Visual Sound Stallion

I bought this new at a closeout price. It's a single channel, 212 60- watt tube amp with reverb. It came with VS's Jekyll/Hyde V2 pedal as well, so I guess it could *technically* be looked at as 4-channel- but for this one I'll stay with the amp. I play hot blues, old-school metal, some jazz, and prog stuff. The amp works great for all of that stuff with pedals- jazz and blues you can do without pedals, but pedals sound great on this thing.
It has a few really useful and unique features as well. The biggest one has to be the "hubcap" speaker covers mounted in front of the Celestion Seventy 80 speakers it packs. They are supposed to disperse the sound so it covers a wider area, and it does this well. It has both a line-out that cancels the speakers and a speaker-out that does not. Has a 9v power line out that plugs into any standard pedal (including the one it came with) and that also works with the daisy chain that came with my 1-SPOT power adapter- it powers 5 pedals, no problem. Has 4 12AX7 preamp tubes and can take a pair of either EL34 or 6L6 power tubes (mine shipped with a set of both and I have the 34s in now.)
HERE is where the real awesomeness of this amp starts. It has this easy user-biasing system that lets you bias the tubes ON YOUR OWN. Basically, you first set the master knob to whatever tubes you're using and how hot you want it- the settings are EL34, EL34 Hot, 6L6, 6L6 Hot. (Hot settings will distort when cranked) Then, you take a screwdriver and two screws until both LEDs turn green. They even supply a screwdriver! Amp techs charge a lot to do this on other amps.
I use this for practice, recording, and club gigs. It'll fill a small theater without a problem, especially when distortion is involved.

I use frankenaxes mostly, usually basswood, alder, or mahogany. Pickups include GFS Power Rails and Fat Pats, Dimarzio X2N, Duncan Blues Saraceno, and some stock pups. I currently have EL34s in the amp biased in "normal" (not hot) as I prefer a British flavor. (The 6L6s sounded spankin' too, much like a blackface Fender Twin but with more mids and a rounder bottom.) It does distort a little at max volume with EL34s, but not with 6l6s. If you set the master bias to HOT it WILL break up very nicely, a perfect bluesy burn.
The clean tone is marvelous, the 3-band EQ is very sensitive and the reverb is pretty good too- though not nearly as wet as a Fender. Good for me, I just use it to add dimension.
It's not noisy at all. Bear in mind that this amp is designed to be used with pedals, and it makes the true nature of the pedals come though very well. If there ever was an amp a TS 808 was made for, this is it. If you have TUBE pedals, it gets even better. My Blackstar HT-DISTX sounds WICKED through this baby. But it even makes my crummy Digitech Death Metal sound good. Basically it an be made to work for any style you have a pedal for. Brutal Distortion pedals are handled very well. As for the clean tone, it took a bit of EQ diddling, but it's damn good and that's why I give it a 10- other than the fact that it's the best pedal amp ever.

This thing is built like a TANK. No one with sense gigs a tube amp without a backup- however, I could actually bring a spare set of tubes and a power driver as I could literally change tubes and rebias in five minutes. I've had it two weeks and it's not failed me. So I actually would gig this without a backup. It even CAME with spare tubes.

An important note: When I got this thing the reverb didn't work. However, Visual Sound sent me a new tank and I popped it in- worked fine. See CUSTOMER SUPPORT below. I'm docking one point because the reverb didn't work when it shipped (they don't have half-points on here)- but in all respects it's really a total 10.

Like I said, the reverb didn't work when it shipped. I called Visual Sound's customer service and they were fantastic. The guy on the phone knew his ****, was very helpful, and was very obviously NOT an underpaid outsourcee. We walked through the process of isolating the problem, he took my address, shipped me a new tank no questions asked, and it worked fine. The guy even emphasized that I call him back with the news of whether it worked or not. That kind of service is hard to find now. Epic 10 for customer support- and keep in mind that this is a discontinued amp.

