Acoustic G60T G100T 160 164 165 can sound close to Dumble?

[jazzcat]

Hi from Germany.
I have heard many times from serios players that an Acoustic G60T or an G100T Tube Amp can come close to a Dumble Overdrive Sound.
I own this Amps.
I like the clean channel realy. Its like a Fender Twin but with the Lead Channel, I have Soundproblems. The Sound remembers me a little to a Megaphone. I owned a 164 Acoustic Amp in the 80's and I remember a totally different Sound. More Fat.
What is your experience?
Tubes are new.
Thanks

[jaysg]

They're meant to sound like a Mesa Boogie Mk I or Mk II.

[heisthl]

Those were cool amps, I don't remember them sounding much like a Dumble though, I seem to remember they were a nightmare to repair. PC board with traces that wanted to lift when soldered IIRC.

[marcos]

Hi Jazzcat,
I have an Acoustic 164 standing next to my Dumble in our rehearsal room
(it belongs to someone else), and I can assure you that it does not sound like a Dumble at all.The clean sound is ok, the overdrive quite annoying.
Like a lot of early 80s amps it suffers from the fact that it uses only a single stage for the overdrive, a concept that will just not deliver the creamy overdrive as produced by Dumbles (or other modern tube amps).
IMHO all of the Dumble clones available today are much better sounding amps.
I also owned the Acoustic G 100T in the eighties.Although it was a somewhat different amp (e.g. two stage OD), it still did not come anywhere close to the Dumble(which I already owned then).
Also,the Acoustics have a reputation for being unreliable, so I personally would look elsewhere.Good Luck,Marcos

[Darkbluemurder]

Hi Jazzcat,

I had an Acoustic G 100 T in the 80s. Good clean tone, muddy overdrive, nothing similar to a Du*ble. I played it on a few gigs and after the last one it would not give any sound in the rehearsal room. Checked whether everything was connected then it started to smell funny and give up a cloud of smoke. Result: a $250 repair (a lot of money in the 80s). I sold it to my bandmate who wanted a backup for his G 100 T. Suffice to say he needed it badly! Both amps had frequent downtimes, most of the time the channel switching broke down.

My recommendation: stay away from these bloody bastards as far as you can, unless you get one very cheap and intend to gut it and build your own D-clone.

Cheers Stephan