NAD - Laney Lionheart L50H: 50 watts of single ended class A power... WOW!

[MadAsAHatter]

Well, NAD was Tuesday, but I was only able to spend about an hour or so with it. After that I had to prepare for and wait through the hurricane that just passed through. I’ll get time to do more knob turning this weekend and update my thoughts.

First impressions are positive.

Laney Lionheart L50H Specs:

• Two channel
• 50 watts parallel single ended class A
• 3 x 12AX7 & 5 x EL34
• Passive bass, middle and treble EQ with global bite switch and tone & dynamics controls
• Digital reverb
• Dimensions (H x W x D): 9.75 in x 26.75 in x 9.8 in
• Net weight: 47 lbs

First off this amp is just as responsive as any other single ended class A amp I’ve played. I’d almost argue that it’s more responsive. It’s sensitive to pick attack and guitar volume settings. It’s also very sensitive to pickup EQ & output. Most amps I can change guitars/pickups and be fine without having to adjust amp settings. Not with this Laney. When I changed to a guitar with different pickups I had to adjust the amp settings to match.

For being a passive tone stack, all the knobs have a wide range of adjustment. The tone and dynamics knobs are equivalent to presence and resonance, but don’t seem to work in the exact same manner. Like the tone stack they had adjustment across the entire sweep. They didn’t just add/cut frequencies, but also altered the response & feel of the amp. I’ll have to play with these knobs more to really figure them out. Right now I can say at certain settings the amp became tighter and responded faster and at other settings it was looser and more saggy.

As far as overall tone is concerned, it sounds like a Laney. I wouldn’t call it a modern Supergroup, but it 100% gives off old school Black Sabbath/Tony Iommi vibes.

No one was home so I was able to crank it a decent amount. At 5/10 on the volume and using a PAF style guitar/pickup the clean channel stayed clean. At that point it was getting too loud for in the room so I didn’t push it further. I suspect at 6.5-7 on the amp volume or with higher output pickups it’d start hitting that line of clean & grit.

The dirty channel sounded great. With the gain knob at 2-3 I was able to ride the line between cleanish and light grit with pick attack and/or guitar volume knob. Gain knob all the way up has enough saturation for 80’s and 90’s style hard rock. It’ not going to bring the brootz, but with a boost it should do hair/power/thrash metal to most people’s satisfaction. It has saturation levels equivalent to my Naylor and Peters Vega amps.

So yeah, my initial impressions is this Laney amp is 100% legit. It sounds great, flexible EQ, very responsive, and has that Laney vibe. It’s a shame the 50 watt version didn’t seem to catch on and was discontinued. There is a 5 & 20 watt version currently available, but they use EL84’s and may not sound as full.

 

[likitlikeyoulikeit]

View attachment 28391

Well, NAD was Tuesday, but I was only able to spend about an hour or so with it. After that I had to prepare for and wait through the hurricane that just passed through. I’ll get time to do more knob turning this weekend and update my thoughts.

First impressions are positive.

Laney Lionheart L50H Specs:

• Two channel
• 50 watts parallel single ended class A
• 3 x 12AX7 & 5 x EL34
• Passive bass, middle and treble EQ with global bite switch and tone & dynamics controls
• Digital reverb
• Dimensions (H x W x D): 9.75 in x 26.75 in x 9.8 in
• Net weight: 47 lbs

First off this amp is just as responsive as any other single ended class A amp I’ve played. I’d almost argue that it’s more responsive. It’s sensitive to pick attack and guitar volume settings. It’s also very sensitive to pickup EQ & output. Most amps I can change guitars/pickups and be fine without having to adjust amp settings. Not with this Laney. When I changed to a guitar with different pickups I had to adjust the amp settings to match.

For being a passive tone stack, all the knobs have a wide range of adjustment. The tone and dynamics knobs are equivalent to presence and resonance, but don’t seem to work in the exact same manner. Like the tone stack they had adjustment across the entire sweep. They didn’t just add/cut frequencies, but also altered the response & feel of the amp. I’ll have to play with these knobs more to really figure them out. Right now I can say at certain settings the amp became tighter and responded faster and at other settings it was looser and more saggy.

As far as overall tone is concerned, it sounds like a Laney. I wouldn’t call it a modern Supergroup, but it 100% gives off old school Black Sabbath/Tony Iommi vibes.

No one was home so I was able to crank it a decent amount. At 5/10 on the volume and using a PAF style guitar/pickup the clean channel stayed clean. At that point it was getting too loud for in the room so I didn’t push it further. I suspect at 6.5-7 on the amp volume or with higher output pickups it’d start hitting that line of clean & grit.

The dirty channel sounded great. With the gain knob at 2-3 I was able to ride the line between cleanish and light grit with pick attack and/or guitar volume knob. Gain knob all the way up has enough saturation for 80’s and 90’s style hard rock. It’ not going to bring the brootz, but with a boost it should do hair/power/thrash metal to most people’s satisfaction. It has saturation levels equivalent to my Naylor and Peters Vega amps.