I've been playing about 4 years. I own a Peavey Transtube Express 112 from '89 with an Eminence Black Powder put in, a Blackstar HT-DIST X, Duncan Lava Box, Digitech Deathmetal, Behringer wah, DOD Super American Metal pedal, and the Jekyll/Hyde v2 it came with.
If it were lost, I would try like HELL to find another as they are sadly discontinued. If I couldn't I would cry and drink myself to death, as this amp is just so awesome. If stolen, replace the crying and booze part with pursuing the thief to the ends of the Earth and stabbing him in the face with my 1986 Kramer Voyager. I would totally buy another one of these if I could find one.
I love the tone and how good it is with my pedals, as well as the user-biasing stuff and the fact that it is like a fortress. My only gripes is how freakin HEAVY the thing is. Damn.
For the 665 (with shipping) I paid for it, it simply can't be beat. I got it because I have a ton of distortion pedals and didn't really need a channel- plus it got rave reviews like he one I'm writing. It was what I needed, at a great price, that has the tone of an amp 4 times its price. And it just works great. I highly recommend it to everyone. Email me with questions if you want.

I know I'm late to the party, since these amps are no longer produced but I snatched this Horsie new online at a closeout price and I'm more than glad I did.

This amp was designed for one thing and it does it well. It is to be CLEAN - ultra clean and bring out all the colors and flavors of your pedals and effects. I play rock, pop, country, jazz and R&B flavored tunes, so this amp and my pedals works out great.

Two Celestion Seventy 80 12" speakers - which sound great and will sound even better once broken in. Every one who buys an amp needs to understand speakers will not sound their best until they have some hours of serious play. Came with a nice padded amp cover, tool for setting the bias yourself and an extra set of tubes!!! JJ's or all things and that was a complete and pleasant surprise.

It's a single channel amp, one input, treble-midrange-bass controls and reverb. Perfect for my needs. Bob also provided a power source for pedals which is sweet though with my Voodoo Lab power source I won't use it much. It has a line out which I'll use just so I won't have to mess with mic'ing anymore. The mic tends to pick up the drummer as well as my guitar.

My main guitar is a Grosh ElectraJet Custom with Fralin Blues Specials and an Unbucker in the bridge. (Too good - way too good!)

It works well for me because I dial in the overdrive I want from my pedals. The amp is not noisy at all and as I mentioned - the goal of this amp was to be clean. Quiet clean to LOUD - simply clean and you can crank this horsie to 8 and get perfect clean tones. Push it all the way and you have that VOX like tone. (That temps me to put a set of Celestion Blues or Golds in it.)

Seems to be very solid and according to promotional material. VS went out of their way to make it durable with military grade circuit boards, good wire and quality work all around. I found a little sliver of tolex that needed some glue, but I've owned a boutique amp that was worse.

I've only had it a day, but there's no annoying noises and the cabinet doesn't rattle and buzz like some new Fenders I tried.

I've had VS pedals and know the people at Visual Sound to be great at backing up their products. If this goes down, they'll take care of it. I think the warranty is for one year, but they will be there for me should anything go wrong. Everyone I spoken with on the phone there are very helpful.

This year is my 45th as a player. I've owned Rivera, Fender, Soldano, Mesa Boogie and Dr. Z amps and this amp has its place for me. I didn't have a big budget for my current need and took a shot at this bargain based on positive experience with the people of Visual Sound. It was a sound decision. (Yes, I went for the pun!)

I love the huge clean sound and the way the hubcaps really do disperse the sound in a positive way and block out the ice pick tones.

A foot pedal for the reverb would be nice, but I'm not going to use the amp's verb anyway.

Need a good backup amp - grab one of these on Ebay. You won't regret it.

User biasing feature - awesome. Comes with a little plastic screwdriver which you use to adjust your power tubes bias using the LED's to guide you - when the LED's are green the biasing is correct. Visual Sound (VS) based the optimal biasing level based on the average of what several amp techs thought was optimal (so it says in the manual). I don't know how optimal or accurate this is yet, but I've only had the amp a few months.

