Tones of the Beast: Five Essential Heavy Metal Amps, Part 2
From the Dark Terror to the Coreblade, we collect five more outstanding metal guitar amps.
Related Content
Hughes & Kettner Coreblade
Germany's Hughes & Kettner offers a huge range of gear for players in search of an assortment of tones. It dabbles in "the vintage thing" with its Puretone amps and produces several cost-effective solid-states, including the Attax. The Coreblade, however, is a bit different.
For starters, compared to some others, this is a very big head -- but the sound it produces is also big, if not huge. The amp, the flagship head in the brand's Pro Class, delivers seriously tough tone, dynamic response and an explosive punch. Two of the four channels are voiced to offer completely different high-gain alternatives. The amp's Drive channel supplies the classic sounds of the early metal era. The Clean channel offers tons of headroom, rendering even the most aggressive attack with sparkle and chime.
Boost is separately switchable and three effect modules may be used simultaneously for each per channel. The ultra-precise, remarkably musical IDB noise gate is available for all channels. Programmable potentiometers enable settings to be stored in 128 memory slots, and the included MIDI board affords easy access to these presets.
The Coreblade is the first tube amp that downloads presets directly to USB sticks and uploads new presets at the touch of a button. Best of all, every sound is all tube with no modeling.
For more about this amp, check out these two review videos featuring GW's Paul Riario. The top video checks out the amp's sounds; the bottom video focuses on its features.
MSRP: $2,649 | Buy at Amazon

Related
![]()
brettmair
October 09, 2012 at 6:02pm
Wow...best amps in metal? For the elite only? The Dark Terror? That thing is too new with too little power to be in the "Best Heavy Metal Amps" list already. My list...
Sovtek Mig 100
JCM 800
Orange Rockerverb
Peavey 5150 (Original model)
Rivera Knucklehead Tré
![]()
johnnycnote
October 09, 2012 at 2:20pm
So they don't think people would be interested in the output of the H&K, or what tubes it uses? Maybe just an oversight, or someone was lazy . . .
![]()
gregmitchell
September 17, 2012 at 2:31pm
Hughes and Ketner was an amplifier I had some experience with and I think they're on to something. All these amps are elite amplifiers and a person should be elated with their purchase given the size of their investment, these aren't cheap.
![]()
rockinbrewer
August 23, 2012 at 2:41pm
Back in the '90's Aspen Pitman of Groove Tubes fame elected to build amplifiers, one of which was the GT Electronics Solo 75.
When tubed with EL34's tone is similar to a JCM 800 except way more gain onboard with great note to note clarity.
Fantastic feedback characteristics due to onboard oscillator.
Too bad they are out of production...
![]()
reverendhell
August 22, 2012 at 12:31pm
These are all great amps- in part 1 too- but so far no Randalls? Unless I overlooked one in there- I got my greasy mitts on a 1st generation Warhead, and I can say that it's such a great amp, I hope to have my ashes sprinkled inside of it when that time comes, just so I can continue to enjoy it's tone- if all the amps featured here are just newer models, I know there are some others that sound just as good- anyway, keep up the great work!