So yeah, my initial impressions is this Laney amp is 100% legit. It sounds great, flexible EQ, very responsive, and has that Laney vibe. It’s a shame the 50 watt version didn’t seem to catch on and was discontinued. There is a 5 & 20 watt version currently available, but they use EL84’s and may not sound as full.

 

[V|J]

I tried the 20W 4x10 in a small store once.
Really nice amps. Congrats on the big boy!

 

[likitlikeyoulikeit]

View attachment 28391

Well, NAD was Tuesday, but I was only able to spend about an hour or so with it. After that I had to prepare for and wait through the hurricane that just passed through. I’ll get time to do more knob turning this weekend and update my thoughts.

First impressions are positive.

Laney Lionheart L50H Specs:

• Two channel
• 50 watts parallel single ended class A
• 3 x 12AX7 & 5 x EL34
• Passive bass, middle and treble EQ with global bite switch and tone & dynamics controls
• Digital reverb
• Dimensions (H x W x D): 9.75 in x 26.75 in x 9.8 in
• Net weight: 47 lbs

First off this amp is just as responsive as any other single ended class A amp I’ve played. I’d almost argue that it’s more responsive. It’s sensitive to pick attack and guitar volume settings. It’s also very sensitive to pickup EQ & output. Most amps I can change guitars/pickups and be fine without having to adjust amp settings. Not with this Laney. When I changed to a guitar with different pickups I had to adjust the amp settings to match.

For being a passive tone stack, all the knobs have a wide range of adjustment. The tone and dynamics knobs are equivalent to presence and resonance, but don’t seem to work in the exact same manner. Like the tone stack they had adjustment across the entire sweep. They didn’t just add/cut frequencies, but also altered the response & feel of the amp. I’ll have to play with these knobs more to really figure them out. Right now I can say at certain settings the amp became tighter and responded faster and at other settings it was looser and more saggy.

As far as overall tone is concerned, it sounds like a Laney. I wouldn’t call it a modern Supergroup, but it 100% gives off old school Black Sabbath/Tony Iommi vibes.

No one was home so I was able to crank it a decent amount. At 5/10 on the volume and using a PAF style guitar/pickup the clean channel stayed clean. At that point it was getting too loud for in the room so I didn’t push it further. I suspect at 6.5-7 on the amp volume or with higher output pickups it’d start hitting that line of clean & grit.

The dirty channel sounded great. With the gain knob at 2-3 I was able to ride the line between cleanish and light grit with pick attack and/or guitar volume knob. Gain knob all the way up has enough saturation for 80’s and 90’s style hard rock. It’ not going to bring the brootz, but with a boost it should do hair/power/thrash metal to most people’s satisfaction. It has saturation levels equivalent to my Naylor and Peters Vega amps.

So yeah, my initial impressions is this Laney amp is 100% legit. It sounds great, flexible EQ, very responsive, and has that Laney vibe. It’s a shame the 50 watt version didn’t seem to catch on and was discontinued. There is a 5 & 20 watt version currently available, but they use EL84’s and may not sound as full.

Congratulations dude!!!!

I really like the quick review. Now I'm gonna start saving for a second Laney.....this may be one!

For real, absolutely awesome that you enjoy it so much!

 

[Achilles]

3 x 12AX7 & 5 x EL34

Congrats! Awesome NAD.

 

[MadAsAHatter]

Congrats! Awesome NAD.

Power tube are running in parallel, single ended operation at 10 watts each for a total of 50 watts

 

[laxu]

Seems like a cool amp! I need to watch out for this on my local used market.

 

[laxu]

How bright is the amp? There's not that many demos of it on YT and it either sounds fine or it sounds really bright on the overdrive channel. Can't make heads or tails about its brightness and whether you can comfortably tame all that by rolling down your tone knob or using the amp controls.

It does seem a bit like a mix of Vox and Marshall somehow.

 

[FuzzyAce]

Congrats! Sounds like a good one. I was checking out the L20H a few weeks ago, and if I'd done more research earlier it's possible I may have taken a shot on it over the Friedman Runt some months back. The Runt is great though so I'm not complaining.

 

[Sidler72]

What kind of speakers are you running it through?

 

[MadAsAHatter]

How bright is the amp? There's not that many demos of it on YT and it either sounds fine or it sounds really bright on the overdrive channel. Can't make heads or tails about its brightness and whether you can comfortably tame all that by rolling down your tone knob or using the amp controls.

It does seem a bit like a mix of Vox and Marshall somehow.

I'm still getting used to the tone and EQ so I may not be too helpful in answering that right now.

It's seems to be sensitive to pickups so if you have bright pickups you'll likely have to compensate for that. I do find if you push both the high and tone knobs up it can be harsh on the high end.

Also the all the knobs seems to influence each other, but not in a way that they're fully interactive. I was just doing this a few minutes ago. I had the bass, mid & dynamics at 5 and high & tone at 10. That was icepick city. Then I rolled everything to 10 and it was much more balanced relieving that icepickyness.

