Well, I finally got my Madison Divinity Head. And it kicks dick. It blows a Marshall and Mesa away. I've owned both and I fuckin love this thing. Not to mention it looks straight evil
I've had one practice with it and I was playing with a SD TB-4, (which should be renamed TB-4U for Too Bad 4 U that you have to use this gay pickup) and it still kicked ass. I just put in my 81 and I'm sure it will sound even more badass. I haven't had a whole lot of time to dick with the cleans or the Edge 1 channel but Edge 2 is brutal. I am playing through a Madison Minstrel cab too and the thing rules. The only beef I have with it is the Tolex is soft and sensitive so you don't want to hurt its feelings. I got the half stack for a little over $1000 so you can't beat that. Mind you its no Engl but for the price it schools. Fuck Marshall and Mesa. I'll post more after tonights practice. Oh and one more thing. My last setup was a Randall Cyclone through an Orange cab and I couldn't be heard through the Bass hartke, Drums, and Ampeg ss-140c, even the vocals drowned me out. And I had that sucker cranked to the point it would distort... badly. Now I have to turn down. That is what guitar players should be told to do. Not turn up. Until next time bitches-C-ya.

You couldn't be heard with a Randall Cyclone That thing is 300W. Did you use a 16 Ohm Orange cab? If so that will cause a huge drop in volume output. You guys must play at unbelievable volumes.

I have thought about getting a Madison cab for my Cyclone, but I'm unsure about their speakers. I don't have a ton of money to play around with to get one just to see how good they are.

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pictures?

what kind of speakers are in the cab?

sound description?

what kind of tubes is it running?

where did you buy it? new used?

not much of review man, i just saw fuck marshall, fuck mesa, dick this, dick that....

glad you like it though.

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what xdx said

sound description, from what i read it sounds like a beefed up recto, but i really have no idea


EDIT: i just saw a sweet deal on ebay for this half stack, im gonna heavily conisder it.

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All I know is they got 3 different speakers to choose from in their cabs. None of them are anything like I have heard of before. I looked for speaker specs but found nothing on them.

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Fuck Mesa ehh?

FUCK YOU

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I knew that was going to happen. Isn't Madison amps Soild State (SS)? SS amps can sound like no tube amp and vise varsa. What are you playing that Mesa cant compete with?

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actually there tubed

madison has their own speakers but from what i hear they're pretty kik ass. eden makes their own speakers too. i passed up a really good deal on one but i diddnt have enough info so i diddnt get it. i regret it now eh? a couple of different bands use madison 8x10 bass cabs and they sounds pretty good.

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Madison is tube.

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i think madison's gonna be one of those "up and coming" brands, like Ran. Cheap now, but wait a few years and you'll be kicking yourself for not picking one up.

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sorry for not getting back right away. i was away from a computer till now. to answer some of your question, since i am at work and busy as fuck and will post a full review soon, yes i played the randall through a 16 ohm and yes we play at unbelievable volumes. for all you marshall and mesa enthusiasts out there i meant no offense to you personally, jesus. stupid. but i have owned and played both and this Madison kicks both their asses. they do make their own speakers and i play through Minstrels. the speakers kick ass, man. I love this stack so much especially since i put in the 81. God it just cranks now. very clean dist. no break up at all and not a hint of mud. i'll try to post pics soon and will give a full review of the sound when i have time. sorry about the wait. Oh yeah, i found out they just upped the price of these suckers. i was the last guy to get one for $699 now i think they are $999?

Randall Cyclone at 16 ohms? tsk tsk ...


I'll bet you an e-dollar your other guitarist with the solid-state Ampeg VH-140 head with half the watts of the Cyclone is running correct ohms on his head. With solid state amps, it makes a HUGE difference.

Yeah, 8 Ohms is good but 4 Ohms will be the loudest. I bet if 4 ohms were used with that Cyclone the light bulbs in the place would have exploded

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And 16 ohms ... bleh.

The headroom does'nt truly open up until you're running it at four!

Or two ohms at 350 watts like my Crate

The Cyclone is 300W at 4 ohms. It will distort easy with 16 Ohms because the power amp has to push even harder then normal to avchieve the desired volume heard at 8 or 4 Ohms. No wonder he didn't like the Cyclone. He might have only been getting 80W out of it with 16 ohms

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Yeah ... damn shame. The Cyclone is a nice amp.

