Tanglewood T6 Acoustic Combo TANGLEWOODT6
Tanglewood unleashes its first dedicated combo for acoustic guitars…
Acoustic Combo Words: Tim Slater
SHOULD I BUY ONE? The Tanglewood T6 offers great value for money. Bear in mind, though that this isn’t a busking amp. It is a fully-fledged yet highly portable dedicated acoustic amp that can also function as a powerful and versatile stand-alone mini active PA system courtesy of the 35mm speaker pole socket mounted on its base.
The Tanglewood T6 combo is a latecomer to the acoustic amplifier scene but according to Tanglewood UK – who initiated the project - the amp wasn’t signed off until it achieved the original criterion set during the amp’s original inception. The brief was to offer an affordable yet comprehensively well spec’d acoustic amplifier and to that effect the T6 is a completely bespoke design, not merely cobbled together from the parts bin in some remote Far Eastern factory.
Features
The T6 attempts to thoroughly address the requirements of your typical acoustic troubadour in an impressive variety of ways. Only the headphone socket feels a little incongruous but its inclusion probably stems from an attempt to tick as many boxes as possible. On the whole, however, the T6 immediately makes a very good first impression:
Firstly, the build quality feels nice and solid. The amp only weighs 12.5 Kg but it presents a tough looking design, the squat birch play cabinet is finished in a scratch resistant polymer coating and the single 8-inch driver sits snugly behind an AER-style foam speaker cover. There are two independent channels, one for guitar and a second for vocal or a second acoustic instrument. Both channels feature independent gain and a passive EQ controls (3-band for Channel One, 2-band for Channel Two), with separate guitar and XLR/combi- jack microphone inputs for either Channel. The T6 also includes four built-in digital effects: hall and plate reverbs, digital delay and a sweet- sounding combination of chorus and room reverb. If you are suspicious of low-cost DSP effects your caution would often be justified but the T6’ built-in effects sound very good, creating the right type of ambience
THE GOOD BITS:
THE NOT SO GOOD BITS: Headphone socket seems a bit superfluous.
Powerful, well spec’d, versatile.
SRP: £399.00, £429.00 with padded bag Contact: Tanglewood UK -
www.tanglewoodguitars.co.uk
without the disappointing one dimensional sound or noisy artifacts generated by some lower cost digital processors. The effects are global but they can be assigned to both or either channel using the effects pan pot on the control panel. The 60 watt solid state output stage and preamp are both rear- mounted, with a vented grill on the rear panel to help prevent the combo from overheating. The rear panel also includes a comprehensive and some might even suggest slightly over- egged I/O compliment: stereo RCA inputs for connecting a CD player, an MP3 mini-jack input and an XLR balanced DI out flanked by Effects Loop Send and Returns, a Tuner out, unbalanced Line Out, a Footswitch jack and the aforementioned Headphone socket. There are no anti-feedback countermeasures per se, however,
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Channel One’s High/Low pad attenuates the input signal by -/+10db to help compensate for differing signal levels whilst the gain level clip light and passive three-band EQ conspire to provide a fairly effective protection against feedback by helping the user to judge when the amp is starting to peak uncomfortably. If more top end sparkle is
required the Contour switch adds a very strident dollop of extra brightness, maybe at the cost of some warmth but when you need to cut through a mix, the Contour function definitely works. Channel Two’s combi-jack input makes this channel fully compatible with either an XLR microphone or a standard ¼-inch instrument cable, with a switchable Mic/Line level input to set the correct input gain threshold. PM
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