Stoneham YI200 valve amp

[spyder]

I have been living with a my new Stoneham YI200 valve amp for a week now and I would like to share my thoughts on this British designed and made light weight valve amp.

I have no affiliation to Stoneham.

The signal chain is as follows, Jack Casady Bass into a Flattley Bass Compressor and Flattley Bass Fuzz using Chord Company Cream Cables.

My quest was to find a light weight valve amp ( no more than 20kg ), around 200 watts and with a simple passive tone stack. After looking at the usual manufactures that are seen in music shops I came across an old Basschat thread talking about a 200w Stoneham prototype amp yet unnamed. The tread explained the amp would be light weight and be in the 200 - 300w range. Later it turned out the Northern Basschat guys named the amp YI-200. Nothing more was said about the amp that I could find so I went on a search to get more info and to look for a chance to buy it.

The amp arrived from Martin at Stoneham in its custom flight case last week.

I opened the packaging and lifted out the amp and was instantly taken aback by the weight. The last time I lifted a valve amp was my old Laney Nexus from about 9 years ago. I remember damaging my back after lifting it up at an out door gig. Since then I have been using class D amps but have never really been satisfied with the sonic results.

The amp weighs around 18kg and even I with my damaged spine I found the lift just manageable ..... now that's a big win in my books.

Now for the exciting bit....... Plug it in.

Bass was plugged straight in without any effects at this stage.

I sold of most of my music gear during the first lock down so my cab choices are very limited. I have an old Fender BXR combo that I use just the speaker part for so this was was first go to cab.

The amp fired up without a hiss, buzz or fart, which was a good sign. I few valve amps that I have had in the past were terrible for noise on switch on.

The amp uses a simple passive tone stack so I set it to the known flat ( ish ) position of Treble and Bass completely off with the Mid set to full. Input gain was set to 3 O'clock position and I set the master volume to the 10 O'clock position.

I flicked the amp off standby and was nearly blown out off my seat............ Wow that was loud.

I turned the amp down to 7 O"clock and played my first notes. The sound was exactly as I would of expected from a clean well designed valve amp. It had midrange harmonic detail that you simply can't get from anything other than a full valve amp. IMHO.

At these setting the amp was indeed tonally flat so I started to just the tone controls. They are subtle in use but have enough range to sculpt a good sound. I settled on the bass and mid controls set to around noon. This gives a subtle bass boost with a bit of mid cut, perfect for my Jack Casady.

The amp has 7 valves in total, 3 pre and 4 power.

Three ECC83 ( 12AX7 ) handle the preamp duties and four KT120 valves give just under 300 watts of clean output power. Plenty of power for any gig that I will need now and in the future.

I started to turn the volume up and up until the house was shaking with every note played. The tone and feel did not change it just got VERY loud.

Next was to give it a little overdrive so I turned the input gain fully up. The bass started to growl and fuzz as the preamp valves started to overdrive. The sound was as expected, perfect for rock or just to have fun. Now this is not my usual setting as I prefer a clean sound so I backed the gain off to around 3 O'clock and it regained its clean composure.

The previous mentioned Fender combo that I had been using as a cab has now beed sold so Im without a speaker, until I worked out a method to contact the amp up to one of my hifi speakers ( HECO DIREKT ). This turned out to really show what the amps tonal qualities were. My hifi speakers a less coloured tonally than your normal bass speaker cab. I kept the setting the same and connected the two together. The sound tightened up but did not change its fundamental character which is a win. I'm now using the hifi speakers at home for practice until I can get another cab.................Suggestions most welcome.

In summery the amp is clean, refined and the mids contain so much harmonic detail you would not wont for anything.

Thank you Martin at Stoneham for an amazing product.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 7, 2020 by Hamster
moved to reviews and edit to title