WARNING: GUITAR/AMP TECHY POST.
A couple of years ago I was still using my ADA MP-1 preamp with a Marshall power amp. Then at a UKMG gathering, the excellent Wide Open were playing, and I was highly impressed with their sound. Vinny Burns leant over to me and said “You’ve outgrown that ADA, you know. You need what Justin’s playing through. You need a Cornford.”
He was right, and within a month or two I had one - a nice shiny MK50. And it’s been great. I’ve had no complaints (aside from the fact that the handle has broken).
But.
Having thought I had that whole amp situation handled, I was suprised this weekend at the London Guitar Show to find myself starting to fall in love again - with a new amp. Across the way from where I was demoing was this big stand with a whole load of impressive looking amps on. I wasn’t really taking much notice of them - the noise in that place is incredible, and after a few minutes you block things out and everything starts to mush together - but eventually I wandered over and had a play.
Boy, was I impressed. They had several different models, all with differing specialities, but all great. And here’s the keyword: versatile. One thing my MK50 just will not do, is a nice clean sound and a great dirty sound. If you were to set it up to do a good clean sound you’d lose the signature drive that it has.
But these amps could do it all - from lovely punchy clean tones through great chucky rhythm sounds to full on screaming guitar-hero lead sounds, all coming out of the same box with just the tap of a footswitch.
Damn, I sound like a sales brochure, but I was impressed. Mightily so.
But what are these wonderful amps called?, I hear you ask. They are Koch, hear them roar. Edwin, the main guy, is a nice fellow too.
I can’t get these amps out of my head at the moment. Stay tuned for possible tone-changing developments. 
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