This a a reply i got from Monster Factory on there amps.. enjoy, by the way Hoyt Harness that wrote me is the owner and guy that makes and tests the amps...
Hey JB -
Thanks for the inquiry! It's always cool to hear from the axe-wielders in the trenches.
The Swamp Thang is loaded with Eminence Swamp Thang speakers. You won't believe this, but that was a complete fluke. The amp was already named by the time I started searching for a suitable speaker and I had tentatively planned to use Celestion Vintage 30's. The problem with the V30's was they had a much stronger mid-range spike than I really wanted coming out of the amp. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge Celestion fan and always will be, but in the end it's about the right tone for the job. Anyway, those Swamp Thang speakers had the response curve I wanted (very close to the V30 curve) and they had the mid-range smoothness I was after. With twice the power rating of the V30, the fact that Eminence designed them for that heavy American sound, and the irony of the name, it was a perfect match. In short, they rock in this cab and with this head. Period.
Do we ship to Canada? You bet. It's a little more expensive to send something from here to you, as you probably well know, and Canadian Customs can slow things down, but that's not a show stopper for us as long as you're aware of it ahead of time. Send me a zip code and I'll send you a shipping estimate. Be advised - this is a heavy half-stack - and I'm not just talking about the sound of it. The transformers alone are twice the size of any other amp in its class.
I took some time and listened to your music on your MySpace and here's my take on comparing the two amps. First off, tone is subjective and no two people will describe the same sound the same way. Knowing this, I'll try to be as factual as I can without saying, "Dude, my amp crushes the Mesa" or some other such nonsense. Statements like that really mean nothing. Anyway, here goes:
The Rectifier series amps are awesome tone machines for sure. I'm a big Mesa fan myself. Back in the 80's, a Seattle amp tech by the name of Mike Soldano finally broke into the manufacturing market with his flagship, the Super Lead Overdrive 100 (SLO100). The SLO was a high gain hard rock amp that immediately set the metal world on fire. Until that time, Marshall was the undisputed king of heavy rock and their JCM800 ruled. The funny thing is, Marshall didn't actually build a high gain amp until the 90's with the introduction of the JCM900 series and their decision to go this route was inspired by Soldano. Randall Smith of Mesa Engineering fame had been building high gain combos throughout the 70's, which were hotrodded versions of Fender's Blackface circuit. The SLO was an extremely modified version of the Fender Tweed Bassman/Marshall circuit and sounded differently. The amp world took notice and the result was Mesa's Rectifier series, Marshall's SL-X series, and Peavey's 5150 series. Each one of these was inspired and significantly influenced by the sound and design of the SLO100, yet they each have a unique character. The Swamp Thang is a direct descendant of all these amps and represents what I believe to be the best of all of them.
The Dual Rectifier has a heavy bottom end, strong midrange, and subdued highs. The overdrive character is smooth as compared to the more gravelly sound of the JCM800. The Swamp Thang has a heavy bottom and strong midrange, but it has a brighter top end, too. The Swamp Thang has more gain than a Dual Rectifier, but keep in mind that gain doesn't necessarily equal distortion and distortion doesn't necessarily require gain. Speaking of distortion, the Swamp Thang has much more of this on tap than the Mesa does - to the point of being unusable in my mind. Here's what I mean:
The overdrive channel of the preamp section has the potential to create mind altering distortion, as well as loads of noise. You simply can't get all the grind out of a tube amp without noise. With the gain knob maxed, the noise floor is the highest and using the footswitch to select the clean channel when you're not playing is a must. The amount of distortion at this level is more than any production amp I've heard. Heavy rock is the main style of music I design for, but I feel most comfortable with the gain knob around 12 o'clock on the Swamp Thang. Keep in mind that there are four tube gain stages in the preamp. On top of this, I designed the power amp to act as a fifth gain stage. Amps this big and powerful never allow the player to get into power amp distortion until you're way past the point of being too loud to be usable. Depending on how much drive you have dialed into the front end, you can get a healthy amount of power amp overdrive before you reach ear splitting levels. Maxing everything will put you in the realm of way too much distortion and way too much volume, to the point of being unusable. The reason I did that is so you'd know when you reach the point of getting all there is and there ain't no more, instead of maxing out a knob and wishing there really was more.
Production amp manufacturers like Mesa have to build for the bottom line, which is produce as many amps as the factory can muster, keep as many of them from coming back as possible, and keep the profit margin as wide as possible. I build each Monster amp by hand and by myself. I don't worry about the bottom line and I can afford to spend my personal time helping my customers achieve their own unique tone... which is why I spent so much time on this email.
I hope this helps you a little in your quest for tone. I love tube amps and I'm happy to help you whether you ever buy an amp from me or not. Keep on rockin' in a free world, JB, and be sure and let me know anything else you need. As for clips, I'll be recording and posting some demo vids of some of my amps on youtube soon, including the Swamp Thang. Keep checking back on our website (
www.monsterfactoryamps.com) and our MySpace (
www.myspace.com/monsterfactoryamps) and we'll make the announcement soon!
Take care!
Hoyt Harness
Monster Factory Amplification
www.monsterfactoryamps.comwww.myspace.com/monsterfactoryamps
