacks: Drive Foot Switch, Reverb Foot Switch, Stack(2), Headphones, External Speaker.
Dimensions: 17 5/16" W x 20" H x 11 3/4" D.
Weight: 48.5 lbs. (Heavy - due to a huge power transformer bolted to the bottom of the case and high-density particle-board construction. Plywood would be much lighter)

It has everything an old jazz player needs which warrants a 10 from me. I'm sure that rockers would find this to be a very limited piece of equipment.

I play straight-ahead jazz and bought this amp unseen and unheard after giving up on trying to find a Polytone in good condition at a reasonable price. I think it comes very close to the dark and rich tone of the Polytones and the other classic jazz amps, although it takes some work to find the right guitar/amp settings.

At intermediate tone settings, the normal channel is exceptionally clean, to the point of sounding sterile. With those settings my Samick JZ3 (archtop with dual humbuckers) can pretty well duplicate it's unamplified sound, which isn't very exciting. Setting bass at 75%, mid at 25% and treble at 0% with only the neck pickup at 30% tone starts yielding the sound I'm intersted in. I'm still looking for the sweet spot, as the tone controls have a very significant affect on the sound. At first play, one might dismiss this amp, but with a little effort, it seems to be capable of a range of nice jazz sounds.

Surprisingly (to me), the gain channel, with gain 1 at 0 and gain 2 at 3 gives a very deep and rich sound with the guitar tone controls backed off all the way. The downside is some minor hum and hiss which is not apparent on the normal channel at normal volumes in my home environment, At max volume, the amp is still quieter that my Fender FM-25R at minimum volume. Nevertheless, I hate hiss and hum, so I'm trying to limit my use to the normal channel. I have no interest in any other effects and don't want to scare the neighbors with my experimentation.

The reverb is very sensitive. Settings between 2 and 3 are as high as any self-respecting jazz player would go. With the neck pickup and some treble, 1 is enough.

I have no idea how load this this can get. On the clean channel with the volume at 50% and the guitar at 50%, everything in the room vibrates - to the point of things falling off of shelves - and the gain channel is MUCH louder. I would venture to guess that this amp has enough power for any jazz venue short of a sports stadium, which there aren't enough serious jazz fans to fill anyway.

It sounds good, but I haven't been able to duplicate the Polytone sound - yet. But then I've only had it a couple of days.

At 20+ years old, it's in perfect condition. A peer into its internals shows that it's nicely engineered with no cheap shortcuts. All solid state.

Given Roland's almost legendary reliabiity, I have great expectations for this unit.

No dealings with Roland, but I did find the users manual on-line.

If this amp was lost or stolen, I'd get another if I could find one at an equivalent price.

100 Watts, 1 x 12, solid state, orange cover. Don't know year (70's or 80's I think). Nice clean amp, with 100 watts it's better, I think, for jazz guitar than other Cube amps. That's all I use it for, works great for a clean and full hollowbody jazz sound. Fuller than a Polytone Mini Brute 2. Decent reverb, has bass, mid, treb controls, bright switch (pull out knob). Can't remember about loops and switching, but it does have a distortion channel I've never turned on.

I use it with hollowbody jazz guitars, and it sounds great. Nice and full with good low end and clarity. I play standards, bebop and swing. Loud enough to be clean in almost any gig setting. Never used distortion, from what I hear a good outboard pedal would be better. But for my use I give it a 10, i like it better than Polytones, and it's louder (therefore cleaner) than the smaller Cube amps.

Hasn't broken on me, but I occasionaly get a little noise on one input which goes away when I jiggle my cord. Honestly can't predict what the gigworthiness is, but I'd bet it would be fine as long as you keep it in good shape.

Really old used amp, but fixable by any repair shop (standard issue solid state). Way out of warranty, so no dealings with Roland on it.

Playing jazz for a few years now. I have lots of other amps for a variety of uses, but I really like this Cube 100 for jazz. I bought a second one as soon as I found one, 'cause they're kinda rare. Great price for a very usable amp. Heavier than a Polytone or smaller Cube, but not bad, I think that helps the sound. Much lighter than a Fender amp that's clean enough to do the jazz guitar thing (like a Twin).

2 channel, solid state.

Using quite a few guitars with it. Not noisy. Not an exciting amp, but dependable. This has become my "instant on" home practice amp. I'm not thrilled with solid state amps, but Roland does a decent job. I still use Fenders when playing out.

When using an extension speaker, the internal is cut out. One time, years ago, a bad solder joint made the speaker cut out. Other than that, no problems.

No experience.

I've been playing 40 years. Have too much gear to list here. If it were lost or stolen I'd miss it, but probably not replace it. I love the size, weight, dependablity. I don't hate the sound, but prefer my tube amps.

Made before 1980. 100 watts - two channels - one clean, other overdrive. Has reverb, bass, middle, treble dials, brightness switch. Have Roland double foot switch for reverb and channel selection. Has heaphone jack, external speaker jack, main in, pre-out jacks. Solid state. Has plenty of power for live performance.

I use a telecaster copy, and sometimes an acoustic electric. It has a bassy sound which is goor for rock style rhythms and quite good for blues rhythms and leads - but not a good sound for rock leads. The overdrive distortion alone does not cut it for metal or hardrock. This was a problem when I usd to play more rock, but now that I play more blues or blues rock, the sound is appropriate.

Distortion is rarely a problem on this, and it is so loud, I rarely go over 5-6 of 10. The clean channel is very clean.

100% reliable - no problem in 22 years - except for the reverb, which crapped out and even a repair job has not really revived it.

Playing since 1979. Own an acoustic, a few keyboards, used to play drums as well. This amp has proven to me the quality of Roland products. I love that it is built like a tank and can take a lot of abuse. Also, it has all the features needed, is plenty loud and does not distort. But I don't like that the sound is somewhat too bassy and so it is not as versatile as perhaps some other amps. Also, the overdrive cannot provide enough distortion for modern rock.