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Stone Deaf SD50 Head

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SKU: STONEDEAF-SD50

Product Description

Stone Deaf are an all-British brand, sourcing as many parts and components from within the UK and manufacturing almost everything in-house at their premises in Huddersfield. Specialising in pedals at first, the company have recently moved into the competitive amp world and delivered some truly unique amp heads – The SD08, SD30 and SD50.

Sticking with their ethos to make original and different products, Stone Deaf have designed this game-changing range of amp heads to give you amazing digital flexibility combined with the high-quality sound of a boutique valve amp. Made from strong and lightweight poplar, these amps are portable and robust enough to gig with, so you can save your back and get incredible tones.

Their circuitry and controls allow you to get a versatile number of tones - anything from crystal clean to angry high-gain. And with their digital control systems, you can store any sound as a preset and recall it using a MIDI device such as a switching system.

With the SD50, you have 16 banks available to store 8 presets. So you essentially get 128 channels in one amp head!

8 x 16 banks – Get 128 Amp Presets in one Versatile Head!

The most powerful in the range is the SD50, an analogue 50W RMS Class A/B or 8 Watts RMS Class A amplifier with an integrated digital control system. This incredible system allows you to save and recall a wide variety of tones, which can be stored as 8 presets in 16 banks. You can store any combination of settings such as EQ, Volume and Gain as a preset, so you get the functionality of a digital guitar unit with the sound and tone of a pure valve amp!

If you use a number of guitars throughout a gig or just at home, they will obviously sound different going into the same amp. The construction or types of pickups in a guitar will affect the sound the most, so thanks to the SD50’s intuitive design and interface, you can tailor-make presets and adjust their EQ for your particular guitars. This means that you can get the most out of your instruments with no compromise.

MIDI Switching:

This amazing amount of presets is great, but you want to access them easily. This is why Stone Deaf have added a MIDI In on the back of the amp, so you can plug in any sort of MIDI device or pedalboard-based switcher to let you access these presets at any time - talk about flexible!

The MIDI switchable presets could also eliminate the need for a boost pedal. For example, you could set up a preset as a distorted rhythm sound, then create another with similar EQ and increased gain and volume for your lead sound. Another incredibly versatile feature of this genius amplifier.

Pure, Versatile Tones:

The SD50 uses x4 ECC83S (12ax7, 025) Preamp Valves and x2 6L6GC Power Amp Valves, so you get a genuine and powerful valve-amp tone capable of covering many different genres. The 6L6’s provide you with a high headroom and full-bodied cleans, similar to a Fender-style amp. The Gain control has a broad range, and you can press the control to change the mode for heavier amounts. Flick through these to increase the gain for a loose and grainy crunch or crank it for massive high gain tones that can almost border on fuzz.

You get typical Treble, Mid and Bass controls – so you can tweak your EQ for a great range of sounds. The Mid control can also be pressed to access a narrower band of mid frequencies which are in that “scooped” sweet spot. Turn this down to achieve an immense doom/post-grunge tone, with plenty of saturation and filth.

Unlike the other amps in their range, the SD50 features master resonance and presence controls that affect the output stage. This is another way for you to sculpt the sound of the amp, and the controls respond particularly well and take effect above 12 o’clock.

Great Live and in the Studio:

The SD50 has plenty of power to be used at larger venues, but can be switched down to 8W for studio use or practice. At 8W you can achieve a natural break-up at lower volumes, meaning it can also be used at home without the neighbours complaining!

You can change to this via the mode switch, and even powering down can be assigned to a preset. So if you want a full clean tone with lots of headroom keep it at 50W, and then store a high-gain sound in 8W mode for a tight and responsive rhythm tone. There are other modes such as ‘Fixed Bias’ and ‘Cathode Bias’, and also ‘High-Pass’ and Low-Pass’ filter modes. These let you change the character of the amp for even more tone-shaping and versatility, and to match the qualities of a particular guitar.

The SD50 has an effects loop too, which you can also assign to different presets via the mode switch. So if you want a raw tone with no effects, you can bypass the effects loop entirely on one preset, and then dedicate another preset to have time-based effects such as reverb or delay for a different song or section in your setlist.

“Re-amping” is a modern studio method used by producers, where a DI’d guitar track is recorded and sent through an amp and then re-captured. This allows you to carefully tweak the perfect tone and compare different amps without constantly re-recording.  The SD50 is therefore a producer’s dream, and you can dial in a number of presets and easily use MIDI to switch between them and decide which sounds the best.

