Review - Fender Rumble 100 1x12 vs Gallien Krueger MB110 1x10

[Paul Clifton]

Just a quick note of my thoughts when A/B-ing these two practice/small gig amps at home recently.

Comparison of features
Both are similar in price and weight (Rumble £240, GK £260; GK 21lbs, Rumble 22lbs); both have a single ceramic speaker and no tweeter. Both feature 4-band EQ and preset contour button. Rumble also has vintage and bright switches. The Rumble is bigger (bigger 12 inch speaker) and has a lovely design that appealed to me as it matched my Princeton guitar amp with its silver cloth front. The GK is more compact with a more modern, utilitarian look. Knob-quality is higher on the GK, general build quality is good on both. Both have 1/8th inch aux-in, headphone out (1/4" on GK, 1/8th on Rumble) and DI out. However, the GK DI is balanced neutral pre-and post selectable, but the Fender is cabinet-emulated and post-EQ, so you can't get a 'pure' clean signal to a PA board or studio.

Sound
The most important factor!

The Rumble has a more mid-focused tone, with lots of grunt and punch, and can go surprisingly loud for such a little unit. It is quite boomy and bassy, but the major shortfall for me (as a sad 80s slaphappy player) is that it cannot deliver glassy highs, and is quite harsh on the top end. The choice of 13khz as the treble and bright switch frequency may be a little too high for a full range speaker with no tweeter (the GK uses 4khz). Overall the sound was a little flat and lifeless, though for finger style rock and roll it was nice and punchy and trouser-flapping.

The GK was surprisingly clear and rounded in comparison. I found I used the pre-cut contour switch all the time to get rid of the 'boxiness' from the small closed-cab's flat EQ settings. With treble and bass at 2 o'clock and low mids and high mids flat, the sound was very rounded and clean - punchy low end and crystalline highs (surprisingly good considering no tweeter). Overall, I way preferred the tone (for my style of play) to the Rumble, and it was also noticably louder - surprising considering the smaller 10" speaker, which I expected to fart out as I pushed up the volume. The only disappointment in the amp was the huge difference in sound when switching to headphones - a massive change of EQ was required (contour off, treble reduced to almost zero) to achieve a similar tone. I suspect this would also be the case for DI ing it.

Overall
The GK has a much smaller footprint but is louder and with a clearer, punchier tone. For twenty quid more than the Rumble (best internet prices) it was the clear winner for me, which is a shame as I loved the Rumble's styling and had high hopes for it. The lack of a decent clean DI out on the Rumble was the final nail in its coffin - it was returned and the GK MB 110 was kept.

Edited October 14, 2016 by Paul Clifton

[JapanAxe]

Excellent informative review Paul, just the things we all need to know.

[Paul Clifton]

Cheers! I couldn't find a comparison review before I bought so I thought it might be useful for other people in a similar position.

[lowhand_mike]

good review, been thinking about getting a practice amp for home, just need to find the time to practice to justify it

[Twincam]

I calculated (roughly) the port tuning on a fender rumble 100 v3 last night. They are fairly boomy. Sounds good for some styles and horrible for others.
Forget now it's port tuning think it was in the upper 60s(hz). I temporally lengthened the ports to lower the tuning it seemed so much better! The boom was drastically reduced. Notes were well defined. Unfortunately the combo is my girlfriend's and she didn't want me messing about too much as she likes how it sounds and doesn't trust me haha.

Why fender tuned it this way I'm not sure they could of easy added length to the two 3" by 2.5" ports. But I guess they had there reasons. Port velocity went up but I doubt enough to be an issue.

Edited October 14, 2016 by Twincam