An ideal workhorse combo? IT checks out Carlsbro's bestselling Cobra 90 Twin

It's with no disrespect intended (quite the opposite, in fact) that we on IT have come to regard Carlsbro's products as the Ford Transits of British amplification. Almost without exception their gear seems to be utterly reliable, and very much the sort of product which a hardworking semi-pro player will use month in, month out as the means to earn his or her living. It may not always have the sex-appeal of one of the more exotic brands, but on price, reliability and performance criteria, the typical Carlsbro range has earned its well-deserved reputation the hard way.

DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION

In almost every respect, the Cobra 90 twin is every inch a typical Carlsbro. It's small for its rated power output (around 90 watts are pumped into its single 12" Celestion 100 watt rated G-12H speaker), and weighs a lot less than most similarly powered combos. Transporting your Cobra should be easy on both weight and size counts, and the nicely designed expanding carrying strap on the top makes it eminently 'shiftable'. Another nice point about the Carlsbro strap, incidentally, is that it's flush mounted, which makes stacking a couple of their combos far more stable than some other makes with handles that stand proud. Almost every feature of the Cobra looks like it's been designed with of a lot of common sense. The back panel is recessed (so it won't get damaged by knocks and bumps when being hurled about in the back of your van) and the top corners are very well shielded with moulded plastic edge strips and corner protectors.

FEATURES & FACILITIES

The Cobra's back panel, too, looks like it's been thought-out by a team who have actually got a realistic idea of what the working guitarist wants. Mains connection is via a standard plug-in IEC connector, and there is a complete range of expansion features which leaves nothing missing for even the most adventurous user.

To enable your effects to run with the minimum noise levels requires, preferably, not plugging them in between your guitar and channel input. Sensibly, therefore, the Cobra offers a pair of standard jack sockets for an 'effects loop'. If more power suddenly becomes necessary on the occasional gig, a line-level output is also provided, which enables you to run the Cobra's pre-amp output straight into a slave power amp. This could be a very handy 'extra' for the average player, for whom 90 watts will be sufficient for most gigs, but who may need more wellie at the occasional venue. Of course, Carlsbro are by no means unique in fitting either this output option or effects loops - but you don't often find them on such reasonably priced combos. In addition to these extras (and a sturdy mains switch), the Cobra also features two jack sockets for extension speakers (min. 4 Ohms), a headphone outlet and sensibly accessible mains fuse. The 'Twin' in the Cobra's name refers to the fact that this is a twin channel amp, either channel selectable from one of Carlsbro's tough moulded plastic foot-switches. The front panel sports twin jack inputs (high and low gain), after which Channel One's gain control is followed by two further 'effects loop' jack sockets - see what we mean about a lot of features for your money? A red LED lights when channel one is selected on the footswitch and, if you don't happen to have the switch connected, the default is to this channel.

Following these facilities comes a separate stereo jack socket which takes the switchover from the footswitch. Each channel has its own LED to show you which one is on, and the footswitch itself has a further red indicator which lights when channel two is selected. Very handily (Carlsbro showing their practical experience again, we suspect) is that, should you turn up to a gig minus your footswitch, you can use any standard footswitch to change channels. If you get stuck without any footswitch at all, then you can select channel two (the overdrive one) by inserting a dummy jack plug into the changeover socket.

Channel Two is your Overdrive choice, and has two rotary pots; one for overdrive itself, the other for gain. Only one set of tone controls is provided, these operating on both channels. Ideally, of course, tone facilities would be laid on separately for each channel, but you can't expect everything at such an affordable price, can you? The controls govern bass, and then there's a two-stage mid frequency set-up offering ± 12dBs cut and boost on variable frequencies from 200 to 1,500Hz. Thereafter you have a single treble control followed by a very unusual (but really useful) feature whereby reverb depth (from an on-board Accutronics/Hammond spring line system) precedes two red push buttons. Using these allows you to select reverb operation on either or both channels - not something we can recall having seen before, and a very handy option to have. A socket for a remote reverb footswitch comes next, followed by a socket marked 'Direct Injection'. So full of facilities (and not just gimmicks; they're sensible and very useful extras) is the Cobra 90 Twin that we can't think of any comparably priced model which even approaches it in this respect. Any complaints at all? Well, just one. The rotary controls on the Cobra are rather small, a bit sharp and possibly too close together for comfort. We can see the difficulties the designer had with so many features to cram into a limited space, but even if the controls could be made just less rough to touch it would be an improvement. Still, that's not much of a quibble, is it?

THE SOUND

Channel one is very much as the makers describe it - 'clean'. We tested this amp mostly using a Tokai 'S***t' fitted with Seymour Duncan pickups, and the clarity, attack and sheer 'bite' from this channel was really savage - but not harsh. It's a crystal clear purity that you get from this side of the Cobra - ideal for chords which ring through the bass and drum section and cut right across vocals and keyboard parts. This is a rhythm sound that your audience will hear very clearly indeed, and it's ideally suited to chord backings where that sort of whistle-clean, precise sound is wanted.

Switching across to the Overdrive channel, the Cobra's sound is very dependent on what type of guitar you're playing through it. Our Tokai (even with its higher than normal output pickups) needed the 'Overdrive' control up very high to get a really strong distortion, and we even found ourselves using the Gain control on this channel up near full to get a typical 'heavy metal' solo overdrive. Even then we would have to say that this probably isn't the best buy for the budding Van Halen, who wants the ultimate distortion at low overall output levels. Wind the main volume control up and the sound (as it always does) improves considerably, but still, in our view, not ideally smoothly for the Strat or copy user who wants a smooth sustain; there's just a little too much transistor 'edge' in there for perfection in this respect. Use a guitar with a higher output, however (say a Japanese model fitted with a decent humbucker or two) and the sound is much better. Moving on from these considerations, the reverb works very well indeed, the channel switching is genuinely silent and the tone controls do their job most effectively. The Cobra, moreover, is deliciously loud.

CONCLUSION

There's no comparably priced amplifier that we can recall having tried which offers you so much in the way of useful and really well thought-out facilities. It's well made, beautifully (and practically) designed, and offers a heck of a lot for your money. We'd very strongly recommend the Cobra 90 Twin for the semi-pro guitarist who needed a hard-working, reliable amp at a low-ish price. Its wide range of tones, excellent reverb and brilliant clarity would make it perfect for the 'all-rounder' playing a bit of almost every style of music, as well as for the the specialist Country, Reggae, Funk, 'clean' New Wave and Pop player. It isn't perhaps the heavy guitarist's ideal amp but - especially if you have pickups with a strong enough output - it will serve you faithfully (if not with ultimate ability) even then.

As we said at the beginning of this review, Carlsbro specialise in making real 'breadwinners', and the Cobra 90 Twin is quite definitely no exception!

RRP £247.50

More details from Carlsbro (Sales) Ltd., (Contact Details).