I've changed the power tubes out twice already just to experiment and because one of the tubes it shipped with was a little rattley, but the bad tube came from the seller and not from VS. I used the biasing tool each time to adjust the tubes, and assuming the biasing is in fact optimal and accurate, it's saved me at least $80 in amp tech fees.

It also has a power supply for pedals via a mini phone jack output and an included cable with a barrel connection on the other end. It has basic spring reverb which doesn't get as extreme as a Fender or other amps, but it sounds good, is quiet until you crank it to around 8-10 and then you hear a slight hiss.

The speaker dispersal hub cap looking things actually do seem to work. They spread the sound out. I'm glad they are there, and I love the way they look. God forbid we should go against the same grill cloth we've had for the past 50 years and come up with something new!

Other than that this amp is very basic, which is exactly what I needed being that I'm going to be using a pedal board and I just need a nice clean palette without a lot of bells and whistles. An option to switch to a lower wattage would have been nice though..

I'll give it a 9 because besides the feature listed above, it's a single channel amp with 5 knobs. To me that's actually a bonus because I'm not going to be paying for a bunch of things I'll never use, but that's just me, so to be fair I can't give it a 10.

Out of the box this amp sounds really good but at lower volumes it kind of lacks punch and fullness. I'm willing to bet that if you cranked the amp to 8+ it would get that full, rich sound that we all love, but this amp is friggin loud and my ears are bleeding at 5-6 already, so I didn't even want to try and put it up to past 8 in the small rooms I've been in.

If you boost your input signal the amp really comes alive. I went with an Optostomp compressor and the amp was practically night and day. I think VS purposely left a lot of input signal headroom being that the amp is designed to be used with pedals so they played it safe. I'm giving a 10 on sound because although it needs some kind of signal boost and/or compression to reach it's full potential, VS made this amp to be used with pedals, so it's doing what it's supposed to be doing.

Compared to my friends Fender Hot Rod Deluxe 410, the Stallion sounds a little anemic out of the box. But this is because the Fender's have more sensitive input. With the Stallion's input level boosted and the volume cranked up to band level, it turned out to be better than the Fender. It had a much cleaner and quieter sound - headroom out the yang, which is exactly what VS set out to do with this one, so there you have it.

A lot of the hype VS put out on this amp turned out to be true. It is a very transparent amp so you can really hear your guitar and effects for what they are with little or no coloration from the amp. But don't let that fool you, this is still an all tube amp and has all the nuance and character that we love from tube amps.

Haven't had the amp long enough to comment, but it seems to be built very solid.

Since they don't make this amp anymore I was nervous about buying it. I called VS and the guy I talked to was beyond helpful. He assured me that they would support it and have plenty of parts for it.

The amp initially had an odd ticking sound so I called VS and again the guy I talked to, different from the first guy, was very helpful. (I'm sorry I don't remember their names..) He explained how to fix it and was very cool. It turns out the standby switch wasn't grounded to the chassis because some of the Stallion chassis got painted incorrectly. So I had to unscrew the standby switch and scrape the paint off the chassis in that area. It fixed the problem.

Initially I thought about selling the amp after I bought it because of it's good but not great sound out of the box. I figured for a $1200 amp it should sound amazing out of the box. But now that I've played it for a while with pedals and such, and realized what this amp really is, I love it. If you're looking for a guitar straight in to the amp set up, this amp probably isn't for you unless your gonna play at very large venue levels.

I think it was very innovative and I wish there were more amps like it on the market. I think it represents a great blend of old single channel, all tube sensibilities, mixed with the benefits of modern technology.

I play music mainly through effects pedals. I don't like to use the overdrives and other effects on my other amps. I am very fussy about my tones and prefer to handpick my effects pedals.

This amp has just what I want - 1 fantastic clean channel to deliver the tones from my pedals. It does not give me all the things I don't want to use.

