I picked this unit up to have an easily carried backup amp on hand, but the more I play with it the more I feel like making it my main rig. If you like the sound and response of old Fender amps you'll find a friend here, with three-knob tone stacks emulating Fender's '57 tweed, '61 white, and '65 black amp series. The '65 is the only one I can speak to, and it is frankly brilliant, behaving exactly like my BF amps without the tonnage. I can feed the line out to F/X returns on my Quilter or Webb amp, or feed a powered speaker or PA channel.
I comes with a 24vdc power supply that allows it to drive a speaker with up to 25 watts. It will also operate on a standard 9vdc with some reduction in headroom and speaker output.
The power supply that came with mine makes a wee bit of noise, I am waiting to see if a second one is any quieter, regardless this is far from a deal breaker for me.
I'm curious if anyone else here has tried this or the "UK" variant and what your observations may be.
It's not a stompbox effect but a full-on preamp, I much prefer it to the 202's front end so I feed the 202 effects return with it, although I do stack the reverbs as they each have their own sound. The SuperBlock does not have an instrument level output although its line output could be dialed down to work. Like other Quilter amps the effects loop is also a line level affair.
Jon Light wrote:Meanwhile, what IS that low profile right angle XLR plug?
Early Neutrik 90 degree XLRF to XLRM patch cable paired with an XLRF-to-TRS adapter on the other end. Add mic cable in between as needed for longer runs. Remnants of a previous life
I build my own amps... but I seldom use them anymore. I have a SBUS and at home I use the 24v supply and a 6 or 12" speaker for practice. At a gig, I go direct with a 10,000 power bank (battery) and a USB 5V -> 12VDC converter plus polarity switcher. Sounds complicated, but it really isn't... works great. I can also either use the speaker out for a passive personal monitor or the headphone out into a small powered speaker as a personal monitor. I'm kinda shocked at how well this has served me. I play mostly Hawaiian with a Clinesmith frypan and I generally look for rolled-off highs and use the '57 (tweed) setting on my Quilter. I've played some festivals this summer and the sound guys are really happy with the interface.
"The Masher of Touch and Tone"
-1950 Fender Dual Pro 8
-1950's Fender Dual Pro 6
-Clinesmith D8
-Clinesmith 8-string Frypan
-Clinesmith Joaquin
-~1940 National New Yorker
-~1936 Rickenbacher B6
-Homebuilt Amps
I play a SuperBlock US and a QuilterDirectAmp through a Fender Tonemaster FR-12. I like the combination so much that my other amps are collecting dust. The built-in reverbs are great, but the DirectAmp is more lush. An advantage of the direct amp is that it has two balanced line-outs and a more tameable boost channel. The effects loop on both is so convenient that putting your volume pedal through it does not involve long cords. I usually run a delay, and the volume pedal through the loop.
I have not noticed a hum from the power supply. I use this for a power supply I bought on Amazon for about $12.
I liked the SuperBlock US so much that I had two of them and sold one after I purchased the DirectAmp.
I first used the SuperBlock US with the Quilter TT because the controls were difficult to adjust in the tilt-back configuration. I even used it with my Milkman half-and-half. I am a fan of the SuperBlock US and the DirectAmp.
I'm using the Superblock US. This lil gem is fantastic. I've been running it through a Quilter 10" or 12" block dock speaker.
I played an outdoor gig last night with it going through the 10" speaker.
My band is a 4 piece: drums, bass, steel/vocals, guitar/vocals. We had 2 vocal mics & guitar going through the PA. The drums weren't miced & the steel wasn't in the PA either.
The Superblock keeps up just fine.
Thanks, Dave
Emmons ReSound'65 S-10 5x5. Milkman PS Mini. Fender pedal steels, amps & guitars. A few Sho~Buds.
Jon Jaffe wrote:
I have not noticed a hum from the power supply.
The noise I am getting from the SuperBlock 24v power supply is not a hum but a quiet swishing sound, perhaps artifacts from the switching circuit. It's so subtle many folks would not notice, and is completely buried by the signal from my steel, I'm still following up on whether this is normal or an anomaly.
