Clubster Royale Recording 1x12" 25-watt Tube Combo Amp Review

Ultimate studio amp

i was looking for a state of the art, handwired package of tube goodness. level achieved. if you seriously have to read a review of this amp to justify the purchase, this is not the amp for you

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Great amp with a ton of features!

I was looking for a 1x12" combo with a specific list of features and the Rivera Clubster checked all the boxes: All tube, foot-switchable 2-channel, Master Volume, effects loop, spring reverb, headphone and line-out w/emulation. The fact that it's easily the best looking combo out there, handwired in the USA and was a bonus. The first model I bought was a demo but I took the risk… read more knowing that Sweetwater stood behind their products. Unfortunately, the amp arrived in perfect cosmetic condition, but it had no volume on the lead channel. I worked with the Sweetwater tech folks to troubleshoot and even gave Rivera a call (also great people). Based on the troubleshooting, River felt that the fix would be easy for them, but not by a user and Sweetwater took the amp back right away, paying for the shipping. I got an immediate credit and fortunately, they had another amp just arriving that the sent right out to me. The replacement amp was, and still is, perfect! A few things I noticed with the replacement amp, which is another model year newer than the original: the cabinet is much deeper (and heavier). If you ever want to upgrade the speaker, you'd have no trouble fitting the deepest 12" alnico in there. And speaking of the speaker, the Celestion 70/80 is gone and Rivera is now using the G12T-75, which is a nice upgrade. Although the listing states that the amp comes with a footswitch, neither amp did. I picked up a two button all-metal footswitch from that place that sells guitar parts for $20 and it works perfectly for channel-switching and turning reverb on/off. You can run the amp in either 25W mode or half power (12W) mode. It will peel the paint off your walls at either level if you crank it up. The clean channel is glorious and has tons of headroom. You can play at bedroom levels clean, but if you want crunch, you'll find it too loud for the home studio. In direct output mode with the internal load, you'll get some crunch kicking in at around 6/10. There's also a Presence knob and Brightness switch on the clean channel. The lead channel has volume, switchable and variable gain and master volume. Great blackface tones and you can dial in just about any driven tone you like. It takes pedals great. In terms of negatives, I'll point out that the amp in it's new housing is HEAVY. It weighs in at a hair under 50 lbs. I don't know if I'd be hauling it to Clubs. Also, the volume controls are very sensitive at the lower levels. Just a hair goes from loud as your strings to rattle the dishes. I put a JHS volume mini-pedal in the effects loop to let me make finer adjustments - works perfectly. The only other negative I'd mention is that there is no manual included or online for this amp. The Mini Rock-Rec included has no instructions, so I had to read through another Rivera amp's manual to figure that out. The direct out with emulation (using internal load) works really well and sounds pretty darn authentic. I couldn't find much difference between the six emulations, though. If you compare this amp to others in this price range, you'll be hard pressed to find the same features in a handwired, USA made amp. Plus the looks are killer. Front controls and a split grill with a brown tolex cover and gold piping. Definitely not your typical 1/12" plain jane box.

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