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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Guirtarist since 1990, professional experience.

Metal, Alternative, Rock

Hard rock / metal

This amp is a beast no doubt about it, but it did take a little while to figure everything out and dial in the tone i wanted. This amp is basically the exact same amp randall used to make called the RG series, which subsequently is exactly what dime used in the beginning. This is basically a bored out version of that and it rips. The squeals are impeccable and the gain is plentiful.

First off the plastic casing on the footswitch was a poor choice, but both channels are excellent, the reverb on the clean isnt fender good by anymeans but its useable. I also didnt think the effects loop was that great but then again im not too familier with them so that could just be me.

It took me about a week to finally bring out the real charm in this baby. At first i thought it was about average as far as sound went but throw a distortion pedal in front of it and look out cause it will melt your face. I actually bought a randall rx halfstack as well to see if it would be any better but once i plugged into that thing it was no decision, the Dime won hands down.

Built like a freakin underground missle silo, it could def endure the duties of regular gigging and touring. And it is really on the large side compared to most heads ive used. I have a randall cab and the Dime head actually hangs off both sides of the cab.

Easily worth the price. It might be a little too much for your first head, if your planning on being a bedroom virtuoso then get something else. This thing is loud as hell.

Never called.

I didnt care that much for the cosmetic aspect of it, but my bandmates found it to be pretty cool. Besides your in it for the feel and sound not looks.

active axe man

bluesy rock and sludge metal

It has a great distortion for it's price range. It's really noisy though, and you will need a noise gate at cranked levels. but if your looking for a decent saturated distortion this amp does it pretty good. Turning on the Overdrive drops the volume by a really noticeable amount, but it's easily fixed by cranking the volume knob to compensate. The clean channel is usable, it's nothing to write home about, but it gets the job done. Tossing in come chorus makes it pop a little more, but it's really not the reason you'd be buying this amp. The distortion channels are what you want out of this amp. Once of the main drawback to this amp is that channel switching is only done via the foot switch, so if you break it during a show, or it stops working, you're screwed. It's a real design flaw not to have a manual switch on the amp to flip between the 2 channels. Being able to toggle both channels on at the same time is welcome, even if I never plan on using it. I wouldn't use this live as setting up the dual channels never sounds good when you shut it back off and switch between channel 1 and 2. The volume levels never seem to work well with each other after tweaking it for dual mode.

The amp came with the footswitch, that's it. It has built in reverb, passable and usable, it's decent if that's your thing. There are 2 channels, clean and distortion, You can activate both at the same time and blend the 2 channels into 1 if you want. I don't see a need for it, but it's cool that you can do it. I would of liked to have seen a switch on the amp itself to change channels, you can only switch channels via foot switch. It doesn't come with a 2nd foot switch for the reverb on/off, but apparently you can get a foot switch and plug it in for that feature if you want that.

There aren't a lot of features, so ease of use is high. It's pretty plug and play. Turn it on, plug in, and crank it up. It sounds good for an amp in this price range, the "scooped mid" sound is nice, as well as the hand wipe to all 10s on the knob. I liked it. I'm picky on my amps, but for a solid state amp, I might use this live someday. The manual is very sparse, and didn't answer all my questions. I emailed Dean as a follow up for a few questions I had about the amp load and never heard back either, that's a downer. So for support options that was a little annoying, but I didn;t ding the amps ease of use for it.

The amp I have now is a replacement. The first unit I received was damaged, and 3 screws fell out of the box when I first opened it. There was a visible piece of the amp that was dangling from the amp that you could see through the rear grate, and it had damaged the components on the inside. I didn't even plug that amp in to test it, I sent it right back. I'm dinging the factory for that one, even with ups playing hockey with the amp, how hard do they need to drop it to loosen 3 screws? I'm betting someone snoozed off at the factory check and blame dean for that one. I'm not sure on who's end this was damaged on, but Zzounds replaced it with no fuss, and the 2nd amp looked fine. Cosmetically it's pretty solid, snazzy looking, yet simple in design. I'm not sure I like the Dime faceplate, I may pop it off for shows, but I'd try this out live. I don;t suspect too many issues on the road with this amp if i did use it live. I can't imagine a solid state breaking down unless I don;t take care of it.

If you need a metal amp, on the cheap, this fits the bill. I have other amps, but bought this for fun. I'd use it live if i had too, but it wouldn't be my go-to unless my main amp died.

My experience with Dean so far is a 1. I emailed them via their website with some very basic questions and they have yet to contact me. It has been months now. If Dean cannot even follow up an email, I'm rating their support a 0.

It's features are basic, it doesn't have the same lust appeal other amps have. It's a fun amp to play with though, but lust? nah.

Active Musician

Metal, Rock, Other