Knucklehead Tre Reverb Top 120-watt Tube Head Review

Updated review

There is so much gain on this amp that it is completely saturated if you go past 4 on the gain knob. The amp is loud!!!!! It has an on off master volume and the sweet spot is 3 or higher on the master volume.Detainees beware, the foundation control is a power amp sag circuit that controls the compression on low frequencys, making the notes bloom the higher you set it, can lose definition… read more with 7 string, 8 string and baritone instruments. The gain channel also supports a boost for soloing, but definitely too saturated for metal riffing. This amp gives a raw slipknot ish vibe that has a mick Thomson all hope is gone era feel. The cleans are fender , warm, and chimy. The reverb adds a spacious detention and sweetened the sound as well. So if you want gained up Marshall like tones with mesa rectifier like bass and slow response along with the el34 bity tone, along with fender cleans with beautiful reverb, this is your amp. extended range players, this amp does chug, but does not djent, it has sag and bloom in notes, words I describe this amp are meaty, angry, room filling, full of gain , and loud.

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Rivera Knucklehead tre Reverb

I bought this here at sweetwater [ jeff law ]awesome sales person 4 years ago.this head can go up aginst anything on the market and it will come in first place.the cleans are fantastic and the gain is unbeatable.right now I have a Mesa stiletto trident and an Orange dual dark 100.this Rivera beats them both .it is my go to head.the cost is up there pretty good,but quality comes… read more at a price ! if your in the market for a fantastic guitar amp...... don't waste your money on anything but this head .this is the one amp. that I have never been tempted to sell . yes,it's just that good.

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Review update

When I had the amp before, I was plugging my high output guitars in the high input and that created a situation of over saturation and channel balancing. Much better balanced with the low input with high output and active pickups.Also I did not know how to properly eq a guitar amp before. Amp sounds best with the gain around 3/4, tone controls at noon and the volume around 2-3.… read more I used to put my amps gain above 4 and I also had to increase the volume to hear the cords and had an issue of over saturation. Also while this amp has a lot of wattage/headroom, it can be flub out when you induce power amp distortion. It is a very high gain amp. Also the foundation control adjusts the power amps low end without effecting speaker dampening like a lot of resonance controls on other high gain amps. Very rich and deep, especially with my 7 string guitars. Presence control works normally. And sounds good around 4-5ish. This is a killer amp. Warning, don’t use an attenuator with this. It will put unwanted wear and heat in this amp. This amp was designed for preamp distortion while sounding organic and not saccrificing clarity. Also use high input with vintage out put pickups and low input with high output and active pickups.

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Insane Amp

I play mainly metal, and this amp absolutely blew me away. I"ve tried tons of different high gain heads (Peavey, Mesa, EVH, Engl, Framus) and the Rivera topped them all. There is so much gain on the first channel, that you don"t need to even think about going past 5 (especially if you use a clean boost). The clean channel also rivals Fender with how sparkly it is. I never use reverb… read more on my dirty channel, so the fact that you can keep the reverb always on the clean channel whenever you switch to it is a great feature. I have this amp paired with a Framus Dragon 4x12 cab with V30s, and it cuts through the mix like butter. Bone crushing tone, and an all around amazing amp.

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Amazing amp

First thing I noticed is how heavy this amp is for a smaller sized head (compared to other larger heads). That's obviously a good sign, military grade components mean this amp could survive a nuclear blast. It's a VERY solid piece of hardware and meticulously (hand) built here in Burbank, CA. Being that this is a high gain, the clean channel is by far the best I've heard in… read more a high gain amp. Nothing comes close... PERIOD. Has a very Fender like quality. One thing that I find interesting, is the clean channel is a non master volume. It can get from chimey to gritty when you start cracking the gain. Personally I don't set the gain past 3 on the dirty channel. Its a very high gain amp and 3 has plenty of crunch for me. One major thing that really got me loving his head is the note articulation and separation. Nothing gets drowned or muddy. id say it has a jcm800 or a soldano I slo100 feel (when the gain is around 3/4). Once you go past those numbers your entering bogner uberschall, diezel vh4 (ch4) territory. It's not a super versatile amp, but that doesn't mean you can't get a lot of sounds out of it. I still haven't owned it long enough to go into full detail on everything but that's what my impressions are so far. I'm very impressed with Rivera so far. I'd also like to note, sweetwater did an amazing job packing and shipping the amp.

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