I bought this on a whim as I like playing with new toys. It's cheap enough that you can buy it and not feel bad about it. What's surprising is that it has a very decent metal tone. If scooping mids is your thing, it really shines in that department.

Sound
It sounds great for an amp in this price range. It's got a great bite and attack. I think it sounds best when 'diming' the amps settings (except the middle, I'm one of those that like the scooped middle tone.) You buy this tone for channel 2, the chug channel, it works great for that. The clean channel is actually pretty good, no complaints there, I'm not usually one to fool around with cleans too much, but it does the job just find sprinkling in a little reverb or a chorus pedal.

Features
Besides a 3 band EQ, it has a gain boost, which is actually a very noticeable drop in volume when engaged, but it does thicken up the gain. At 120 watts though you can crank the volume a bit more to match your non-boosted volume. It would seem odd to have a boost that actually isn't as loud as the original, but hey, it's OK a short twist of the volume knob and you're good to go. Not having a head button or switch channels however is unforgivable. What if you lose, or break your FS1 switch 9the box that picks your channel.) Are you then stuck on a particular channel forever? It would seem so! I mainly stay on channel 2, but this is truly a major flaw in the design.… read more

Ease of Use
It's simple to get a good tone from this amp, as long as you want metal, which is probably why your buying this amp anyway.

Quality
I was originally shipped a unit with a barely attached reverb plate. 3 of the 4 screws came loose at some point and were rattling around in the amp. A minor inconvenience that was remedied by Zzounds the same day it arrived by shipping me out a new head while generating a return order on the defective unit. The new unit seems OK, construction wise it feels pretty sturdy, minus the all plastic FS1 footswitch. I wish that was in metal, it's the only way to change channels on this unit.

Value
Yes. It is well worth what you pay for it in terms of bang to buck ratio. I'd probably buy another one if this broke as it is a good 2nd amp to have kicking around, or to add to a mix when recording.

Manufacturer Support
I emailed Dean once about the output levels and tried to get info on if it knew if I had a 4 ohm load or 8 ohm load automatically based on what was plugged in. Did it simply assume 1 connection equals 4 ohms? Or 2 connections equals 8 ohms per channel etc. They never responded to my email request, which wasn't that complicated, nor documented in the very small booklet that came with the amp. So I still have no idea. Currently I run 2 cables out from the amp into 8 ohm slots on my cabs (assuming 4 ohms total) But I have a few cabs that are only sporting one 8 ohm connection, will it know the load is only 8? or try to pump in 4 ohms and blow my cab? no idea! the company wont respond and I don't see it documented.

The Wow Factor
Some people may dig the chrome (plastic) Dime logo faceplate, it's fairly flashy looking, or the lightning bolt knobs, or maybe the "D" shaped handles on the sides, but eh, all that stuff means nothing to me. If it doesn't sound good it's not worth it. Luckily this sounds great for the price range it is in.

Musical Background:
Guirtarist since 1990, professional experience.

Musical Style:
Metal, Alternative, Rock read less