Yet another Dumble type amp being marketed

[M Fowler]

I had to laugh when Lance Keltner and Lee Jackson put up videos about their joint adventure new amplifier, Smart Belle.

It is yet another Dumble with switchable FET marketed as new and innovative only Lee Jackson could have done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1SNg27KA00&t=730s

Mark

[Guy77]

Wow $4500 US for a dumble clone.
I hope it comes with wheels and a motor !

Cheers

Guy

[norburybrook]

Wow $4500 US for a dumble clone.
I hope it comes with wheels and a motor !

Cheers

Guy

It's what you'd pay for a bludotone or a Wellagen or two Rock so i see no problem with that.


M

[erwin_ve]

It's basically a 2nd gen hybrid with dlator built in.
I think it's a straight copy of the Bludotone 70-ie style ODS which Lance Keltner owned in the past.
Probably they did some research here as well

[dbeasley]

Would be curious to see some gut shots to see how "different" the interior layout is.


Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk

[telentubes]

A little hard to watch those two taking credit. They do have that sincerity thing down though.

[Charlie Wilson]

It's basically a 2nd gen hybrid with dlator built in.
I think it's a straight copy of the Bludotone 70-ie style ODS which Lance Keltner owned in the past.
Probably they did some research here as well

Really? I guess Lance doesn’t love his Bludotone late night anymore. Watched the video. Sorry but I have a problem with a builder(Jackson) so directly stepping on another builder's toes(Bludotone). They did not even mention Dumbles name. Sorry, lame.
CW

[erwin_ve]

It's basically a 2nd gen hybrid with dlator built in.
I think it's a straight copy of the Bludotone 70-ie style ODS which Lance Keltner owned in the past.
Probably they did some research here as well

Really? I guess Lance doesn’t love his Bludotone late night anymore. Watched the video. Sorry but I have a problem with a builder(Jackson) so directly stepping on another builder's toes(Bludotone). They did not even mention Dumbles name. Sorry, lame.
CW

It's a wild/educated guess; but remarks like: "70-ies sound like David Lindley, highly modified Fender, External/internal tube loop just like the real thing . FET, Mid boost, tone stack defeat". These things did not exist all together on no#40 or on Lindley's Dumbles. They do exist on the 70-ies Bludotone model.
It's a entertaining vid, good sounds but I agree with you it's far from a new design, presented in the vid.

[AtomCap]

Vid sounds good. Lance is a good player so pretty much anything he plugs into, he'll extract good tones - no doubt there- who knows whats happening post editing.
As for "New Design" no- sorry guys. Wish people would stop bullshitting their marketing and also come up with something ACTUALLY new...


Agreed on 70's voicing, integrated dlator has been on the block for a while- pretty standard ODS features, PAB, stack bypassing etc - no shocker..


$4500 is pretty standard market value for something of this nature - but the people getting that money have an established reputation for quality work, like Jelle and others, I'd send $$ their way long before hand..

out on a limb I'd say Lee Jackson knows what he's doing (all be it I was never a fan of His JMP/JCM800 mods - those amps had enough asis)
Then again it could be a re-badged Ceriatone - has that ever been done before??

[talbany]

It's got the 2nd generation chassis style but I think it's a

124.jpeg

Straight up.
Tony

[67plexi]

Funny how the 50 watt EL34 combo is $5k https://sono-tone.com/product/smart-belle-p51/

[jam-mill]

From https://sono-tone.com/product/smart-belle-p51/

"Together the three have taken the 70’s D tone to a new level.
The amplifier features a 4 6L6 power section for incredible headroom,
however the re-engineered master volume allows world class tone at bedroom levels."


REALLY

[FUCHSAUDIO]

I had to laugh as my experience with Keltner (as well as many other amp builders) was a complete shit show. He was sent an original ODS 50 head, loved it, gave me website and literature quotes, and things were ducky. That-is, until he realized it wasn't a gift, it was a loaner...suddenly he's "gonna sue me", I'm "ripping of his friend Dumble" and "Steve Bruton wants to kick your ass".... To his credit, he did actually call me one new years eve day and apologized for all the grief and fighting and that he was "sorry about how he acted". I'll give him credit for manning up for what a douche he was.

He tried to f*ck up my friendship with Joe Bonamassa by lying about things. He did a real number on the manufacturers he leached onto: Carol-Ann, Bludo, Dr-Z, his own Retro-Channel solid state "flaming" Wreck amplifires and products which lasted a lunchtime...I guess we'll never see his solid state D-clones now Alas, like a bad penny he's popped up again.

Interesting: All the things he beat me up for over my amps (both online and off) are now perfectly okay for him to do now, and sadly while roping a nice guy like George Metropolis into it. Interesting how he doesn't even bring up the big man's name....I don't know Lee Jackson well enough to have a personal opinion, but it's sad he's gotten roped into Keltner's little enterprise as well...Honestly, not a terribly bad sounding amp, but 50% more than our current ODS classic, and for that kind of money an ODS-II is the same price and offers so many more features and flexibility, its silly.

I give it year. I hope George doesn't get burned.

[AtomCap]

A year or less is very accurate- especially with the established competition!

The Dumble-amp community is way more demanding from a specifications/options angle than the Fender/Marshall world - and you can't mass produce amps when every customer is after something different! How far can you go on 1 configuration- a year
Wonder if this will be turret,eyelet or PCB amps?

[FUCHSAUDIO]

My guess is it's possibly high grade PC board build. I've serviced a few of George's M-style amps and he does execute a really nice amp and nice pc boards. Big traces, ground planes, really nice stuff. I'm curious if we will see gut shots too. I can't imagine starting up in the current market as it is with a D-clone. I suspect Lance has an investor..

Trust me, as a company we've made a point of trying to expand beyond being "just a clone" company as well as expanding into lower priced simpler models as well as a greater feature set on the high end.

It still can be a tough market overall. Add to that : legitimate US competition and then you also have home based clowners trying to compete commercially (with the cajones to ask for technical assistance they didn't want or expect to pay-for) as well as overseas imported clones (and guys like Tyler are rebranding that stuff as "US made" which is pathetic)...bad enough it's insanely competitive but and to that a vastly unequal playing field.