Multi-channel amps are totally not my thing. But at $800 (that’s $18/kg, or $28/knob), the numbers don’t lie. Also managed not to blow my back out getting it into the house - let’s be honest, that’s the real win here.
Egnater’s been on my radar forever. The IE4 and TOL100 (designed with Dave Friedman) were constantly advertised in Guitar World back in the day. Both were hugely popular in Nashville). The TOL100 in particular was a complete sleeper of an amp - but didn’t go anywhere unfortunately - I’m guessing because it got completely overshadowed by the Dual Rectos in the 90’s. I’m not aware of either having been imported into NZ.
The Tourmaster’s the evolution of that lineage. The early ones got an unfortunate bad rap due to a bad batch of tubes. I read an interview with Michael Wagener ages ago, where he went on record as a fan (has one in his studio) - that pretty much made it a “must buy” if one ever came up.
Voicing is great - tweed or blackface on the cleans, drives have lots of midrange - I think Bruce has genuinely excellent ears. Channel 3’s worth the price of admission alone - feels and responds to dynamics like a cranked NMV, despite being preamp/master-volume based. Throw in a couple of great clean channels, and a ripping lead channel, for nix. Speakers are tweaked CL80’s (again complete sleeper - a lot of people believe Slash used G12-80’s on AFD, Sykes on Whitesnake etc).
Probably the coolest feature is the multi watt switch matrix on the back. 10w setting sounds great at house volumes, and the master has a really nice taper at the lower end!
All-in-all pleasantly satisfied…..
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