This month two combo amplifiers have us hooked: the “Tornado” and the “El Dorado,” from the company George. High-quality systems, built in Spain, that can help us find the sound we've been searching for over and over again. Before we start taking each of these amplifiers apart, I'd like to talk about “George” as a company and about its construction approach, since that will answer many of the questions that will come up as we go through the test. George is a Spanish company that builds amplifiers, all tube of course, with a “boutique” philosophy, which means building the amps by hand, with point-to-point wiring and high-end components.
When a pair of amplifiers like this lands in your hands, the first thing that comes to mind is curiosity about “what do they sound like,” although their look gives you a pretty good idea. So when you take the amps out of their boxes, the first thing that grabs your attention is the colors chosen, nothing conventional, which is welcome, because it's great to have some vividness among all your amps. On a stage, too, they'll have a visual component that should be taken very much into account. As we said at the beginning, we'll focus on two combos: the “Tornado” and the “El Dorado,” at 30 W and 15 W respectively.
Construction
As we were saying, when you plug in the amplifiers, the colors hypnotize you, both those of the amp itself and that of the system's power LED. In the construction we can see that every effort has been made to keep all the details to the highest precision, but that is truly difficult when you're evaluating a high-quality system. Their look immediately reminds me of VOX amplifiers and, as we'll spell out later, it's not only a matter of looks. That is, these are 1x12 amplifiers (one speaker) with the control panel at the back, so from the front all you see is the speaker grille and the brand's logo. A couple of openings in the top, serving as a ventilation system, let us see the tubes, as well as the rectifier and the rest. One of the characteristics of the cabinets the combos use is that both are open-back, producing a particular sound, with less pressure but more openness. Both systems are class A amplifiers, which differ from class AB amps in several respects; the main difference lies in the type of sound that results, as well as the number of watts we need to develop the same sound. So we have two amplifiers with these characteristics and, to add to our suspicions about what we have in our hands, they bring VOX to mind.
Getting into what the amps offer in terms of construction, in the case of the “Tornado” we have a 30 W amplifier, handmade (point to point), with a 12" Celestino Vintage 30 speaker. Personally, a great choice, since it will never fall short on us because this speaker handles up to 75 W. Through the slots we can see the 4 EL84s; we can see the preamp tubes, but can't make out which they are, though reading the manufacturer's specifications we learn that they are three ECC83s and one EF86 for the second channel. We also read that the amplifier's rectifier is a tube too, which gives us even more evidence that the system was designed to deliver the highest possible quality. In addition, we can choose the impedance with a selector, opting for 4, 8 or 16 ohms. This will help us get the sound we may be looking for. On the front (a manner of speaking, meaning the side where the pots are, since they're not actually on the front) we find four inputs, two for channel 1 and two for channel 2, which can be jumpered, as well as Volume 1 and 2, bass, mid and treble, and a master.
The “El Dorado” is a 15 W amplifier, with another Celestion Vintage 30 speaker and two EL84 power tubes; for the preamp it uses one EF86 and two ECC83s. We should bear in mind that the rectifier tube it uses is a TAD 5Y3, lending even more warmth to the final sound. In both cases, we can see that the cabinets they use are open-back, giving the sound the characteristic of less pressure but greater spaciousness. In addition, we have a pentode/triode selector, with which we can cut the power down to 7 watts, for specific situations where we want all the warmth of tube sound but without needing to burst our eardrums with that volume. The controls are very simple: gain and volume, plus a bass, mid and treble EQ.
In terms of size and weight, I was really struck by the “El Dorado,” since being really small it was also quite light, which is welcome for transport. As for the Tornado, which is neither so small nor so light, it's an amplifier that is, so to speak, not so easy to transport: we should keep in mind that the dimensions are 61.5 cm wide x 47 cm high x 25.5 cm deep, versus 50 cm wide x 45 cm high x 25 cm deep for the “El Dorado.”
