Dean Markley DM30RC Guitar Combo Amplifier

The amp arrived in an inner box that had obviously been torn open none too carefully, probably by a previous buyer. One cornerprotector was dented. It should have been sold as "open box" or "scratch and dent" rather than as a new item at full price. The reverb unit did not work at all. The clean channel was actually quite nice, but the drive channel was muddy, fuzzy solid state distortion. It hadwhat was obviously a very inexpensive speaker which may have been worth upgrading had the overall quality seemed a bit better, butit was returned.

This 30 watt solid state amp has a great clean channel and a great chorus. You can almost play an electric acoustic thru it - it's that clean. The reverb is hardly noticeable. The distortion channel might be good for others; however, I am an old pro, and purchased this to take pedals and keep the stage volume low. My Delta Blues with a 15 is unmanageable in that regard. Using a Tech 21 Blond pedal, which emulates a tweed tube amp, this sounded like my Delta Blues mic'd thru the PA, but only at 25 lbs, and not killing the drummer's ears next to me..I had this amp for less than two years, & had only used it for rehearsals and maybe one gig. We don't rehearse or play very often.I used it this past weekend at an outdoor party. We were a 3-piece, so I was playing lots of power chords. It was mic'd thru a PA, and I had it feeding into my monitor as well, so that emulated tone was plenty loud thru the monitor. In the last set, playing a crunch tone and pushing my effects hard, it shut down suddenly. DEAD! I had the master on maybe 35%, and the same for the clean channel. It was still dead the next day. There is no externally accessible fuse, so short of taking it in for repair, it is now worthless.I've been playing for over 50 years now, and it's a shame that this modern, off-shore gear has such a high failure rate. Keep in mind that all electronics have roughly an 8-9% failure rate these days.For the money, it's a good amp for pedals, clean jazz, or even an electric acoustic.Just bring a spare if you plan on gigging. I didn't for the first time in years; however, we finished the show by putting the output of that Blond pedal right thru the board instead of to my amp.

Clean channel on this amp sounds really nice and the EQ is very effective. There is a sweep knob in the EQ section that brings out the upper midrange. It's very good at highlighting the honk of Fender Strat single coil pickups. The amp can put out the volume and will get natural speaker breakup/overdrive at full volume. I think it would work in a band setting if you were not going for loud clean tones and appreciate the sound of light overdrive. The distortion/overdrive channel of the amp isn't that great but it's not terrible for a solid state amp. Reverb is subtle and not that great in my opinion. The chorus sounds good and is very usable. Headphone jack is nice for late night practice sessions. The amps takes pedals nicely too. I wouldn't say this is a light amp but it won't break your back moving it either. The build quality seems good and solid to me. Overall, I think the pros outweigh the cons in this amp and it is probably one of the better solid state amps on the market in this price range. Keep rockin'.