Dr Z Amps

StratDen · June 17th, 2008, 10:50 AM

Anyone own a Dr Z Route 66 (or any model for that matter), or spent time with any? If so, thoughts?

softmonkey · June 18th, 2008, 12:54 AM

They are highly regarded with a beautiful tone in the 18W version with the reverb. My friend who had one moved on to a Bruno, which he likes more, and also a Two Rock, which he swears by.

Another guitarist I know had a Dr. Z and ended up buying a Swart for around $1,700 which he says is phenomenal.

Dr. Zs are supposed to be excellent and a pretty nice bargain, all things considered.

StratDen · June 19th, 2008, 11:10 AM

My local music shop doesn't carry the line, but I've noticed a huge trend of Carr amp owners trading in for various Divided by 13 models. The Divided by 13's I've played in the local shop are well made and sound great. I could pick up a nice Carr amp for well under the new price they seem to have so many in on trade. But before I spend for an over $1,500 amp, I wanted to compare some more and I the Dr Z is on my list to look at it. In particular the Route 66.

romo · July 15th, 2008, 08:10 PM

First post on this forum...migrated here from TDPRI. I've had 2 Dr.Z's. The first was a Maz 38 w/ Reverb. Excellent amp. Regarded by the Z fans as possibly his best clean amp, and yeah the cleans were really fantastic. Really sweet chimey tone. I liked this amp a lot and if I could have afforded it I'd still have it around.

The second Z I had (and still have) is the Carmen Ghia. The CG is just a completely badass amp. The 2 knobs can be deceiving...this thing has a really wide range of tones and is very versatile. Sounds good with any guitar. The cleans are really sweet and complex although probably not quite what the Maz can do. Overdriven this amp just blows me away every time I turn it on. Really smooth blues/classic rock kind of thing...sounds fantastic. I really doubt I'll ever get rid of this amp. If anything I'd like to pick up another Maz and have a dual amp setup, Maz for clean and CG for dirty.

Sorry I can't comment on the Rt 66 specifically. Overall though the Dr. Z products are all really great. Very high quality workmanship, excellent sound and pretty reasonably priced for a boutique hand wired amp.