Sound
Now that we've analyzed all the elements that make up the amplifiers and how they interact with each other, let's hear how the final result sounds. The truth is that when you have amplifiers like these, their look alone is completely motivating; even before plugging them in you already get that feeling of “how good this is going to sound.” If we start with the Tornado, our first contact is the option of going into channel 1 or channel 2. What is the difference between the two channels? As you might guess, the differences lie in how easily they saturate and in the “creaminess” of the amplifier's own tone. Each of these channels has two jumperable inputs. As we said earlier, the controls on offer were an EQ, two input volumes and a master.
Starting with channel 1, we hear an amplifier with a completely clean sound that gives off VOX tone at every seam. Personally, I'm struck by the dynamics the amplifier offers; I like the feel of a clean but angry sound, giving the tone character. I did the tests with the most characteristic guitars: a Les Paul, an SG with P-90s (single coils), a Strat and a Telecaster. On this channel, what personally caught my attention was the great combination of “single-coil pickup with channel 1”; the humbuckers, while they gave us a pleasant sound, didn't surpass the single coils.
As soon as I plug the guitar into the amp I notice a particular sound, which I try to change by altering the EQ or any pot and, so to speak, I can't change it; that is, the controls don't have a wide range of action, they're a little more ON/OFF in nature. Another option would have been to fit a Matchless-style switch with four or five positions that offer several tones. Personally, I prefer that option on these high-end amplifiers, simply because I like my signal to pass through as few pots as possible, even high-quality ones. Back to the amplifier's own sound on channel 1, we can see it has that dynamic, peaky feel that appeals to me; obviously, as we said at the start, this is an amp with VOX characteristics, so if we're looking for Fender “bells,” we won't find exactly that clean sound there; although you do feel the harmonics, it's a sound with a darker tone that, personally, I don't dislike.
When we plug into channel 2 the following happens: the feeling of saturation increases and gives us a creamy sound with powerful lows, allowing access to more distorted registers. It's on this channel where, even with single coils, it lets us sound quite thick and compressed. I get the sense that it sounds a bit hollow; it's with the humbuckers that I think you can notice more of the amplifier's weight. This channel takes very well to any strong overdrive/fuzz/booster we want to put in front of it. I ran the tests with a FullDrive, an old Tube Screamer and Roger Mayer's Voodoo One, and the amplifier honestly didn't feel inhibited when more signal was thrown at the input.
Now it's the turn of the 15 W combo, the “El Dorado,” in purple, a simpler amplifier in terms of channels, controls and construction, but one that personally catches my attention a lot. To pin down the sound we're going to find, we can say it once again matches the previous case: a VOX sound, but with something more. At first it's hard to tell what that something more is, but after playing for a while you discover it: it's simply more dynamic than the Tornado. But despite what we might think about which pickup combination works better or worse with the amp, against all expectations I think the humbuckers work better than the single coils on this combo. The tone it gives us is clean with more “bells” than the previous model, but as we turn up the gain we can hear a creamy sound appear, with a good tone and a feeling of compression, and we immediately notice how the Vintage 30 works. Again it gives the impression of a somewhat hollow sound. On the other hand, it responds very well when you put pedals in front of it, although, as is logical, the Tornado responds with more headroom when it comes to placing overdrive before it. Also, being a smaller combo, it is naturally much more directional and therefore opens up less than the previous one, but coincidentally the resulting sound struck me a lot. As for the pots, the same thing happens as in the previous case: they don't have a wide range of adjustment.
Conclusions
The Tornado and “El Dorado” are two high-end amplifiers with a characteristic VOX sound that gives us a little more (especially the “El Dorado”). Sounds ranging from clean to creamy crunch. Perfect for recording, especially the “El Dorado,” and for both recording and gigs in the case of the Tornado. Easy to transport, very good sound and a more than reasonable price for boutique amplifiers: an option worth considering.