Here's what Stone Deaf say about the SD50 Amp Head:

The SD50 is analogue guitar amplifier incorporates a digital control system to enable the user to store and recall a wide variety of tonal pallets at the touch of a button. The tonality of the amplifier is that of US-based 6L6 valve consisting of large headroom,  wide open clean tones, saggy gritty crunch and huge open high gain tones that border on valve fuzz tones on some settings.

The amp is very, touch sensitive in its response. Speaker selection and pickup selection must be considered when trying to achieve the sound of a particular style of music and this is because unlike other amplifiers our EQ isn't tuned to give a genre specific response. The pre-set bank enables you to store any combination of settings across 16 banks of 8 channels per bank with up to 128 user-stored presets available. (128 user defined valve channels).

Although louder than our other amplifiers at 50watts the SD50 is still tremendously portable due to its size and weight, whilst having tremendous headroom. With additional tone refinement, using the presence and resonance control's you can conjure up a wide variety of tones. For recording, you can drop the wattage down to 8 watts and use the linear master volume to achieve saturation at lower volumes, without annoying your neighbours.

The SD50 is aimed at the more serious tone conscious player who is looking for refined tone and versatility from a professional rig. It gives you something unique and is an all round workhorse of an amp. You get these unique results from combining all its different attributes with variances in distortion level, clean tone, eq, reverb, effects loop, filters and MIDI control that you are able to assign to each channel and allow for a plethora of valve tone once only accessible by using 2 amplifiers or digital profiling amplifiers.

With this in mind, you could say this has brought valve tone back into the forefront of the modern guitarists mind.

Features

  • 50 Watts RMS Class A/B or 8 Watts RMS Class A (Perfect for gig volume with increased headroom or recording and home use)
  • Light weight Poplar cabinets (Brilliant portability because of its light weight construction options)
  • All analogue valve amplifier circuit with digital control of reverb, tone, FX loop,  volume and gain settings via a push of a button.
  • 8 presets across 16 banks = 128 saveable (user defined) presets / valve channels.
  • MIDI Input (allows control of all settings via midi input using standard midi protocol)
  • 240/ 120v Switchable (perfect for travel due to its ability to switch voltages from US, EU to UK etc)
  • Analog Spring Reverb (Premium Medium spring Tank)
  • Channel assignable Cathode Bias and Fixed Bias (Various tonal options)
  • Channel assignable Solid State Rectifier or Valve Rectifier (Various tonal options)
  • Channel assignable buffered effects loop with send and return volumes (able to assign your effects loop to various channels, possibility to put EQ, delay or modulation and assign it to a specific preset / channel)
  • Works with any MIDI-enabled device or past and current protocols. These include for example: BOSS ES-8, ES-5, The Gig Rig, MIDI Keyboard, DAW, MIDI Wireless systems.

Specifications

  • Model SD50
  • Wattage 50w RMS Class A / B, 8 & 12 Watts RMS Class A
  • Chassis Welded Aluminium
  • Cabinet Italian Poplar Plywood
  • Amplifier Type Valve
  • Mains Voltage 240v / 120v Switch-able
  • Dimensions (mm) 55cm x 27cm x 28cm.
  • Weight (KG’s) 14.2Kg
  • Valve Type:
  • Pre-Amp Valve ECC83S (12AX7, 7025) x 4
  • Power Amp Valve 6L6GC x 2
  • Rectifier GZ34 x1

Power Amp Operation:

  • 50w RMS
  • Class A/B Cathode Bias or Fixed Bias
  • 8w / 12 watt RMS Class A Fixed Bias or Cathode Bias

Pre-Amp Operation:

  • Volume Control Gain, Volume, Master Volume
  • Tone Control Bass, Middle, Treble, Presence, Resonance
  • Channel Select
  • Via push-button control on Gain control or foot-switch / MIDI Control
  • Pre-set Select Via push-button on Volume control or foot-switch / MIDI Control
  • Reverb Analog Spring Reverb Tank
  • FX Loop Series Buffered FX Loop with Send and Return Level Controls
  • Line out:  Balanced Line Level Output

Pre-set controllers:

  • Foot-switch Input for SDFS-8, SDFS-4 or any MIDI foot-switch Controllers
  • MIDI In MIDI Controlled Switching
  • Outputs:
  • Speaker Outputs 1 x 4 Ohm & 1 x 8 Ohm

 

 

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