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This is one amazing amplifier full of upgrades from the earlier DrZ offerings
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Dr Z Route 66. List price $1399.00 (pay about $1199.00 + from a dealer) 32 ( loud) watts. 1 Ef -86, 1-12AX7, 2-KT-66 power tubes 1- GZ-34 rectifier.Class A/B low stressed design with no negative feedback circuit.The more "features" an amp has the more it tends to suck.This amp has a volume treble and bass control and three taps for 4, 8 and 16 ohm. That's all you get.You got a problem with that? You won't when you plug it in. You get some tone to go with it.The Route 66 sounds a bit like the old tweed Fender AND Gibsons . I mean the older model amps that used the large metal 6 series (6SJ7 etc) preamp tubes and large coke bottle 5881s. But the Route 66 has more gain and its' own voice and that getting to be famous Dr Z tight low end. Dr Z amps are vintage type medium gain amps with their own voice. The better you play and the more you know good round balanced tone the more you will appreciate these amps.If you suck do us all favor and buy something else so the Zs will go to players who can utilize their potential. If you hear anyone knock Z amps chances are they cannot play for shit so ignore them. Now on to the fun..... Lynn |
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Knock knock. Who's there? It is UPS with an amp that works right out of the Box!! Yessiree Bob! There was not even a dent on the amp box. It was extremely well packed with the tubes wrapped and shipped in the back of the amp so they would not be damaged.Plenty of snug fitting foam etc courtesy of www.juniorsmusic.com in Connecticut or somewhere up in the Nether regions. Anyway they can tell you where they are and they wrap stuff real nice.The amp came with a small but informative pamphlet. Dr z alias Mike Zaite has come a long way toward taking his amps to the next level of quality. I love my '98 Maz 38 invasion but there are a few minor details that I thought could use attention These have ALL been addressed in the new amps and more.I am really impressed.The Route 66 features a removable power cord, retainers on ALL the tubes even though the Route 66 is a head only design and the chassis is mounted upright. There is a Metal back grill and a metal top vent ala' Vox. Even the EF86 has a tube retainer on it. My $4000+ Matchless has no retainer on the EF86 and it is hanging upside down. The amp comes with a nice Svetlana EF86 ( not the horrid Sovtek that came with the Matchless which sounded smooth as sandpaper until it went dick up after 2 hours)) but I had a really nice Amperex so I plugged that in. The other tubes are Chi-comm rectifier one 12AX7 , and a pair of Svetlana KT66 power tubes. This is a great sounding tube ,is readily available and is not expensive. It has to warm up for about 15 minutes to achieve full tone.You ca actually hear the tone thicken as you play for the first 15 minutes or so.I think the KT66 power tubes are biased a bit on the cool side but tonally you do not want them any hotter. The tone is plenty thick enough from the EF86 preamp section and the cool biasing helps achieve the claimed 5000 hour tube life. The amp runs very cool. You will not be using the metal grill on the top of the amp to make grilled cheese sandwiches. The Chinese KT66 is very reminiscent of the RCA black plate 6L6 but with more detail and a MUCH tighter butt ( low end) But it has that same warm and percussive upper midrange, particularly with the "in-between" and all three pickup settings on my G&LS-500 strat type guitars. The standard pickup settings on a strat sound fabulous with the Route 66 and the amp is also especially juicy with a strat in the lower registers . This amp has a thick enough tone to fatten up the tinniest strat. It is however really outstanding with moderate output humbuckers and is nuclear with soapbars.This amp LOVES your bridge pickup ala' the JTM45. I believe Clapton used the lead pickup for the whole Beano album.Also The Route 66 should be given a listen by harp and slide players as well.The Route 66 with a 4-10" or 1-15" could become be THE new harp amp for medium to large venues.. By the way..One awesome feature of the G&L S-500 "strats"that you may not be familiar with is their split bass and treble passive EQ type tone controls. Leo intended these controls to compensate for differences in amp response . They work incredibly well. Rolling off the bass on the guitar with the Route 66 will clean up the tone a bit in the combined PU settings(less mud in the mid) You can't do this with any other passive pickups of which I am aware. I love only having two preamp tubes. You can afford to experiment with some pretty expensive NOS tubes when you only need two! You could get an Amperex EF86 for $40.00 and a Brimar 12AX7 for $30.00 for a total outlay of $70.00 If you have a Bogner Ecstasy you ain't gonna be to ecstatic when you realize that same project will run you about $400.00+
