Soldano Custom Amplification's Hotrod 50XL: A Versatile, Single-Channel Amp

Now based in Ballard, Washington, Soldano Custom Amplification puts out some of the most simple and well-built guitar amps ever made! They are entirely hand-built and hand-wired with military-grade components. They are also available in a wide range of special, custom-tolex coverings. Mine is black alligator skin.

Speaking of well-built, my test subject showed up via FedEx basically with remnants of the box just taped to it. Seriously, the box looked like it had been through a wood chipper. I ordered it from somewhere on the east coast and it looked like on it's journey to the west coast, it had some issues. Needless to say... I brushed the pieces of cardboard off and inspected everything. Not even a single vacuum tube was knocked out of it's socket! And not even a scratch on the tolex covering. Solid as a rock. Next I hook it up and plug it in to make sure everything still works. Works like a charm! The guys at Soldano seem to know what they are doing.

The amp I chose, the Hotrod 50XL, is a single-channel, all-tube, 50-watt amp. Its pair of 5881 power tubes provide more than enough power to help you cut through the mix.

It may be a single-channel amp but don't let that fool you. It's still very versatile. Sure, there's no footswitch to make changing tones a snap but the large "chicken head" knobs make for some easy and quick adjustments. It does, however, have seperate high and a low gain inputs. I prefer the higher gain option here. Even then you can still clean up the sound quite nicely and get close to the nice shimmering Fender chime. With the low gain input you can easily get that crystal clear clean tone.

On the other end of the spectrum, you can achieve the nastiest of all distortions. And by nasty, I mean it's going to rip your head off! For example, the music I play swings pretty far over on the heavy side of the tracks. I find that on this amp, running the gain at about 5-6 gives me plenty of distortion. Almost too much in fact. I also really like the fact that mine came with the XL mod. The XL mod ads some extra low end boost to the power amp section of this particular amp. It really helps this amp achieve an incredibly powerful tone.

I tried it out with a few different 4 by 12 cabinets (Marshall, Peavey, etc.), but I found it worked and sounded best with the Celestion Vintage 30 loaded Soldano cabinet. They are just a tiny bit smaller than most traditional 4x12 cabinets. No matter how loud I got and no matter how heavy I played... I could not get those speakers to "flub" out on me. The Soldano cabinet really brings out the glassy, high-end and this magnificent midrange that I could never get out of any other amp I have played.

I can't forget the best part about Soldano amps. Yes, all the knobs actually do go to 11!