I have the SuperBlock on my pedalboard for guitar, lap steel and dobro. I didn't like it much for pedal steel. I run it on 9v with the headphone output to a TC Furlong SPLIT powered speaker and it really does the job for those instruments. I have not found a preamp that sounds as good as my Sarno Tonic for pedal steel.
Bowman SD10 push pull 3x5, Modified Hudson PedalBro, Sarno Tonic preamp, Furlong split, Altec 418B in Standel Custom 15, '67 Showman with D-130F in cabinet, Ganz Straight Ahead, custom Wolfe 6 string dobro, '52 Gibson Century 6, Gallagher OM with acoustic StringBender, '67 Martin D-35s (#3).
I love mine - it's become my main amp, running direct for recording / shows, and with an 8" speaker cabinet for rehearsals (and sometimes as a stage monitor).
Even better with a 12" cab If I don't need to take the subway and there's no stairs to contend with.
Sounds great, weighs next to nothing! I don't foresee a scenario where I would go back to a 40-50lb amp again.
If anyone wants the real amp without the quilter effects box , let me know.
I am downsizing, too many vintage fender amps.
It’s a shame you can’t get the original Clean Straight sound through the new effects boxes and pedals that the real tube amps produce.
I use my SuperBlock almost exclusively as a pre-amplifier. I only use the 25 W amplifier in low volume settings such as band practices without a drummer and I have an 8 inch speaker to plug into. Who uses it in a club with pedal steel, a drummer and vocal reinforcement?
When I started putting it through its paces this week I tried pretty much every possible configuration, just exploring the possibilities (there are a lot!).
I immediately determined that the fact that it could be used it as a head into a speaker was super cool but not likely to be sufficient in a full band (as sole source of sound). I'd be running into the marbles (overdriven) to get the needed speaker volume. Coffee house duo gig? Probably good.
Into sound reinforcement, just using the speaker out for stage monitoring -- that probably would work but it wouldn't present any advantage over running into a powered speaker, one option being into the FX return of a pretty small Micro Pro Mach 2 12HD. Being nice and compact, this presents the option of using it as a passive speaker cab (with a double female cable adaptor), or a powered speaker cab with an out to the board (or taking the headphone out of the SBUS to the Mach 2 and using the line out of the SB to the board.....not sure if there's any advantage to this...?)
Anyway, the versatility is extreme. And I will experiment with a 100W 8 inch speaker just to see if the portability of a single 8 cab presents an appealing option.
Bottom line, first and foremost, is that the thing sounds really good. I'm liking it better than a number of other options I've tried recently.
Got one yesterday afternoon. Really like it so far. This is my first Class D amp. It's always been BF Fenders for me.
Last night, I spend a couple of hours playing lap steel (single coil) and 6string (humbuckers) through it using headphones only. I thought it sounded great once I got things dialed in. Today I hooked it to a 2x10" closed back cabinet, played some clean pedal steel then dimed it with both 1W (9VDC) and 25W (24VDC) power supplies. Sounds good both ways.
I mostly play through a '65 BF Not RI DR for indoor gigs. We mic everything. I don't think the SBUSA is quite as loud as the DR (22W) but the speaker difference is a big factor. The 2x10 is 16/4 Ohms which produces a little less power than using 8 ohm cab. I'll hook it to my DR speaker and compare. I was planning to use the SB as a backup for that amp.
A guitar/mic level output jack would have been a good addition. The line output can be reduced with the master volume but that also turns down the speaker output considerably.
It seems like I'm hearing a sort of "click" artifact when picking with the gain and limiter dimed. Not a sonic deal killer for me yet. It's a keeper. I'll probably end up using it for much more than a backup.
Carters Starter, D10 8+7, SD10, Chandler RH-2, Rogue RLS-1
ISO Sustainus Ad Infinitum
Bob Sykes wrote:
It seems like I'm hearing a sort of "click" artifact when picking with the gain and limiter dimed. Not a sonic deal killer for me yet. It's a keeper. I'll probably end up using it for much more than a backup.
That is an artifact of the limiter's attack time. If both gain and limiter are dimed the internal signal is huge so the limiter is performing extreme gain reduction in a very short time with each new note. The "click" is the brief part of that note that got through ahead of the limiter attack curve.
