Samick LA80RCS

10 or so years gone by since my last review of this thing. Older and wiser (lol). Well, I have found it hard to find many of these things out there. I think these 6 reviews are the only people in the world that have ever owned one. Clean, distortion, chorus, reverb, effects loop 3 band eq (clean only)40watt X 2. standard stuff.

Distortion sucks. I haven't touched the channel switch is about 8 years. Save your self a few seconds and don't even turn it on. The clean channel is the best part about this amp. It has good volume when you need it to but leaves some things to be desired. I haven't had it above six for sometime now but if memory serves me well the clean can get really loud but tends to get thin. Reverb is okay. Chorus is Okay. I use a Boss GT-8 and i just plug it inline with the guitar input. The loop kills the sound of the Boss. The loop kills anything you plug in to it really. The return on the loop is suposed to be stereo but i never could get it to work right. If it would work right you could prob. get some sweet sounds with the boss like the stereo delay and stuff but I don't have time to play with it.

Well I have had this thing for 15 years or better. I used to really abuse it. Crank it up and run for hours on end. I have left it turned on for days at a time. Still works. Only problems I've had is that a few years ago it started making all kinds of strange noises. Kinda creapy noises. I just beat on the top a few times and it quits. I think there is a bad solder joint. To me its not worth even taking a look at because it will end up with all my other crap. Half tore apart and sitting in the corner.

This thing has a lot of cool sounding features but in reality it is a cheap imitation to what a real amp could do for you. If you are just starting out and can find one cheap I would go for it. It has a lot of stuff that someone new could play around with and learn how the stuff works. Good first amp. I use it at home but doubt I would ever trust it for a show. I just looked at a new Fender Frontman 2x12 100watt for what i paid for this thing 15 years ago. I would go for the Fender.

read other reviews to check out the features, I prefer to write about the following points.

its very neutral.

it has a very poor distortion I think this amp has to be filled with effect pedals to be customized a little bit and, otherwise it sounds very neutral.

the chorus is ok. The reverb is nothing great.

as I said before, the overdrive channel sucks hard. Its not loud enough and you need an overdrive pedal for example to make it scream a bit more.

THe clean channel is OK.

its solid, will last.

never needed it

well, as a low value amp is quite good. Not the best choice if you are looking for a good sound.

The only thing I like about this amp is its neutrality. Why? simply because its like having a white sheet and lots of color markers in your hands. You?ll get the exact effect sound without anything in the middle.
If you use a DS-1, you ll hear 100 percent a DS-1, same with all the effects and stuff


so as a conclusion I would say that the only useful thing about this amp is the clean channel, the chorus and the effect loop. All the rest is bad.

Good Chorus. With both knobs set halfway you get a great warm tone without it sounding too saturated. The clean channel also has great tone. I dont use the distortion much because it isn't distorted enough, and if you've got the cash i reccomend a tube amp, but this fits just fine for my situation.

Im using this with a Squier Standard Tele and through a lot of amps it sounds really bright, too bright really, but this amp does well to make it sound like a Fender Deluxe. The only time this amp gets noisy is when i have my Boss DS-1 Distortion kicked on.

Not bad overall, but very good if you're on a budget. For what i paid for it, it's an incredible value.

Clean,Drive, chorus Reverb,Loop, Extra speakers etc. once i was teenage and totally blinded by the versatility of this combo(timebomb)

very unprofessional.

well the cheap speakers suck. loop sucks all the tone etc... nice clean and chorus.

cheap amp sounds cheap and has no tone.

Ok just updating my review... ok I still have this one, in the corner of our studio... NEVER DO ANY EXPERIMENTS WITH THE FX LOOP. I had a loose cable and plugged it into the Return of this sucker. and goodbye to speaker. I replaced it with a 12" bass amp speaker. It worked. Then accident again plus little smoke and the fuse. The Powertransistor. replaced it with almost similar, and modified the top for extra ventilation. not very good idea. well it was never very expensive. KaBoom. . . you could maybe use this as an extra cabinet after replacing the speakers.

If you need an amp with neutral clean, if you find one, don't pay more than 50euros. but if you are looking for a sound then buy the amp next to this piece of crap. Perfect for playing metallica covers loud with your first "garageband" with your boss metalzone.

My Mistake.

The Samick LA80rc I own was purchased last year. It has all the usual features you would expect ie Both a clean and dirty channel a reverb and chorus channel plus the standard foot switch. As this amp goes I find that it is supplied with all the standard extra features ie a high and low impedence input jacks'Fx loop's. I find that if use the clean channel with the reverb turnned quite a way up this amp will produce a Peter Green albatross tone and with the gain channel I find the versatilities amazing were you can choose a Santana tone too a Gary Moore tone However I use this mainly for an Eric Clapton Blues Breakers tone.Although I do wish that this amp was supplied with a tremelo or even a delay channel.

I play and use a lot of Les Paul's through this amp which is my personal taste. I play a lot of different styles from Jazz Blues Country Classic Rock and Classical music. I find that there is no audible hum or static noise about this Amp and that it is one of the few amps ive ever used that has no distortion with using the clean channel at high volumes. Although I do find that the distortion is very simular too using a Ibanez tube screamer overall this amp has a very smooth distortion when the gain channel is selected.

As for reliability this amp has never let me down.

My amp when I bought it wasn't supplied with a foot switch so the shop gave a Marshall two way footswitch at no cost pretty cool eh.

As for an overall rating if you want a hard working value for money amp or as I say a square mule this amp is it.

The amp has two channels, clean and overdriven, reverb for both channels, and chorus. It has also high and low input jacks, headphone jack, stereo loop and line out, footswitchs jacks for chorus and reverb/channel pedal. and because of the stereo capabilities outputs for external speakers (Right and Left).

The amp sounds very impressive when using the chorus and the clean channel. The Overdriven Ch. is a little bit sleepy, and the volumes are not so loud as in the clean channel. The reverb is a spring one and it creates very deep reverbs. The clean channels never distorts (or then I have no guts to turn the volume all the way up)

This amp is very versatile. It has dual reverb, stereo chorus, high and low inputs, FX loop, and a super loud clean channel, very clear. Distortion sounds great but is not very loud. Clean channel is at least twice as loud. I also has jacks for 2 foot switches and a direct recording out. 2 12inch speakers with dual 80 watt amps. (Stereo)

It sounds very profesonal. Only noisy if you crank the reverb on a single coil pick-up. If you crank the chours all the way up it sounds like a pipe organ. The clean channel is a little distored at very low volume and at very high volume. I would not recomend seeing how loud it is on clean channel if you are close to the amp. It WILL hert your ears. Distortion is nice, capibable of lots of sounds.

Very dependable!

I love it, the only thing I don't like is that you cant use reverb or chours while using the effects loop.