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Alligator Ebony A60 & A175 Combos | |
AmpCheckArticle from International Musician & Recording World, March 1986 |
Martin Brassel on the units in Alligator's move up-market.
The rugged British all-purpose Alligator combos have always been favourably received — perhaps in spite of themselves for idiosyncracies like their green colouring and mail-order only availability must have limited their sales appeal. Recently, however, the company was taken over by Langlois Ltd, and the fruit of this is now apparent in the new Ebony range, featuring a new black finish as well as a number of models designed specifically for individual instruments, and all available through normal retail outlets.
On examining the A60 combo, it's apparent that the changes (which have included a price rise of around £30) have not been solely cosmetic. But before you even get to the combo its cover has made a good impression: a stout vinyl affair, with an ample zipped pocket in the side for storing the footswitch and the necessary leads. These covers will be supplied with all models, though the bass combo version wasn't available at the time of review.
Removing the cover reveals a square-looking little number with corner protectors like those beloved by Carlsbro. More or less everything is black now, including the speaker grille (less chunky than before). Instead of the mains lead appearing from the rectangular port, it slots into a Euro mains socket on the back, with one of those neat integral fuse holders. The lead is a reasonable length and comes with the type of three-pin plug which allows you to change the fuse without unscrewing it. Meanwhile the oversized port (big enough to lose your effects pedals in) has been ousted in favour of a neater circular hole of some seven centimetres across, which comes with an unusual recessed metal grille cover. Peering inside revealed the usual chipboard construction.
The finish (vinyl, not real alligator) is meticulously applied and slightly shiny in appearance, and the top-mounted strap handle is comfy, which is useful since at two-and-a-half stone this amp isn't very light for a 60-watter.
Still at the back, we find an effects loop, which wasn't there on earlier models, and a mixer/slave output too. The hole for the headphone socket has been plugged, as that has been sensibly relocated on the front panel of this model. Also at the front is a standby switch to avoid bangs when switching on, with a red LED to show when it's operational. Add to that the green LED to indicate that the mains is on, and the red one for Boost on, and you have something to brighten up your stage nicely.
Two inputs are provided (Input One being more sensitive than Input Two) as well as gain and master volume controls, a three-band eq section and a separate boost control which can be activated by footswitch or by a mini-toggle on the amp. Finally, there's Alligator's Soundshaper switch, a three-way toggle which profiles the input stage for keyboards, bass or guitar respectively. In all, it's a neatly designed package which is marred only by the lack of reverb, which I would have thought was de rigeur for any amp intended for performance use with guitar and keyboards. Still, its omission wouldn't bother the home recordist who would doubtless have access to a better quality reverb than Alligator could reasonably be expected to supply at this price.
In many ways, the best feature of the Alligator is its footswitch. Not that the footswitch itself is anything to write home about — it feels about as positive as stamping on a jellyfish. Its usefulness lies in the fact that it not only switches the boost on and off, but also allows you to alter the setting of the Soundshaper while playing — a feature which, if used intelligently, goes a long way towards making up for the slightly dull tone of the amp when set flat.
Depending on whether you have the Soundshaper toggle in the up or down position, the left-hand switch on the floor unit will alternate between bass and keyboard or bass and guitar settings. Although I didn't have any figures of what the different settings do, the keyboard one sounds basically flat but with a slight presence lift, the bass seems to have most of the top and a little middle rolled off, and the guitar has a midrange boost which gives a slightly odd tone to clean settings but is very effective for more ballsy ones. When using guitar, then, switching between bass and guitar presets gives you a middle emphasis for leads and a warmer, more jazzy tone for rhythm: alternatively you can have the warm sound and swap it with a more brilliant tone when required.
The inclusion of the boost circuitry is a reflection of the design being fairly guitar-orientated, but the switching facilities are useful for bass, too. Swapping between a mellow bottom end and a gutsy treble presents no problems, and the guitar setting can also be useful for fretless or for increased punch generally. Keyboards are also handled well considering the cabinet's dimensions (45cm x 45cm x 26 cm). Certainly, the Soundshaper switch is best used when you consider it as being alternative filters rather than optimum settings for the different instruments — if you need clarity, then you need the keyboard setting, whatever instrument you're playing.
Boost is perhaps a disappointment in that it's good for sustained lead work but only in a rather transistorised sort of way, but winding up the gain control provided an agreeable surprise in the form of sharp, well-defined overdrive in a less fuzzy mode. The solid band around the gain control from six upwards seemed about right, as distortion set in from this setting on, though the master control has the same markings but can be wound full up without significantly adding to the distortion.
The tone controls are unfortunately a little subtle, only really being effective at high gain levels, which suggests a little recalibration of the internals wouldn't go amiss. But on the whole this combo has a good range, and it is in many ways commendable that Alligator haven't, for instance, given the bass control an amount of boost which the cabinet and 10" speaker couldn't possibly handle.
