At the risk of upsetting amp makers the world over, practice amps really can be thoroughly awful. They don't have to be, but the economics of amp production mean that it doesn't cost four times as much to make a 15 watt amp than it does a 60 watt version, a lot of basic components costing much the same whatever the overall power rating of the final product. Build time comes into play here, too. It doesn't take much longer to make a 100 watt combo on a production line than it does a practice amp - and time equals labour equals cost. As a result, sound quality usually comes second to price, and practice amps, as a rule, sound naff, as makers fight to keep their prices down. Only a few makers seem prepared to make good sounding practice amps despite the inevitable cost, so welcome onboard a newcomer from U.S. string maestros Dean Markley, whose brand new Signature Pro 10 will be in the shops very soon. Visually, the 10 watt Signature is a neat, chunky looking amp, standing about 15" square and around 8" deep. Clad in beige vinyl with fibre comer protectors and a carrying strap, it's pretty sturdily made, slope fronted, with an open back. Inside the combo lives a fixed mains lead. Peer within and you can spot the simple 8" (unlabelled) speaker, which looks, to us, a bit like an Eminence.

The Dean Markley has all its controls arrayed on the front panel and these comprise a 'Drive' on/off, a single jack input, channel volume and master, treble, middle and bass controls, plus line out and headphone jacks. Last in the line is an mains on/off switch. There's no provision for battery power, and no On indicator. Line out feeds direct into recording gear, while headphone cuts out the speaker. Our first test on the Signature was with the Ed.'s Gibson SG (which we nicked while he was busy getting the IT Cat's claws out of his right arm!). Run with the Gibson on the bridge humbucker and the amp's Drive control switched out, the pre-amp master volume on medium/low and the Master level up high, we spent a happy half hour playing around with the clean sounds. The Markley's tone controls aren't the world's most effective, but they do work sufficiently well and the overall sound was really impressive, with a nice warmth and the response from the open backed enclosure helping to counter the 'boxiness' which you inevitably encounter with mini amps. Impressively, the Signature has a great treble response, which makes for a sparkling sound with a nice extra warmth to it.

Wind the pre-amp gain towards, say, 6-7 and the sheer loudness of the Markley knocks the cobwebs right off the ceiling! 10 watts - huh! Who are they kidding? As you switch towards a channel/master based overdrive, the Signature gets almost impossibly loud for such a small amp. In fact, even when run clean, with the master volume up high, this is an astoundingly loud amp for the size.

Switching in the Drive rocker didn't initially add much to the Gibson/Markley combination for our tastes. In fact the drive circuit ran too far towards overkill, and we found that there was a much smoother distortion (very creditable for a small, transistorised amp) obtainable from the Gibson by using the bridge pickup on full, the drive off, the pre-amp gain up highish and the master volume set to taste. With suitable tone control juggling, the most evil chord sound was there - great for home recording Heavy Metal backing tracks! On the other hand, switching the SG over to the neck pickup, winding the Gibson's tone controls to zero, and setting the amp with drive in, treble and mid on high and bass slackened to around halfway, developed an improved warmer, sweeter distortion - perfect for soloing in home studios.

Switching to a Strat, the treble bite of the Signature really came to prominence. Again, the clean sound is remarkably good for such a tiny package, especially if you're into crystal-clean treble; fine for Country sounds. To get overload/distortion from the lower output single coil pickupped Fender, the Drive switch really does need turning on, and when you do, the combination is impressive - great for Ritchie Blackmore impersonations!

CONCLUSIONS

Obviously, the Dean Markley Signature Pro 10 isn 't a 100 watt Marshall valve stack, and it does suffer from the limitations of enclosure/speaker size which all practice amps share. However, it's far better than most mini amps and, set up with a bit of care, you can get a great sound out of it. Transistor circuited, the Signature does have some of the typical square wave breakup which all such amps (unavoidably) exhibit, but it has a much better sound than most practice amps - more than good enough, in fact, for use in a home studios, where it could prove a real boon when distortion-full chords and fully sustained solos are required at reasonably low volume levels.

The RRP (£129.50) puts the Dean Markley at a premium price above 'run of the mill' practice amps, and even above the levels of our two previous all-comers practice amp champs - the Marshall 10 and the Pro-Amp Demon 15. It is, however, very comparable in sound, and deserves audition if you're looking for the very best and are prepared to pay for it. We wouldn't go on record as saying that any of these three is better than the others, but would advise IT readers to try them all and see which suits best. Either way, we reckon this newcomer is a cracker - well worth a try for those who want a practice amp with serious ability, especially for home recording.

Dean Markley Signature 'Pro 10' Practice Combo RRP £129.50 Inc. VAT.

More info, from Dean Markley (U.K.), (Contact Details).