The original Cyber Twin made its debut in 2001, and pretty much rocked the guitar community at that time with excellent features, super programmability, ease of use, and, of course, unbelievable sound! This newer SE release of the Cyber Twin Amp is every bit as cool, and adds a bunch of new, very usable sounds and amp models to the already plentiful palette offered in the first version. I had an opportunity to take this very cool amp home with me and give it a good listen, as well as checking it out for ease of use and versatility. I can say with complete conviction that this is one of the coolest amps I have gotten to play through in quite some time.
EASE of OPERATION
The front panel is laid out in such an intuitive, analog style that I found that the use of the manual was almost unnecessary. The 5 operating modes on the Cyber Twin – SE are easily identified and, pretty much, just a push button away from user-friendly usage. I was getting around on this amp in absolutely no time at all with great success. And for me that’s a biggie!!!
SOUND QUALITY
This amp sounds GREAT! With 2 12AX7WA tubes in the preamp section this thing really cooks. I was hugely impressed with the realism and accuracy of the tones and circuitry of this amp. The design of this makes it very easy to find very accurate versions of about 50 totally different amp circuit types within 150 factory presets…. almost no amp type I was looking for that I couldn’t quickly find. Some things were just a tad bit off from what I had intended in their original “factory” preset, but this was easily tweaked from the front panel (even FX) and nice touches like a front panel TAP button made it super easy to define even things like delay time and chorus modulation to exactly what I was looking for. Did I mention that this amp SOUNDS Great? Oh, also those tweaks that I made were easily saved as well in any one of the 100 user preset sections.
VERSITILITY
For anyone who is a club gigger, looking for a ton of versatile sounds and tones (this amp is absolutely mic’able, & the celestian speakers in this thing are truly stereo. So if you want to use two panned mics go for it! For anyone with a small (or large) studio, I was impressed with the number of options for recording that this amp presents. You can (as I mentioned) Mic it, with great success… Also there are a number of very useful other paths into your recording destination of choice. Having a fully stereo XLR direct out is a cool feature, and this amp also has a digital SPDIF out for those of us who might be looking for computer connectivity.
OVERALL
All in all there is not really anything about this amp that I can say I couldn’t recommend. If you are looking through that maze of possible “modeling ” solutions that have come to us in recent years, by my yardstick this Newer Version of the Cyber Twin…. the SE more than holds it own. Definitely an amp that I would be proud to own. If you are looking for an excellent way to get to a huge useable amp collection in one easy-to-operate step this could be the amp for you. If you already have a ton of amps (I have many custom designed and boutique guitar amps at home) I would still go for it! It’s hard to get so much so easy. Overall I give it a 10. I loved the first one when it first came out and this one offers even more. I think that I will look to add one to my arsenal soon!