For 60 watts the A60 isn't very loud,though it should be adequate for gigs if guitar is going to be put through it.
By and large this proved to be an impressive package, with good detail design and an unexpectedly good performance with both keyboards and bass guitar. This particular example suffered from a Soundshaper which only worked when it felt like it when the footswitch wasn't connected, but I'm prepared to excuse that as a one-off. The only real omission here is that of reverb which, if it were supplied, might make this combo suitable for occasional vocals use in practices. Being a jack of all trades always carries with it the risk of being a master of none, but the Alligator is good value for money and more than just a cosmetic improvement over its predecessor — it's particularly worthy of consideration from the home recording fraternity.
The A175 is a close relative of the A60 though to all intents and purposes a new model. As one would expect, however, there are many resemblances to Alligator's past and present.
For starters, there's the same finish and squared-off look, though here the control panel is angled upwards a little, and the top edge of the combo is dressed away to make all the knobs and switches easier to see. There are two 10" speakers here, but they are now positioned side by side, whereas the older versions had them positioned diagonally. Instead of two triangular ports, there is now one long slot along the bottom edge — it isn't as deep as it first appears to be, the actual opening being about two centimetres high. There's another 25 watts of power compared to the old models, as well as the fan cooling found on the A60, but the control panel has essentially the same features as the earlier AC 150's.
The back panel is similar to that found on the A60, but with the headphone socket and an external speaker output, both of which isolate the internal speakers. Round the front, we have two separate parts to the eq, with bass and treble controls coming before the main section, which has the same two knobs plus two middle controls. The principle behind this is that the eq proper can be more easily tailored to suit your requirements if it has roughly the right sort of sound going into it in the first place. The system takes a bit of fiddling with, but works well enough in practice, the two middles being useful even though the frequencies at which they operate prove to be unexpectedly near to those already covered by the bass and treble pots.
The Soundshaper is here again, this time labelled Filter 1, Flat and Filter 2; the boost function is also included, with the added refinement of a boost preset switch (strangely positioned at the opposite end of the front panel) giving you a gain increase when the boost is selected. Both the Soundshaper and the boost can be selected by footswitch as on the smaller model, and there's an extra LED on top of the gain control which lights up when the boost isn't selected to show the player at a glance which pot has priority.
So far, so good — but I don't see much evidence of substantial re-engineering to make the Alligator more suitable for the bass player. Admittedly, most of the people who bought the old Alligators had bass as their first instrument, but that's not to say the unit couldn't be improved.
For instance, expecting two 10" speakers to cope with gigs on bass is a bit optimistic as the eq is powerful enough to get them flapping about even at quite low levels. The boost can be quite fun at mild settings for a touch of Jack Bruce, but very few bassists would ever use it enough to justify its inclusion.
Even the Soundshaper is less of a success here, because it alters the sound too much. Filter 1 boosts the highs and Filter 2 boosts the middle, with Flat sounding a bit on the dull side — in other words, much like the A60's switch. The problem is that Filter 1 turns your slappafunk into slappametal, because the top end starts distorting. Too much bite can be a bad thing, even for an Alligator... Filter 2 is as bad in a different way, because it injects too much middle and necessitates a dash for the tone controls to make it at all palatable. The frequency chosen is just too nasal for comfort.
It doesn't take an Einstein to figure out that the A175 is suffering from a bad case of 'badge engineering'. Consider it as an all-purpose combo,and the picture changes considerably. Filter 2 turns out to be very handy for sustained lead guitar, particularly in conjunction with the boost facility. Keyboards, too, get a lift from using Filter 1, as long as the gain levels aren't too excessive. The criticisms that can be levelled at the A60's eq do not apply here as that section is, if anything, too powerful for its own good. Other useful features like the standby switch, two inputs and versatility of switching are as good as ever.
Of course, there would still be one or two criticisms: there should definitely be handles at the sides rather than a single one on top, and the omission of reverb verges on the inexcusable at this kind of price. For 175 watts, this combo isn't deafeningly loud either — at least it can't really provide the kind of clean power that it takes to put bass guitar across well live.
The combo is still a worthy candidate for the bass player who also plays other instruments, but those specialising in that instrument may justly feel that for £450 there are better bargains to be had. Considered as an all-purpose unit, judgement is made difficult by the fact that there are hardly any products on the market which attempt to do what the Alligator does. Clearly, though, £450 is a considerable sum of money to pay, even for an amp as versatile as this one, and on this showing buyers might be well advised to consider whether the smaller A60, at £200 less, wouldn't be just as good for what they have in mind.
RRP: £250 & £450
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Review by Martin Brassell
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