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Love That Laney!

Laney Linebacker Combos

Article from In Tune, July 1986


Gary Cooper Lets Loose Laney's Latest...


A reviewer sees a lot of different products in a year. Personally, I've never stopped to add up my score of guitar and amps, and I'm not sure I really want to! Unfortunately, this creates problems when trying to decide what to buy for yourself — you're spoilt for choice and, worse still, confronted by a never-ending flood of tempting new prospects.

Faced with this dilemma (and it really is a problem, even though I'm in a wildly fortunate position otherwise), I tend to dither, and usually end up sticking with what I've already got. But just under three years ago I reviewed a new valve amp that was so good I had to have one — and I've been using it almost exclusively ever since. That newcomer was one of Laney's AOR all-valve combos, and since then the AORs have established themselves as one of Britain's biggest overseas sellers, so successful that Midlands-based Laney have been forced to expand and expand again just to meet demand, especially from the USA.

But loving my Laney as I do (and I wouldn't swap it for anything) made me apprehensive about looking at their brand new, transistorised Linebackers. Knowing how often valve amp specialists have got their tranny models wrong, I feared the prospect of having to utter harsh words about the maker of a product I rate as a world beater. Ah, what the hell... plug in, play, publish and be damned!

It must be Laney's success in the States that has made them adopt the American football theme for their colour brochures on these amps, not to mention the 'Linebacker' name itself. Well, they could hardly have called them the 'silly mid-offs', could they? Regardless of that, the Linebackers definitely look British (chorus of Rule Britannia, Land of Hope & Glory, etc!). The range comprises four guitar models; 30, 50, 65 and 100 combos (all with reverb) plus a 100 watt head. Bass players have four combos rated at 30, 50, 65 and 100 watts apiece, also with a 100 watt head on offer. I tried 65 watt versions of each.

65R COMBO



A thoroughly professional piece of work, weighing around 40 lbs. and measuring 21.6" (wide) x 19.2" (high) x 10" (deep), the Linebacker is a handsome combo. The sealed-backed enclosure is wrapped in grained black vinyl and has four tough plastic corner protectors plus the usual top-mounted carrying strap. A slatey blue speaker grille cloth covers the single 12" speaker.

Facilities & Specs


The Linebacker is anything but your bog-standard tranny combo. There's a multitude of facilities here, so if you're trying one out give yourself enough time to get to grips with them.

The rear panel is nicely complete. Mains power comes via an IEC plug-in lead, by which are the mains fuse and an on/off rocker switch. FX send and return jacks are also provided, plus sockets for the onboard speaker, DI output and headphones.

The front panel looks more complicated than it is. The amp's a twin (switchable) channel type, but you have a choice of three input sockets, one for Channel A, one for Channel B and a third which accesses both channels simultaneously, a footswitch (which plugs in at the far left of the panel) enabling you to remote switch between the two channels. To illuminate things, the Linebacker has green LEDs that light to show which channel is in use, and a red 'power on' light. Channel A's controls (the rhythm channel) run right to left, and present gain, bass, middle, treble and master 'A'. Channel B offers gain, bass, middle, treble and master 'B' with 'pull boost' facilities on each, except, of course, the master channel level. Overall controls, on the far left, govern volume, reverb and presence. As you can see, it's more a case of the Linebacker having a lot of features than being complicated to use. What impresses me, though, is how much Laney have managed to get in without festooning the front panel like a Christmas tree!

The Laney In Use


One of the less widely known reasons why valve guitar amps perform so well lies in the way they present a load to loudspeakers. There are many (and sometimes incredibly subtle) differences in the way transistors and valves allow a speaker — which is, after ail, a mechanical as much as an electrical device — to operate, and this is the area in which Laney have been experimenting for some while.

Explaining how the Linebacker's circuitry operates, they say that one way of looking at it is to think of a valve amp as allowing a speaker cone some degree of choice in the way it moves. A transistorised amp, however, forces the cone to move to its dictates. One interesting sidelight on this, Laney tell me, is that they find the choice of speaker for valves amps more critical than in traditional transistorised models — the Linebackers excepted.

The exact nature of Laney's solution is a closely guarded secret. They call it 'Dynamic Power Control', and its inclusion, plus one or two other clever moves in the pre-amp stage, isn't being revealed. All I can tell you is that they've even gone so far as to erase a part number from one of the chips in the pre-amp, to deter potential copiers! Be that as it may, we've heard all sorts of things about 'miracle circuits' before. The question is, how does the Linebacker perform?

I can only find one word can describe the rhythm chug I got from Channel A — perfection! Even pre-overdrive, there's something about the Linebacker's response that's indecently close to that of a clean valve amp. But, better still, try winding the pre-gain up. Here you get a wonderfully progressive distortion, unprecedented in any transistorised amp in my experience. With my SG on its bridge humbucker and the Laney set with just a smidgeon of reverb, I got as close to that definitive Stones' sweaty club rhythm sound as I'm ever going to get from anything but a top valve amp. So, you don't like that 'fat and acid' Gibson sound? That's fine; try my next test yourself — take a single-coil pickupped guitar and stand well back, because the top and the subtle edge of distortion you can get is breathtaking! Don't want a dirty rhythm sound at all? That's no problem, because the Laney will run as clean as ice.