The hubcap speaker grill works! I can stand some distance to the side of the amp and still hear myself well when a loud drummer is thompin away.

The easy-to-use DIY tubes biasing is also a wonderful idea. No need to pay an amp tech to biase the tubes after changing them.

This is a large amp. Large amps tend to sound more bassy cos of the size of the box. So I reduce the bass and increase the treble slightly on the amp's eq controls. This helps to cut through the PA mix for a loud thomping live band better.

I also use a good DI box for a line out to the sound mixer, instead of using a microphone. Unlike other tube amps, the workhorse is designed to sound good through a line out.

I play a Fender Deluxe Strat and PRS Singlecut with Crunchbox and Blues Boy Deluxe overdrive pedals from MI Audio. My other guitarist in the band plays using a Fender Custom Shop Strat and Fender Bassman combo amp with 4 x 10" speakers. The stallion does not lose out to the Bassman be it in terms of power or tone. It has seen me through 2 open air live concerts with my band successfully.

Still too early to tell. Let's see if it's still alive and kickin after I use it for at least 2 years!

Never used the customer support. It's an amp with very simple and effective features. Why would need customer support?

This is a brand new amp. 60 tube watts through 2x12's. Celestion speakers. Can run 6L6's or EL34's. User WAY friendly biasing. Anyone can bias these amps. This amp is built for one purpose: To Be Perfectly Clean. It is meant to take pedals to give you the tone you seek. One big fat clean channel with reverb. No effects loop needed. Controls are: Bass Middle Treble Volume Reverb. Line out and extension speaker out. Built very similar to a tank... Very interesting sound dispersion speaker grills, odd looking, but very effective. Actually, I kinda like how they look. Nice thick tolex. These amps are called a Workhorse for a reason and it is exactly what they are. Moving on.

The tone of this amp is amazing. It is by far the best clean tone I have ever heard. Beauty full bottom end and fat spanking mids with a chimey top end, mm mm good. Very nice reverb. This amp can get pretty stinking loud without breaking up which is what you need if all your tones come from your pedal board. On to pedals... This amp is the true test for all pedals. If your pedal has a flaw you will know it. It brings out all the qualities good or bad with pedals. I actually have sold a few of my favorites because now I can here them without any type of color and I didn't really care for them. Which has lead me to buying some new ones which has proved to be fruitful. I have started buying tube driven pedals (Damage Control- Liquid Blues and Solid Metal) which sound unbelievable great through the Stallion. Another great thing about this amp is the way it brings out the natural tone of your guitars. Through many of my other amps my guitars all sounded very similar not anymore. Every guitar has it's own voice now. If you are a jazz cat you need this amp. Perfect fat jazz tone. AMAZING.

Ok, here we go. I'm a techy kinda guy. If I buy something I believe that gives me full rights to open it up take it apart and check it out. So I did. What I found inside was impressive. Once again the name Workhorse was taken seriously. Military grade PCB boards with all controls having flying leads. Nice Ruby tubes and Celestion Speakers. No cheaping out here. Accutronics reverb. Solid wood construction. Everything well done. Bravo! I'm not worried about a backup. Extra fuses and extra tubes= no problems.

Customer service is what Visual Sound is all about. Give'em a call. They actually answer their phone and they'll chat with you all day.

I have been playing close to 20 years. I can't list every amp I have owned, but I can give some ideas. I have owned 5 Mesa Boogies, 12 tube Peavey's, 1 tube Ampeg, a couple of Fenders, a Vox, V3 Carvin, THD BiValve, JCM800 (highly modified), and about 20 others. The list of guitars is just about as long. What it boils down to is I'm a HUGE TONE SNOB! Everything I have owned in the last 10 years I have had modified because it wasn't good enough, well the Stallion just brougt an end to that cycle. Stallion+Damage Control tube driven pedals= Perfect Tone. E-mail me at niassist@hotmail.com if you have any questions.