Sound of Stiletto Ace compared to Deuce & Trident

The Boogie Board

Help Support The Boogie Board:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

guitarchris76

Well-known member
Joined
May 17, 2007
Messages
63
Reaction score
0
I am getting a Stiletto Ace combo and was wondering how it sounds in terms of tone and gain to the Deuce and the Trident.
 
It's more or less the same concept except it is noticeably brighter. You can turn the presence off and keep the treble low and it sounds good but almost sounds like it would prefer to be brighter still - very similar to rolling your guitar volume back while on the bridge pickup. There are some great tones in there for sure though! Fluid Drive w/ tube rectification and spongy with treble/presence/mids set below 10:00 is very Recto-esque. I found the most joy in the tite gain mode. Fluid Drive has a sort of harshness in the highs and is looser in the bottom end.

I played a Deuce before buying a Stiletto Ace combo and have to admit I liked the Deuce much better. The Ace is still a great amp though.
 
It's all subjective and you need to try them all to see what you like best.

My impression when I tried them together was that I preferred the Deuce II over the Ace. I do wish the rectifier switches were on the front of the amp, like the Ace, though.

I Deuce just sounded warmer to me. I was able to get the brighter/tighter Ace characteristics when running the amp at 50 watts and plugging the speaker cabinet into the 4 ohm output. This brightened the amp up and was very similar to the Ace. In practice I never do this and run the amp using the 8 ohm output to get a warmer/looser feel.

+1 on the Tite Gain mode. This is my favorite on the Stiletto. This mode bcan go from clean to over the top gain just by setting the gain on the amp to about 2 and using your guitars volume control. I find that I prefer the crunch of Tite Gain over either Crunch modes. It's smoother and warmer and can almost match the Crunch modes with my guitar volume down at about 6.

I wish they made a combo version of the Deuce II
 
The Deuce will handle lows better because of the bigger power section, and I'm guessing the Trident will be even better in that area.

Over and over, when I've seen an amp offered in a 50 and 100 watt configuration, the majority of the time people like the larger wattage. I don't know how the Trident compares to the Deuce, but I know in the Rectifier line, a lot of people prefer the Triple to the Dual's tone and feel because the Triple is tighter, less fizzy, and more brutal.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top