But lead overdrive is still the name of the game for most of us, isn't it? And if it is a game, then the Linebacker has just rewritten the rulebook! If some sadistic swine had blindfolded me and told me to guess what amp I was using, I'd have sworn it was a pro-class valve amp. Laney have cracked it; they've made a transistor amp that takes the breed a generation forward. The Linebacker is the amp that will do the job when the valves run out, and right now, for players who can't afford the ever-increasing price of tube amps, it's available at a ridiculously low price for such quality.

Balancing together Channel B's pre and master gains with the output level, the overdrive can be introduced to almost any degree. The tone controls on both channels give you more than sufficient flexibility on their own, but pull them on 'B' to boost and they jump alive. I damn near deafened myself using my Tele with the treble control pulled! But more to the point (good tone circuitry being common today) was that amazingly sensitive distortion. It didn't matter what guitar I used; the Linebacker gave that something extra that has previously been the exclusive territory of valve amps. With both my Gibson and Strat the sweet 'screeech-screeeam' as a bent string was clipped into harmonics and was then left to vibrato/sustain had me (quite literally!) standing there open-mouthed. The sound was full of even-order harmonics, and a bit of Laney's excellent 3-spring reverb got it so close to perfection that I can't imagine it being bettered.

Conclusion


For me, the Laney Linebacker gets closer to the perfect overdrive sound than any other transistorised combo. If it did that alone it would offer incredible value for money, but when you consider its huge volume, the in/out facilities, the multiplicity of tone controls with all those boost settings, reverb and remote channel switching, it just walks away with my 'guitar amp of the year' award in terms of both sound quality and value for money. All I can do to sum up is offer my congratulations to Laney's design team for succeeding where so many have failed. Undoubtedly, this Linebacker is the best sounding tranny amp I've ever tried. If I didn't already have my AOR, I'd buy one today!

65B BASS COMBO



Fortunately, having over-shot my word limit on the 65R's review, many of the features which make the 65R so good are shared by the 65B. Of course, housing a 15" speaker means a bigger cabinet and greater weight (it measures 21.6" x 24.8" x12.2" and weighs around 57 lbs.). Shipping it around, however, is easy because Laney have thoughtfully provided side mounted carrying handles.

Facilities


With the same FX send/return, DI, line out and headphone sockets as the 65R, I'll just commend the 65B in passing for being so well kitted-out, and skip round to the front panel. Here the Laney again shows its pedigree. A single channel amp, it has two inputs (hi and lo) with gain, 'preshape' on/off, treble, mid cut/boost and frequency ('sweep'), bass, volume and presence controls. A further two microswitches govern Eq defeat and limiter on/off. Finally, in addition to illumination showing mains on/off, there's a red LED indicating overloads on the pre-amp.

The Sound


The D.P.C. circuitry is always going to make less difference on a bass amp than on a guitar amp, although it does have some advantages to offer, mostly in giving an altogether smoother sound than one is used to from typical tranny bass amps. Where the Linebacker really scores is, once more, in its flexibility. Not only do you have all the connections that even the pro player could want, but there's enough in the way of tonal control to get a good sound out of any bass and a superb one from a good instrument.

Once you've chosen which input to use, the ability to see when you're close to overload via the LED means that you can always set the highest possible input signal (thus getting the minimum hiss and noise) without overloading the amp. I found the Laney perfect in this respect with a wide range of basses, from a passive Jazz to an active. Helping you get a good tone are very comprehensive Eq controls, the mid frequency gain and the sweep particularly. Likewise the limiter which, although fixed, works to stem overloads when you're driving the Linebacker near its full (very considerable) output. Don't let the 'mere' 65 watt rating confuse you, incidentally. What counts is output levels, not wattage into the speaker. This amp is loud!

'Pre-shape' facilities are becoming more common these days, and have some definite uses. Basically they're rather like the 'loudness' switches found on Hi-Fi amps, enabling you to get more lifelike or 'musical' sounds at low volumes. The Laney's works well, and comes in handy for headphone practice or low volume recording/rehearsing. Above all, the Linebacker 65B is a tremendously attractive package, offering wide ranging sounds, great punch and projection, lots of clean power and (although it's less crucial to the sound than on the guitar version) a musical quality on account of the D.P.C. system.

Conclusion


Don't be deceived by that 65 watt tag. The Linebacker 65B has a high efficiency 15" speaker, which means that it not only handles bass frequencies better than many apparently higher rated combos with 12" speakers, but is at least as loud as most of them up to, say, the 90 watts mark. Moreover, it's hard to find another amp with anything like as many useful facilities for this money. It undercuts many (if not most) of the other big names, and is streets ahead of most in what it offers. I hate to sound like Laney's PR man, but yet again they've got a world class amp here, and at a super price!

Lead 65R (RRP £230.78) & Bass 65B (RRP £241.80)

More on Laney from Laney Amplification Ltd., (Contact Details).



Previous Article in this issue

It Ain't 'Alf 'Ot, Mum!

Next article in this issue

Showdown '86


Publisher: In Tune - Moving Music Ltd.

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In Tune - Jul 1986

Review by Gary Cooper

Previous article in this issue:

> It Ain't 'Alf 'Ot, Mum!

Next article in this issue:

> Showdown '86


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