NAD: Laney Lionheart L5T

[vintage52]

So, Sizzling got his Marshall cos I bought his Laney.

Had it for over a month and the love affair is still strong.

Clever wee amp in it's config and thoughtfulness of configuration.

All the standard stuff is there - clean channel and drive channel with shared EQ of B, M, T - drive channel having a MV, spring reverb.

1 x EL84 in the power section being fed by 3 x 12AX7s.

There's 2 inputs - a lo and a hi meaning Lo gain and Hi gain.
Hi is designed for your single coils and Lo for the HBs.

At the end of the amplification chain is a tone control.
This works in a similar fashion to a tone control on a guitar.
This has the ability to not only control the overall top end response but also reduce upper end harmonics on the output stage and preamplifier overdrive sounds.
This will give you bright cutting sounds at high settings and smooth rounded sounds at lower settings.
A very clever, useful and musical feature.

At the front of all this - the two inputs give you a low to medium drive option using the Lo input and more hi gain using the Hi input.
It's like having two dedicated drive pedals up front.

My Fenders through this amp retain their vibe and the interplay between the guitars and amp are quite dynamic.

The controls on the guitars alter your tone as you expect them too.
Reminds me of the days I owned a 5E3 and getting your sound came back to setting the amp to a sound you liked and using guitar volume, guitar tone and how hard you played the guitar to get different feels.

Coolness, to me ,in an amp is being able to get multi faceted tones out of it. This is no one trick pony.

Manipulating the drive channel gain and tone stack combined with the selection of input goes from Deluxe to JTM45 to almost, but not quite, JCM800 juciness.

And if you push the tone at the end of the chain all the way up, very Vox like chiminess.

Learning Can't You Hear Me Knocking and the cranked tones in that song are easy to find in the Laney.

So far, a very fun and encouraging amp to play.

Highly recommend if you see one come up.

[IMOCD]

So, Sizzling got his Marshall cos I bought his Laney.

Had it for over a month and the love affair is still strong.

Clever wee amp in it's config and thoughtfulness of configuration.

All the standard stuff is there - clean channel and drive channel with shared EQ of B, M, T - drive channel having a MV, spring reverb.

1 x EL84 in the power section being fed by 3 x 12AX7s.

There's 2 inputs - a lo and a hi meaning Lo gain and Hi gain.
Hi is designed for your single coils and Lo for the HBs.

At the end of the amplification chain is a tone control.
This works in a similar fashion to a tone control on a guitar.
This has the ability to not only control the overall top end response but also reduce upper end harmonics on the output stage and preamplifier overdrive sounds.
This will give you bright cutting sounds at high settings and smooth rounded sounds at lower settings.
A very clever, useful and musical feature.

At the front of all this - the two inputs give you a low to medium drive option using the Lo input and more hi gain using the Hi input.
It's like having two dedicated drive pedals up front.

My Fenders through this amp retain their vibe and the interplay between the guitars and amp are quite dynamic.

The controls on the guitars alter your tone as you expect them too.
Reminds me of the days I owned a 5E3 and getting your sound came back to setting the amp to a sound you liked and using guitar volume, guitar tone and how hard you played the guitar to get different feels.

Coolness, to me ,in an amp is being able to get multi faceted tones out of it. This is no one trick pony.

Manipulating the drive channel gain and tone stack combined with the selection of input goes from Deluxe to JTM45 to almost, but not quite, JCM800 juciness.

And if you push the tone at the end of the chain all the way up, very Vox like chiminess.

Learning Can't You Hear Me Knocking and the cranked tones in that song are easy to find in the Laney.

So far, a very fun and encouraging amp to play.

Highly recommend if you see one come up.

Great review!

[sizzlingbadger]

Glad you are enjoying the amp, I do miss it. I never used any drive pedals with the Laney so not sure how well they work. Cranking the clean channel gives a great rock tone, the single ended output overdrives so nicely. The G12H Heritage speaker in the Laney is pure magic, suites it so well.

The Marshall Astoria is very cool too, but its not as good at very low volumes despite the faux 5W setting. I have reduced the boost setting a bit and tried some EL34's which take the top edge off a little.I think the Creamback 75 is quite a bright speaker, some do say it can be harsh. This is a custom version for Marshall but it could just be the label on the back I did reduce the pre-amp gain too but I have put that back as it wasn't as sweet sounding with the triode output loaded up another 50Kohms, it lost some harmonics to my ears, due to the bias being effected.

[vintage52]

I never used any drive pedals with the Laney so not sure how well they work.

It doesn’t need them eh?

Having the two different gain inputs is a bloody clever idea and allows you to use like low, medium or high gain without pedals.

Well thought out amp.

Have not cranked the clean yet but will give it a bash.

I like the reviews of the Astoria.

Doubt I’d ever have the coin to buy one.

[jeremyb]

I never used any drive pedals with the Laney so not sure how well they work.

It doesn’t need them eh?

Having the two different gain inputs is a bloody clever idea and allows you to use like low, medium or high gain without pedals.

Well thought out amp.

Have not cranked the clean yet but will give it a bash.

I like the reviews of the Astoria.

Doubt I’d ever have the coin to buy one.

In the past when I've had two input amps I've used an A/B switcher so I can have a clean or dirty tone at the flick of a switch

[vintage52]

In the past when I've had two input amps I've used an A/B switcher so I can have a clean or dirty tone at the flick of a switch

What a bloody good idea. Thanks!!

[sizzlingbadger]

I used to do that on Vox's with the Normal and Top Boost channels, set one clean and one dirty. The Laney has a shared EQ for the clean and dirty channels but if you look at the schematic it tweaks the EQ when you switch between them so they both work pretty well through a single set of settings.

[IMOCD]

In the past when I've had two input amps I've used an A/B switcher so I can have a clean or dirty tone at the flick of a switch

What a bloody good idea. Thanks!!

I guess you don't have the Laney footswitch then? They came as standard.

[vintage52]

I guess you don't have the Laney footswitch then? They came as standard.

It’s all there.

Have the footswitch.

Using the drive channel and switching between inputs is a cool idea.

Gives more access to low / high gain.

[jeremyb]

In the past when I've had two input amps I've used an A/B switcher so I can have a clean or dirty tone at the flick of a switch

What a bloody good idea. Thanks!!

When I had my AC15 I made a MXR sized stomp box I made which had 3 switches, one for A/B, one for reverb, one for trem, was awesome!!

[vintage52]

When I had my AC15 I made a MXR sized stomp box I made which had 3 switches, one for A/B, one for reverb, one for trem, was awesome!!

Oooooo - I like this.

Hard to make?

I've borrowed an AB for testing purposes.

Opens me up to a 4 channel amp so will bite the bullet and find an AB.

[jeremyb]

When I had my AC15 I made a MXR sized stomp box I made which had 3 switches, one for A/B, one for reverb, one for trem, was awesome!!

Oooooo - I like this.

Hard to make?

I've borrowed an AB for testing purposes.

Opens me up to a 4 channel amp so will bite the bullet and find an AB.

Was easy as, I already had the reverb / trem switch for the amp so I gutted that and then put that and a basic A/B circuit in the same box