I'm guessing the YT videos seem all over the place at least in part because of the above. I think it can sound too harsh with the wrong combo of pickups and settings, but I also think in most cases the tone can be balanced.

 

[MadAsAHatter]

What kind of speakers are you running it through?

I've tried it through my 115/212 cab which has a 15" Weber Blue Dog and 2-12" Gray Wolfs and my 412 with a mix of Weber Gray Wolfs and Silver Wolfs.

Blue Dog is similar to a Celestion Blue
Grey Wolf and Silver Wolf are like a modified Celestion V30 & Greenback respectively.

I like the way it sounds through both cabs, but I'm leaning towards liking the Gray Wolf/Silver Wolf cab more.

 

[MadAsAHatter]

I've spent a good chunk of the day playing the Laney with several guitars and doing a bunch of knob turning. I'm getting a good feel for it now. What I've found is I like the bass set between 4-6, Middle at 6, and Dynamics at 6 most of the time.

Treble & Tone knobs and Bite switch are guitar dependent and set to taste. These end up being a bit of a balancing act to get the brightness just right without going brittle. It's not overly difficult to find that balance, just a matter of getting to know the amp. Again this is switching guitars. Sometimes its a matter of flipping the Bite switch on/off. Other times turning the Treble up and Tone down or vice-versa. If I stuck to one guitar it would be easy enough to find where I like it and stay there.

I also played around boosting it with a tube screamer. This is very reminiscent of boosting a JCM800 as far as saturation level, just with the Laney tone instead of Marshall tone. The Laney took the boost just fine. The mid spike of the tube screamer mixed well with the mid frequency of the Laney. I found the tube screamer tightened things up to do some thrash metal, but still kept enough of the thicker sound of the Laney.

Not that I sell anything to begin with, but the Laney Lionheart is one that won't be going anywhere any time soon. It definitely has a unique character and different tone than the other amps I have. It's pretty much earned a spot with my main group of amps. What I really need to do now is reset a couple of guitars to C# standard tuning so I can start rocking more Black Sabbath songs.

 

[Life Eats Life]

View attachment 28391

Well, NAD was Tuesday, but I was only able to spend about an hour or so with it. After that I had to prepare for and wait through the hurricane that just passed through. I’ll get time to do more knob turning this weekend and update my thoughts.

First impressions are positive.

Laney Lionheart L50H Specs:

• Two channel
• 50 watts parallel single ended class A
• 3 x 12AX7 & 5 x EL34
• Passive bass, middle and treble EQ with global bite switch and tone & dynamics controls
• Digital reverb
• Dimensions (H x W x D): 9.75 in x 26.75 in x 9.8 in
• Net weight: 47 lbs

First off this amp is just as responsive as any other single ended class A amp I’ve played. I’d almost argue that it’s more responsive. It’s sensitive to pick attack and guitar volume settings. It’s also very sensitive to pickup EQ & output. Most amps I can change guitars/pickups and be fine without having to adjust amp settings. Not with this Laney. When I changed to a guitar with different pickups I had to adjust the amp settings to match.

For being a passive tone stack, all the knobs have a wide range of adjustment. The tone and dynamics knobs are equivalent to presence and resonance, but don’t seem to work in the exact same manner. Like the tone stack they had adjustment across the entire sweep. They didn’t just add/cut frequencies, but also altered the response & feel of the amp. I’ll have to play with these knobs more to really figure them out. Right now I can say at certain settings the amp became tighter and responded faster and at other settings it was looser and more saggy.

As far as overall tone is concerned, it sounds like a Laney. I wouldn’t call it a modern Supergroup, but it 100% gives off old school Black Sabbath/Tony Iommi vibes.

No one was home so I was able to crank it a decent amount. At 5/10 on the volume and using a PAF style guitar/pickup the clean channel stayed clean. At that point it was getting too loud for in the room so I didn’t push it further. I suspect at 6.5-7 on the amp volume or with higher output pickups it’d start hitting that line of clean & grit.

The dirty channel sounded great. With the gain knob at 2-3 I was able to ride the line between cleanish and light grit with pick attack and/or guitar volume knob. Gain knob all the way up has enough saturation for 80’s and 90’s style hard rock. It’ not going to bring the brootz, but with a boost it should do hair/power/thrash metal to most people’s satisfaction. It has saturation levels equivalent to my Naylor and Peters Vega amps.

So yeah, my initial impressions is this Laney amp is 100% legit. It sounds great, flexible EQ, very responsive, and has that Laney vibe. It’s a shame the 50 watt version didn’t seem to catch on and was discontinued. There is a 5 & 20 watt version currently available, but they use EL84’s and may not sound as full.

Sounds r like it’s a rad amp!
Congrats!
Makes me think of the motion picture Braveheart.
That sodomiizing at the tail end IS HARDCORE.