Guitar Gear Forum

I don't need anything, but I'm curious and kinda want to try a few things. I love my VTM60 ( I have two). It really is my go to amp. I've had a bunch of others that I really liked, but the VTM is like home. I dial in most amps in a way that ends up sounding pretty much like my VTM. But I think I want to try a few things. I'm considering the following

Bad Cat Lynx 50 watt head. Really curious about this amp. I've heard some really good clips, it's 50 watts, not physically huge/bigger than it needs to be and not super expensive. This is a top contender.

Friedman IR-X. I could see this being really practical. I'm a moron with tech, but this seems doable for me. I was considering the Suhr reactive load ir, but this seems like a more appealing way to record some stuff with IR's. Obviously I can't use my own amp, but the Friedman will get my VTM tones.

KSR PA50. I'd like to have a tube power amp again. I have a few preamp pedals already. I hooked up my Ceres knock off up to the loop of my Dark Terror and VTM and it sounds killer. A dedicated tube power amp with the cool features the KSR has would be cool.

Lastly, Synergy Syn-1. Another way to get a different amp tone and add a channel to my VTM. Probably would try the SLO module.

Hopefully I can make up my mind and commit to buying something soon.

I played the Lynx at Atomic Music a while ago. Great amp, not what you'd expect from a Bad Cat but still awesome. Great high gain tone.

And yeah the IR-X is awesome. I definitely want one.

I never played the PA50 but the KSR stuff is usually very sold.


And I can't recommend the Synergy system enough. Every module I've tried sounded great and it's a great ecosystem to get into. I can be a bit of a money pit though

GuitarBilly wrote:I played the Lynx at Atomic Music a while ago. Great amp, not what you'd expect from a Bad Cat but still awesome. Great high gain tone.

I OWN the Lynx that Billy played at Atomic Music a while ago. I used to own it and stupidly sold it, remembered years later how good it was, found out that whoever I'd sold it to had sold it to Atomic, drove 5 hours up to MD, bought it back, and drove 5 hours back home. And funny story I don't know I ever mentioned Billy - I initially bought it as a head from the guitarist in Daughtry

It's one of the original run and probably 15 years old at this point. But it's still the amp that I plug into, hit a chord, and say "fuck yeah."

The new ones have been getting pretty rave reviews too. Fortunately I have neither the need nor the means to FAFO

A friend of mine worked for Daughtry back in the day, I remember seeing their badcat rigs, always wondered why that was the first and I guess now last time I saw a bad cat

I bought a new version Lynx 50 and couldn't return it fast enough. The amount of gain was more absurd than that of an EVH red channel. It was totally out of control, and unusable for me, and I play metal. It was woofy, loose, and nowhere near as "tight" as they market it. I was totally disappointed, there's some good videos out there, (Ola's being the best), but I hated it.

Kanigget wrote:I bought a new version Lynx 50 and couldn't return it fast enough. The amount of gain was more absurd than that of an EVH red channel. It was totally out of control, and unusable for me, and I play metal. It was woofy, loose, and nowhere near as "tight" as they market it. I was totally disappointed, there's some good videos out there, (Ola's being the best), but I hated it.

Hmmm, interesting. I've had the regular 6L6 50 and EL34 50 watt EVH and the red channel was only usable for me with a couple of lower gain preamp tubes that corresponded with the red channel. I was able to use the gain up to 3. It did sound pretty killer though with my low output pickups. The Blue channel is where it's at for me.

Some of the clips of the new Lynx sound pretty damn good and I know I'd be rocking the gain pretty low compared to most. I think the IR-X is gonna be the first thing I get.

Yeah I don't know about the new ones but the one macgaj3 owns sounds pretty righteous. It's a ton of gain indeed but it sounded great especially for leads. Maybe the ones are different idk

Think of synergy this way. Where else can you get a legit slo preamp for $900? ($765 on holiday sales)

I'd recommend the Suhr Reactive Load IR, you can use that with any amp and it has a aux in and headphones out. That sold me over the Two Notes Captor.

I think I'm gonna go with the Friedman. Or at least first. I would be able to use the Friedman into my computer to record and still use my pedalboard as normal. I could also run it into the power section of my amp. Or even into my Mosvalve power amp. And lastly I could also run one of my preamp pedals into the Friedman and utilize just the power amp sim and IR's. Come to think of it I can also run my VTM's effects send into the IR-X loop return and again utilize the power amp sim and IR's. Of course I'll still need a cab hooked up to my amp, but I could just record through the Friedman.

That's it. Ordering one next week.

I haven't tried the others, but have the Syn-1. Ran it into a Ps2 and a modded 2203X power section. Both sound really good, and I can hear the power section differences. Both still good.

The SLO mod immediately became my #1. I rarely use the higher gain channel because I don't need it. And I like some gain!

Yeah the SLO module was my favorite. Great sounding module. If I get into Synergy again that's the first module I'm buying.