NOVA 32-watt 1x12" Tube Combo Amp Review

Incredible amp!

Picked this up from Sweetwater with a Black Friday deal and think it's great. I prefer to give things time before I form an opinion either way, but after a few months (and several gigs) with the Dr Z Nova I'm here submitting my first ever online review of a gear purchase. Never felt compelled to do so before, but I have just gotta say that this is just about the perfect amp for… read more MY needs/wants as a gigging guitarist. I totally love how the clean and overdrive channels react with each other. The clean isn't too clean and the overdrive isn't too dirty if that makes sense, but there is plenty of great gain available once you step on the footswitch. Now I've never played a vintage tweed but everything I've heard and read about them seems to be here on this one. Totally touch sensitive, reacts to picking dynamics like nothing else I've played. You really get out what you put into it. So many classic tones, clean and dirty, are available in both channels, to the point where either would make for a killer amp itself...and I sometimes have to double check on the amp to see what channel I'm on because they're both so natural and organic sounding. Like others have said, the Master Volume is exceptional. It doesn't need to be up that much for the amp to come to life. I personally run all volumes (normal, overdrive, master) in the 10/11 o'clock range but make sure to keep the overdrive channel a bit lower than the normal, that way there's a good balance and I can when use it as a boost. No issues for me with it being unbalanced. For someone like me who is mic'd u on all gigs the clean headroom is perfect. Not tons of it, but totally enough to where I can pull off whatever clean funk type stuff I need to while still getting it to breakup when I want as well. No issues with it being unbalanced, but it can definitely breathe fire when needed. As far as taking effects, I'm not the best to ask since I don't even use the effects loop, I just run an OD pedal, (usually The Dude), a Koko boost, along with a Dispatch Master and Phase 95 in the front end. Sounds great to my ears. No complaints here. Truthfully though, I don't even need dirt pedals with this amp, I just keep one on the board to capture a certain flavor for some of the covers we play. All in all, extremely happy with this amp. It's just such a big and full sounding amp in a small-ish to medium sized package, and like all Dr Zs it's built extremely well. No unnecessary features, but enough of the basics done right. I almost went with the Z Wreck Jr, which I'm sure is also great, but something about the Nova piqued my interest more. It seems like so many other Z's get all the love, but I think this one is a total sleeper that more people should know about and is just as good if not better than the more popular models. Totally satisfied with my purchase and everything from Sweetwater was handled perfectly as well.

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Great amp in the flavor of a Tweed Super...

I will preface by saying that this is my 10th Dr. Z over the last decade. The journey began with a Z28, then on to a Maz 38, Maz 18, Monza, Therapy, DB4, Z Plus, EMS, Z Wreck and now the Nova. I've also had some other amps flow through the rotation including some Divided by 13's, Benson's, Carol Ann's and Komet's. Not sure I can pick a favorite Z, because each one stands out in… read more its own unique way. The two that I got most attached to would be the Therapy and the DB4. I loved the Therapy for it's warm, forgiving, tweed like cleans, but it got a little too smooth for my tastes when cranking the gain. The DB4 had the most glorious crunch tone ever, and just ate up boost pedals that could put it over the top, but its cleans weren't very dimensional. I didn't include the Z Wreck here because it's an amazing amp and everybody knows that already! The Nova manages to somehow put all of the puzzle pieces together for what I'm looking for in an amp. The clean tones are to die for. Thick, chewy and loaded with harmonic content that would rival the single ended Z Plus and the Z Wreck. It's similar to the Therapy in that regard, only brighter. The overdriven tones take on this aggressive tweed growl. Big, bold and muscular. Clean up with the volume knob is excellent, almost as good as the Wreck in that area, and equal to the Wreck in terms of touch sensitivity. I think this might be the highest gain Z amp in the lineup now and the noise floor is very Z-esque. IE, non-existent. Whisper quiet. Let's talk about the master volume. I'm a bit hard on master volume amps, I just don't like them all that much. I get that tone in my head when the master is in its sweet spot, and I just can't settle for less on the dial after that. The Therapy, EMS and Z Plus all have great master volumes, but they all needed to be opened up to 1 or 2 o'clock for those amps to come alive. Not the Nova. You can get thick, sustaining overdrive tones with the master at 9 o'clock. Flip it around, dime the master and bring the volume up and you get all those beautiful clean tones at manageable volumes. We're talking apartment manageable. The Maz MkII master is great, and it's a lot like the Nova's master volume. The important thing to note about this amp. It isn't a two channel amp in the traditional sense of a multi-channel amp. You're not going to get a pristine clean tone and a grind-y Tweed overdrive without a significant bump in volume. This amp is designed for you to have a solid base tone, and then kick in the overdrive channel when you need a little 'more.' You don't need it, but I kick on a boost to send it over the top. And all of this is with the stock G12H30. Did I mention that speaker is my least favorite Celestion of all time?!?! That's for another thread. ;)

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Dr z Nova

This amp needs 2 masters. If you want good clean and overdrive sounds it's hard to get a balance if you need both on the fly. The amp sounds good but set for one sound at a time. The problem is if you need real clean, you must keep the channel gain at 20-25%. Then the overdrive is significantly louder than the clean.

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Tube Amp Goodness

After using this amp in several rehearsals and gigs, I have to say I LOVE THIS AMP! Let me preface this by saying I have always been a Fender amp guy. Over the years I have owned pretty much every tweed, brown and blackface amp that Fender has ever made, my favorites being Deluxe Reverb"s and tweed Bassman"s. Also, I don"t like overdrive pedals. I prefer to overdrive the amp. Also,… read more none of Dr. Z"s previous amps have done anything for me. But when I watched the demos on this amp, I knew I had to try it. I"m glad I did. The amp is very quiet and the cleans are nice and chimey. But the overdrive is unreal. I believe what Dr. Z did was use one half of the preamp tube for clean and the other half for the overdrive. This is kind of like jumpering the channels on the old tweed amps. So by doing this the drive stays articulate and doesn"t mush out. The one thing I did that made the cleans sound even better was to replace the EH preamp tubes with some NOS JAN GE 12AX7"s. Other than that, I am very happy with the amp. And it"s only 36 pounds! That"s lighter than a Deluxe Reverb. This thing must get pretty loud as I have not put the master volume up past noon in a band situation. One day I will turn it all the way up and see what happens.

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