Since the launch of the original Tom Scholz Rockman, new developments have kept on coming from the Waltham, Massachusetts sonic wizard. Some of these have entailed small but useful improvements in the Rockman concept itself (resulting in the current top of the range X100) while others have resulted in what is currently being hailed in many quarters of the States as the future of the guitar amp, the soon to be available Rock Modules. But with the Rockman X100 hard to afford for the average semi-pro player (it has an RRP of £275), what chance is there of getting that distinctive Scholz sound? Well, thanks to UK importers Dixie's Music, a pretty good one, because the 'bread and butter' Soloist model has just undergone a price reduction, so that it now has an RRP of just £139, making it cheaper than the majority of the Japanese competition, in fact. Is it as good as the Jap machines, though? Is it worth considering? We've just sampled the Scholz Soloist to find out.

THE SPECIFICATIONS

Housed in a black plastic casing, an immediate comparison with the obvious alternative, the metal-clad JHS Rockbox II, might at first sight make you wonder whether the American contender was sturdy enough for the job. To answer that question, Dixie Kidd deliberately sent us a pretty ancient looking Soloist for review; one that had quite obviously been around for a bit, but which still worked perfectly despite bearing the signs of obvious hard use. Plastic? No problem, we'd reckon.

Just like the X100 Rockman, the Soloist is housed in a small case, fitted with a metal clip which allows you to wear it on a belt. The IT Cat reckons that this is unfair on felines (who don't wear belts), but we don't suppose that'll bother too many of our readers!

Powered either by batteries or from the mains via a Tom Scholz 6v 200 mA adaptor (available for RRP £29), the Soloist is a very neat and tidy package, all the controls living on the top (front) panel. Running from left to right, these begin with a standard 1/4" socket which, cleverly, is wired so that you can either use it for an auxiliary stereo input or as a low level output. Next to this is a pair of click-stopped slider controls, the higher offering Chorus, Stereo and Mono, the lower providing Distortion, 'Edge' or Clean sounds. The third section of the Soloist's control panel gives three output volumes, again on a pre-set slider, and this has a red flashing LED indicating power on/off beneath. Following this stage comes the guitar/keyboard 1/4" jack socket for input, with Mini-jack sockets rounding off the facilities, allowing you to feed either 2 sets of headphones or two direct line outputs.

The ways in which you can use the Soloist seem almost endless. At its most basic, you just jack in your guitar or keyboard, don the headphones (supplied as part of the package) and play away, silently as far as the rest of the world is concerned. But there are a lot more uses on offer, as a look at the excellent handbook shows. Suppose you want to get a sound through your home stereo? All you do is get a lead with a stereo mini jack at one end and two RCA plugs at the other, bung the output into the 'Aux' setting of your amp, and away you go. Likewise if you want to play along with records or pre-recorded tapes, just plug the tape machine's output into the Aux input of the Soloist and you're in business. Ditto with mini cassette recorders. Perhaps more useful still is that you can use two Soloists linked up for two users. All you do is connect the Phones/Line Out socket of one of the Soloists to the Aux input of the other and take both sets of headphones from the second unit's outputs. Away you go. And the list of possibilities runs on. You can record onto a cassette player, DI straight into a mixer for live or recording purposes, and even use the Soloist to power two (for stereo) or one (mono) stage amps.

THE SOUNDS

Obviously, costing significantly less than the full-blown X100, the Soloist has undergone some downgrading to get it onto the market at its price. Some of the cost cutting has taken place in facilities — there's only the one clean sound on the Soloist, where the X100 has two, and the in-built DDL doesn't have the sophistication which you find on the X100, only offering Mono/Chorus and Stereo. Perhaps most noticeably absent from the cheaper model is the X1OO's blue 'pre-set' control which enables its output to be matched exactly to your requirements; an essential feature when the X100 is being used to record through a professional quality mixer. Likewise, the Soloist certainly isn't as quiet in operation as the X100, again limiting its uses for professional recording. But don't run away with the idea that the Soloist is intrinsically noisy — it isn't, in fact, any worse in this respect than most of the Japanese contenders, it's just the superb quietness of the pro model which makes you think the Soloist is a bit hissy by comparison.

Comparable the Scholz might be in noise terms with its competitors, but its sound and the effects it produces are considerably more sophisticated than most such devices, and it's here that the Soloist scores very highly. The stereo setting gives a wide spatial dimension to your instrument's sound with a cleverly Eq'd delay effect which sounds really amazing! Add in the (admittedly fixed rate) Chorus and the sound not only seems to broaden further, but shifts and swirls with a Chorus that seems more akin to studio class units, at least in terms of its tonal character, if not its quietness, than most pedals.

On the 'Clean' setting the Scholz really is clean, but slide the appropriate control to 'Edge' and a rough and raspy chord sound results. It's the sort of thing that will make even the cheapest guitar sound good, and we proved that point when testing it by using the Soloist with a £100 Korean copy. Even at that sort of disadvantage it came up trumps.

But the killer sound appears when you have either the Chorus or the Stereo on and then set the 'shaping' control to the Distortion position. Even with a Tele's relatively low output, we got a searing, sustaining (almost early Jimmy Page/Jeff Beck) sound which impressed our testers no end. Just like the X100, the Soloist excels in this respect, giving an awesome impression of an overdriven guitar used live though a big amp on a decent sized stage, even through its tiny headphones. It's this lifelike ability to give a massive Rock guitar sound which won the original Rockman its spurs, and, even if the Soloist lacks a few of the X100's features. and is a bit noisier, the main Scholz attraction — that furious lead guitar sound — is still there and firing on all eight!

CONCLUSION

Given unlimited money we'd undoubtedly buy either the Tom Scholz X100 or, perhaps, wait and see what the much heralded Rock Modules are like. However, if money was tight and we weren't expecting to need our choice for professional studio sessions, the Soloist is more than good enough. To our ears it is a much better bet than the Arion (seeming to us to have a more professional sound), and likewise sounds a lot better than Aria's contender. Really, only the JHS Rockbox competes, and that has an RRP of £10 more. We weren't able to make direct side-by-side comparisons between the latest Mark II Rockbox and the Scholz Soloist, but, working from memory, we'd reckon that the JHS unit scores by having a metal casing and a few more facilities, but the Soloist has much the superior guitar sound. Check them out and see what you think, would be our advice. Comparisons aside, at only £139 the Tom Scholz Soloist is a bargain buy for the player who wants a versatile headphone amp with a Rock guitar sound that we've yet to hear equalled, except by its more costly big brother.

RRP £139 inc. VAT

More details from Dixie's Music, (Contact Details).