Star Amplifiers Sirius Reverb 112 Combo

NA

FINE

BAD SECOND CHANNEL WENT OUT WITHIN 6 MONTHS. ALSO, JUST SEVERAL DAYS AGO, THE POWER WENT ALMOST COMPLETELY OUT WHILE I WAS PLAYING.

NON EXISTENT. CALLED NUMBERS PROVIDED IN OWNER'S MANUAL AND THEY EITHER DON'T WORK, OR THEY SAY LEAVE A MESSAGE AND THEN NEVER CALL BACK.

I NEVER WOULD HAVE BOUGHT IT IF I KNEW HOW MUCH TROUBLE I'D HAVE GETTING SOME HELP. THE WISC DEALER I BOUGHT FROM DOESN'T HANDLE STAR ANYMORE, HE WAS SEVERAL HUNDRED MILES AWAY TO BEGIN WITH. I KNOW HE GOT INTO A DISPUTE WITH SAMPSON OVER HOW LONG IT TOOK TO GET MY AMP IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Made in 2005, the Star Sirius is a Class A PTP wired channel switching amp with reverb and an effects loop. It's very versitile and should be able to cover almost any style of music. The controls are straight forward and effective. The trim control on the overdrive channel is subtle, but does what it says. A overall "brilliance" control allows you to shade the entire amp for humbuckers or single coils. I was planning to purchase the 30w version of this amp but was advised to get the 15w by the good people at Willies American Guitars in Minneapolis and boy am I glad I did, 15w class A is plenty loud to compete with a band, it's easier to get the power tubes involved, and I believe the wider, Class A harmonic structure helps this amp to really cut through a mix.

I agree wholeheartedly with most of the comments by other owners so I'm going to try and limit my comments to features I think have not yet been competely described.

I absouloutly love this amp!
Bought this in late 2005 so I've owned it for about 3 months now, by far, the most impressive feature is the amazing clean channel, like previous comments, I agree, it has a 3D, hi-fidelity quality that transmits an accurate image of whatever guitar you may be playing, (reference other Sampson amps to get an idea of what were talking about here) a warm thump, very present, with sparkling highs that never seem harsh, just accurate. The 112 combo cabinet is very small, but it has a huge sound. Samson mods the Celestions in some way but the effect is just wonderful, it just fills the room!

When you move the volume up you get a huge volume increase right away, I would say that by about 4-5 you have about 80% to 85% of the available volume (plenty loud). Now, here is why you buy a low wattage amp... from 5 on up its all about getting those output tubes involved... more warmth, natural tube compression and a great natural crunch all while still maintaining the sound of your guitar.

The Sirius reverb is warm and natural sounding, a great addition to the clean channel from the Gainstar model which doesn't have reverb. This amp would be worth the money even if it didn't have a gain channel... but it does!

The gain channel is amazing, and yes, It does sound very Dumble-like... when you get the power tubes cooking... smooth, long, sustained notes that are on a mission to find a frequency to bloom into glorious feedback. The trim knob moves you from a flatter, wider softer gain to a more 3D focused sound with what seems to me a more aggresive, present, attack. You can get classic rock tones at about 7 on the gain knob, which leaves you with plenty more gain to pour on, making this amp one of the highest gain Class A amps available. The only other amp I heard that was even close, was the Cornford Hellcat 212 combo, another stunning amp. I think it is important to say that as wonderful as this gain is, the power section is a kind of midrange-based blank palette that doesn't sound great with out a signal from the preamp. The power section needs the tonal enhacements that only occur when you turn up the preamp to sound good so, the tone (good tone) kind of imposes itself on your guitar, that is to say, unlike the clean channel, your different guitars tonal variations will be less evident.

Here's the thing that's has put some people off...the reverb only works with the clean channel and the effects loop only works with the overdrive channel. I don't think there is any doubt that Sampsons intentions here were to both isolate the signal path of the clean channel, and force (particularly delay effects) to be placed after the gain stage on the overdrive channel. This means you'll never hear a Star amp's tone screwed up by bad effect placement. The downside is, if you do want effects on your drive channel, you'll probably have to buy separate effects for the loop. I've decided that, although the tone from the overdrive channel is stunning, it's kind of a "one-trick-pony" so I've decided to just leave it without any effects for now and look for some high quality overdrive/boost pedals to put in front of the clean channel that'll blend well with the character of my guitars. That will give me the combination of overdrive tones that reflect the charater of whatever guitar I'm playing (pedal in front of the clean channel) and the singing Dumble-like lead tones of the (overdrive channel)

No problems yet... seems to be built with care.
Since it's a new company I had to buy this sight unseen, but based on Mark Sampsons reputation, I hope to be able to use this amp for many years and maybe even give it to my son someday

Its Sampsons new company, you'll probably be hard pressed to find a Star Amp to try out in a music store. I had to buy sight unseen. I was told there might be a 3 month wait, but the amp was delivered within one month with the custom tolex colors I ordered.

So far so good.

I've been playing for about 30 years I own a 1973-75 ES335, a 2000 American Deluxe power Tele, and a Tyler Studio Elite HD (my favorite).
I don't think there are many amps available today that have this versatility of portibility, great clean tone, in a high-gain Class A amp.

As the boutique amp market moves towards lower wattage higher gain class A amps there may be other choices available in the future, but currently, the Star, and maybe the Cornford Hellcat 30w 212 (more expensive) are the only I've seen in this category. So I would have to buy it again.

It would be great, if when you switch channels, the Star could reroute the input of your pedal effects into the loop of the overdrive channel so you could always have "correct placement" of your effects in relation to both channels.

It would be nice to have a manual switch on the amp for channel switching, sometimes I might not even need to bring the footswitch as I am only going to use the clean channel, so it would be convenient to not even have to hook up the footswitch.

It also would be nice if the cord wasn't permanently attached to the footswitch (make it a quater/quarter connection on both ends) so one can customize the length of cord one wants.

If you are considering a Star Amp feel free to e-mail me with any questions, and time allowing, I'll do my best to answer them.