My boy used to have one, and a Randall Cab. He sold it though so he could move in with some dumb chick....only to move back 6 months later....

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just got back from my roadtrip to denver for sounds of the underground. and there was a madison booth/tent set up. so, me not having played guitar for a couple days, and wanting to hear these things, and having three bands i didn't like play in a row. i gave it a spin.

i mostly played the three channel divinity though a slant cab. with a "nothing special" ibanez.

sounded like a generic high gain amp to me. lots of usable gain, a fair amount of lows, highs and mids... easy to dial in. but the voicing just isnt my thing. i like my amps to have that magical tone mojo thing. this was a very sterile compressed high gain amp with a very generic sound to it..

so for what it is, i say not bad. and i am giving it ALOT of slack, because the guitar and location werent exactly the most flattering.
i would definately not give it any kind of mesa or marshall killer title. but i could see them climb into there own little tone niche eventually.

the bass gear they had... i honestly thought sucked though. just stupid bad...

i'd like to play em again sometime. perhaps in a better surrounding and with a nicer guitar.

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Hey XDX think i would like em?


to be honest this review cant be trusted right now because he is still on the honeymoon period.


right now i could get the whole halfstack for cheap, and then if i dont like it i could sell it a bit later when they are worth more

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I'd have to say that xDx is right about it sounding sterile. But hey, that is exactly the tone I am looking for. Sterile amp, sterile pups, I might as well just smoke a bunch of beaners and be done with it. Oh, I also forgot to mention I used a BBE as well. I said Marshall and Mesa killer because I have owned both, gigged with both and hated them. But then again, I AM STERILE. This amp is not for everyone and is by no means the best I have ever heard but for me it rules. I was going for a Pierced type of tone and so far this has gotten me the closest combined with the 81 and BBE. Although I bet if I wasn't so fucking stupid I could have got that Cyclone to come close. Retarded.

Don't worry about it man. I bet the resale value on the Madison will better then Randall in the future anyway. I know that tone you are looking for and I'm glad you found it

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shit, maybe... what kind of sounds are you into?

when i say generic and sterile. i don't mean in a bad boss metalzone kinda way. i mean more in a good emg kinda way. it was fairly tight and clear, really hifi..

the sounds i was dialing in were mostly ion dissonance-ish sounds. as i couldnt get a decent pushed medium gain sounds. and then cleans... pretty standard nothing to write home about cleans for a high gain head.

basically not my kind of head. i'm more in the sweet midrange amp range like soldano, splawn, marshall, ect...

i'd like to try em again with a better guitar. a $300-400 ibanez wasnt exactly the most flattering thing to play on an amp for the first time..

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well i do like sterile tones

like suffocation, new dying fetus, decrepit birth (sometimes)
i really like the tone on every cannibal corpse album with corpsegrinder

im also a big fan of the necrophagist tone which it much more toneful and abit less brutal then all the others i listed

how is the clarity on this head?
that is something that is important to me.


EDIT:fuck the sweet half stack deal is gone on ebay now

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If you like Suffo and DF's tone I think this amp is worth checking out. That was the tone I was going for and it gave it to me. XDX is right though. It definitely is not a warm middy type of amp. But the clarity is sparkly
It has a lot of definition. That was what I was trying to achieve with the Randall. Paired up with an 81 this amp gives me a similar tone to Suffo's. Although it is a tube head.

Well shit, I was also at the denver show and checked that booth out. That guitar was a fucking piece of shit, and all beat up. Whoever played it tuned it to like drop-c with 10's on it. If i woulda known you were there I would have held a sign up for "xDx (gear-god)" HA, but i was too busy puking from the 15 dollar shitty burger and drink i had to wait 2 hours in line for.


BTW What the fuck is wrong with the SD TB-4???? its just a trem spaced JB... oh yea i forgot your a sterile person.

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As sterile as Chong's Beaner song.

haha good shit

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haha no shit man.. that show was a blast... but the lines and prices for food and drinks were so outrageous. and there were alot of meathead jock dudes and slipknot kids. i've never beat so many kids up at a single show.

every time i walked by that booth i just saw some kid with long hair trying to shred. finally when the last three bands befor LOG i decided i'd give it a shot. there was also some old dude on the bass next to me trying to get me to jam with his sloppy old ass. luckily i don't know every ozzy song.

denver is fucking nuts.

