Our catalysts came in but don’t save fx settings

[Byrdman]

I wish I could find one locally to try. I’d love to have a light versatile combo on the cheap but everything I hear online from it sounds brittle and thin.

The 100w and the 200w 212 sound better than the 50w, IMO. So many people use the logic, " I'll get the cheapest one that I can afford now and upgrade later" with music gear, I'm sure a lot more 50w were bought (Pure Speculation Here)

When I went to buy the 100w, they had the 212 200w on sale for only about $20 more than the 100w, so I bought that one. Bigger is always better thoughts won out. Mine doesn't sound brittle or thin and I do run my Stomp XL through it in Poweramp mode for band practice and IMO it sounds pretty damn good.

 

[dbagchee]

I have the 60 watt (the size was critical for me because I need it to fit in the trunk of my tiny car and the 100 was just a bit too big) and I wouldn’t say it sounds thin at all.

 

[Karl Houseknecht]

If I go this route, I’d go for the 100. Something for grab and go, no other effects or modelers. But I hear that solid state brittleness in the gainy demos online. If you’re saying that’s not there in your experience then I’ll take your word for it and perhaps check it out. But I’ve tried the catalyst models in the Helix and they left me wanting, so I’m pretty cautious.

 

[dbagchee]

If you’ve played the Oblivion model it does have a brighter top end but adjusting the presence can help - the update now has the Badonk as the second option for that position which is darker and definitely works better in the combo. That said it is an open back so super tight high gain isn’t its forte but it’s a great all rounder.

 

[Karl Houseknecht]

I was talking more about plexi type gain. Oblivion or Badonk aren’t things I’d use.

 

[dbagchee]

Ah gotcha - you don’t want my opinion on those - the voltage and 2204 are the two Marshall flavors and those always sound a bit brittle to me (even on Helix)