What is this amp like? First of all it is quiet as a church mouse. No hum and no appreciable hiss . You can barely tell it is on. This is one sign of an elegant design and quality execution in my book.The ideal amp design for me is a class A/B that sounds like a class A design with great semi-clean sustain and clarity but without the unpleasant artifacts of class A design. Increased heat, shorter tube life, less reliability, more hum etc. I think the no negative feedback circuit is the key to the sustain and clarity with excellent dynamics but I am no EE so I will ask the Doctor to put in a few words this month which I will post to the article later.The overall sound reminds me of a Matchless grafted to a Fender Tweed Super . That would be good. All this sounds like this and sounds like that can be a pain in the ass so I will include some sound samples soon.Think of it this way. It sounds like the Fender tonemaster head would sound if the tonemaster did not sound like shit. Just kidding. It is a good old "vintage " sounding amp that begs to be opened up.
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back to the new Route 66. This amp combines the best of the
Fender,Marshall and Matchless designs. It has the spank and punch of
a Fender but the liquid bottom end of a great JTM 45 with the
thickness of the Matchless/Vox EF86 front end. In other words this is
one of the ultimate "Hendrix" amps. Great "wind cries
Mary," "Axis"etc. rhythm tones. Use a pedal for the
distorto stuff. Jimi did. However!!!
The Route 66 sounds
way better with no overdrive pedal, just turn it up! If you need a
full on tone and cannot turn this one up enough get a Z- 28. Same
basic amp with 6V6 tubes for less headroom and a bit more sparkle
depending on the brand( Sylvania is great for a lacy upper midrange)
The Z-28 is an upside down design head though and is offered in a
combo. This is because the smaller and lighter 6V6 tubes don't mind
hanging upside down and in a combo as much and the sound pressure is
lower as well.
The headroom of the EF86 also eliminates the need for an effects loop. Just plug into the front end the EF86 will love your delay,chorus , wa- wa or reverb tank etc. The amp does have a piano like bottom end especially with the Celestion blues. The amp sounds pretty much the same with a Vintage 30 until you get to the bottom octave on the guitar and then the celestion blues kick ass on every speaker known to modern man. Cheap they are not but they are the sound I love. You do not have to turn the amp up real high to get a good tone but like a good Marshall , or any other good amp for that matter, it sounds better and better as you turn it up. It is capable of beingVERY loud. I do however understand some of the comments on Harmony central about the amp not being very loud. If you keep the tones low it is not that loud dimed . If you turn the treble up to 4:00 or so ("8 ) with the bass about noon it will be screaming with the volume at 11:00. ( "4") In other words the tone and volume controls are very interactive in controlling gain so if you have the treble on "2" and the bass on "2" ( 5:00 o'clock) the amp will not be loud at all. Dime the treble and bass and it is very loud. I like it with a strat through the 2-12" blue cab with the treble almost all the way up with the bass below 1/2. It is also great with my Gibson Country Gentleman and my PRS especially with the lead pickup. The Country Gentleman and this amp are a fantastic match with all pickup settings. Magic.If you need a loud clean sparkly tone you can get a used '63 to '65 hand wired Fender Showman Head in great shape for around $600.00.If you play metal and actually read this far try a Route 666 or a Rivera Bonehead, Mesa Triple rectifier,Bogner Shiva or Ecstasy or a Marshall 900 /20000/TSL series or any of the other zillion tone strangling vinyl clad boat anchors on the market.