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i was at the MA Sounds of the Underground. Good-ass show, but i didnt see a Madison booth.... just Jagermeister booths and a bunch of bad food places.

SYL, GWAR, the red chord, and LoG were the top four.

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aww, the red chord didnt hit up denver...

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Crate GT3500h owns for high gain sterility.

is the red chord pretty good? opeth kicked my ass, i had never heard or seen them before and it was cool how gene hoglan played for them. I ended up drinkin crown with him and SYL on there tour bus after the show.

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for real?

God, I wish I would have known about this amp before I got the Madison. I still have yet to try one out. High gain sterility makes me cream myself, but its OK cause I'm sterile. Do you think I could use it as a prophylactic?

yep, i ate a bad burger during the show, ended up leaving at the 3/4 mark for LoG's set. I went and sat in the grass, recooporated, snuck into the VIP/Tour bus lot with a bottle of crown and gave it to gene as a present for the end of the tour, and told him he did a great job playin for opeth (and syl) and he kicked ass in death. Ended up kickin back some crown with him.

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wow, i disbanded emgs cause they were so sterile, i hated them. I dont see how you can love it so much.

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i'm not to into opeth...

but if you havent heard the red chord you better check em out. kind of grindcore-like shit. really good stuff.

the current drummer for unearth used to drum for them. so i bet that was interesting for the his new band to play a few shows with his old band.

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somebody was saying the red chord was similar to what dying fetus, necrophagist, and decapitated

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There is no bad blood between the two.. at first Unearth was reluctant to let him join because they are fans of The Red Chord but they needed a drummer, and he is quite a good drummer lol.

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i never said there was bad blood between the two. but it'd just be funny.

he's a pretty good drummer. he just slops up somtimes.
last time i saw the red chord they had jon from dead water drowning. damn what a fucker, he was amazing.

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kinda. they have the death grind sound down pretty well, but with alot more of a metalcore feel imo.

try to track down a couple mp3's or something and hear for yourself. because you know how it is these days with sub genres.

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i have recently bought a madison divinity head and 4x12 minstrel cab on ebay for 950.00 bucks. I was also trying to debate getting a DSL100 stack as well. I was wondering if i made the right decision. I have called many music stores around here and no one has heard about madison amps. So if yall could tell me more about them that would b nice.

Sounds like you can tell us more about them in a few days

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ohhh, so it was you who took that sweet deal eh?

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Kill'em

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i got about two sweet deals in the works that will change my tone considerably for the better.

let's just say for once Guitar Center is my favorite place ever.

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how about some 530 clips already?

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*dangles clips over your head*

Oh i'll do 'em when i'm good and ready.

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I just back from tour and Madison had sent me out a Divinity head to try out so that was a cool little suprise. It looks kinda cool but I can see that plexi-glass front panel looking good for too long, that shit scratches in a second. I dont know if I made the mistake of A/B with my Framus Cobra but I wasnt that impressed with the tone or the gain but then again they only sell for $600 $700 right? so Im not sure if im taking that into account, im going to mess arround with it for a few more days. Also There is a new song from THE ABSENCE on METALBLADE.COM from our new CD "From your grave" that comes out sept 6!!!

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I'm looking forward to it

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my other guitarist just talked to the guy at Madison and told him we werent to happy with the heads so hes having us send them back to him for some type of mods and hell send them back to us too try out again, he thinks it will be more what were looking for, I guess well see what it ends up like.

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Maybe your input will help them design there next generation of amps

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What kind of mods and exactly what didn't you like about the heads?

I thought maybe a cup holder and an ash tray would be nice. That way you never lose your beer or cigerette.

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Well... back from tour with a report on how well my other guitarists Madison head and cab sounded and held-up...lets just say he borrowed Dead to Falls 5150 almost every show. I heard it right out of the box after the new mods were done, im not sure what was done but it actually sounded better before. There were technical issues within the first few days like channel switching problems and poor volume and tone, Madison even sent him new tubes to switch out to see if that would help the tone...it didnt. What pissed me off was the crappy wheels on the cabs because i had to help move that shit! Oh, My Cobras worked and sounded great by the way (shameless Framus plug!)

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nice feedback... just let madison know. maybe the feedback from a pro player with help them get those amps up to par.

go cobras!

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