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< All Dr. Z Amplification Maz 18 Jr Reverb Combo reviews
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Dr. Z Amplification Maz 18 Jr Reverb Combo
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Dr. Z Amplification Maz 18 Jr Reverb Combo
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« Fender done better »

Published on 08/19/11 at 20:39
The Dr. Z Maz 18 is a tube combo amplifier that is basically designed to be one of the ultimate sounding clean/low gain amps. It is an 18 watt amp that is powered by two EL84 power tubes. It has a pretty standard control layout and being single channel, it's also quite simple and intuitive to figure out. It's got a gain control, an EQ control set of bass, middle, and treble controls, a master volume, a reverb, and a control named "cut" which basically acts as a presence control to provide a more "cutting" sound that sits in a mix better. It has 4, 8, and 16 ohm speaker outs and is loaded with a Dr. Z design speaker. It also has an effects loop as well.

UTILIZATION

Setting up the Dr. Z Maz 18 amp to get a good tone is dead simple. Being that it's a single channel amplifier with a very basic and time tested control layout, it's easy for any player to come in and dial in tones to taste. It's not a high gain amp, so unless you're using pedals it's more of a clean to very mild gain tone sort of amplifier. The controls are fairly standard like I mentioned and the tone-stack acts much like a typical Fender or VOX type amplifier in that it has a fairly neutral tonal range (IE: not too bassy, not too trebly) so it's good for a wide variety of guitars and a whole range of pickups from single coils to humbuckers to P90s.

SOUNDS

I've tried this guitar with various Fender and Gibson guitars with all different sorts of pickups from single coils to P90s to mini humbuckers to regular full sized humubuckers of different outputs. I haven't really tried it with pedals but from what I hear these are great pedal-friendly amps. I can imagine a good overdrive would push the amp into higher gain Marshall territory for us saturated freaks. As it stands alone, it's a fairly clean amp. With the gain at lower levels it has a cool vibe that is part Fender blackface, part VOX. As the gain is turned up it gets a bit more saturated, but it's still a very mild tone that at best is similar to a Marshall JMP as far as gain levels. It sounds surprisingly thick for a 1x12 setup, and it sounds great overall. I'm definitely a fan.

OVERALL OPINION

All in all I think the Dr. Z Maz 18 Reverb is a killer amp that is a great tool for any musician searching for an amp to get killer clean to low gain classic tones that bridge the gap between Fender and VOX. It doesn't quite have the gain I might like out of an amp, but not every amp is a high gain beast. From jazz to country to light rock, this amp does it and does it well. They are about $1,700 new which is a great deal. The amp can be had in a variety of speaker combinations as well as in a head/cabinet setup too.