.The Route 66 has fantastic sustain and detail even at low volumes. Maybe if Carlos Santana had one of these he could get some sustain without having that godawful strangled mesa boogertone of his. As a jazz amp it could ruin Ploytones' day. Very warm and detailed sound. You can switch to the lead pickup on your strat without your molars turning to dust or your parakeet dropping dead.Even my cat loves this amps' mellow top end. Jimmy Vaughn needs this amp.Great with a tele lead pickup also.As I stated if you think this amp is too dark you gotta hear it with an open back 2-12" loaded with Celestion blues. Their crispness and sparkle are just what the Dr. ordered for this amp in my opinion. I am ordering a Matching red cabinet with gold sparkle grill cloth and loaded with Celestion Blues for my Route 66. One big caveat to using the Celestion Blues.They do not seem to like overdrive pedals all that much. They have such a gourgeous deep sweet bass that the minute you kick in the overdrive a lot of the bottom end detail goes away. The Route 66 with a celestion vintage 30 sounds really good with the fulltone fulldrive ll maybe because the vintage 30 has less bottom end detail to start with. When you kick in the OD with the vintage30s the tone stays really close to the tone of the amp. If you are using the blues when you hit the OD the amps natural tone changes markedly.It is all a matter of choice. If you want Hendrix or SRV I would get the Blues and just crank the amp. If you want Santana or Stones or crunch over cream by all means try a good OD pedal and vintage 30s. Of course a 4-12" would kick ass but NOBODY wants to carry them.Also don't forget that you can brighten it up by using different tubes and brands..Almost all the variations between amps of the same design can be attributed to the tubes.To some degree the transformers vary tonally if they are hand wound ( the wildly inconsistent winding of pickups and transformers by Fender in the '50s, for instance) but most of the variations in modern quality amplifiers of the same model and brand come from the tubes.Of course a lot of amps use resistors that have 10% tolerances. Obviously these amps will vary more piece to piece than say a Matchless with 1% resistors.
For instance regular RCA12AX7s are quite warm but RCA 7025s and EI Yugos have a lot of high end, as does Amperex. Mullards are mellower and Telefunkenens darker still. Tungsram is similar to Mullard but I have heard some people actually prefer the Tungsram.I like a bright amp to some extent so I am running an Amperex EF86 inmy Route66. Highly recommended and they are still reasonable at about $35.00. To go brighter still you could use a 7025RCA for the PI or even go with a 12AT7 for a cleaner glassier tone.I end up with a Mullard or RCA 12AT7 phase inverter in almost every amp I have. These are superb tubes.
I just got a Matchless Chieftain that had so much high end out of the box that I had to set the treble and brilliance full off. .The amp sounded like ripping canvas with the gain over 1/2. I replaced the EI Yugo 12AX7 Phase inverter with a black plate RCA 12AT7 and the EI Yugo in the tone stack amp with an RCA 12AX7. Like a new amp. Sounds much richer and smoother and of course cleans up beautifully from the guitars' volume pot with the 12AT7 Phase inverter.The EI Yugos are good tubes for the input gain amp and good in the tone stack of a not too bright amp. I do NOT like them in most amps as a phase inverter. Almost any amp sounds better and is more controllable with tighter bass if you use a 12AT7 instead of the 12AX7 (driver in most new amps).If you want that round tone and glassy top end there is no other choice.
The DR Z Route 66 is a brilliant amp that I enjoy more every time I play it.It is a great base for a lot of vintage tones. If you want AC/DC try a DR. Z K T45 which is similar to the Matchless Clubman but class A/B and has a solid state rectifier. If you want Buddy Guy try a Maz 38 with celestion blues or the Route 66 with a 4-10" . If you want Vaughn. Hendrix, or Early Clapton take Route 66 to your ultimate destination. A Kendrick or Fender hand wired 3 knob tube reverb would be a wonderful choice to complement the amp in venues with crappy acoustics or where you can't turn up much. If you are used to a high gain reverb combo you will not be comfortable with this amp. This is an amp for tweed Fender or 50 watt no master Marshall types. A great use for this amp would be in a 2 amp setup with a Fender Super or Maz 38 with reverb as the rhythm amp the Route 66 for the lead pickup amp. It really does shine with bridge pickups, single coil and humbucker .A hot pick.
