What's your opinion on a Rivera knucklehead Reverb

[lhrocker]

I've heard a lot of good thing about Rivera's - great Fender clean, great hot rodded Marshalls and what not and was looking into the 3 channel Knucklehead Reverb. Besides GAS, what are the benefits of this amp compared to a Marshall JVM and Mesa Mark V. What is the average price for a 100 watt head in in VG to excellent condition?

Thanx - Pete

[DonP]

I've sampled some at GC's, but never seriously. No enough to give an opinion.

I'm a Marshall fanboy, sorry.

[Grim]

No idea, but if it is of any value to you, I own the Mark V and I think you can't beat it for versatility. Also, a JVM410H is on my GAS list.

[markD]

those heads used sit around the 1200 price range. i had one, but can't compare it to what you are also looking at. what i can tell you is that it is louder than you will ever need. disgustingly loud. vintage marshall loud. i had an '81 marshall 50 watter that was unusable with the master on 3. that is how my KHR 100 was. i sold it because of that. otherwise, it was a pretty sweet head, but the only thing it offered me that my other rivera amps don't offer is MIDI control.

[6string40]

I haven't tried the new Knucks, but I had one of the older 55w Knucks and I'll second MarkD's comments. I currently have a Fandango 55 212 but am probably going to let it go soon and go back to a rack setup. That's a great/versatile amp as well, but doesn't get into the same dirty territory as the newer Knucks--the new ones are built for modern metal. I love Rivera's clean channel...just like the older Fender cleans Paul Sr. used to build.

[lhrocker]

I picked up the KR-100 cause I got a good deal. There was one at GC in Niagara Falls which was listed at $1000. The amp was marked down to $850, so I though it would be cool to check out. btw, it didn't come with the footswitch. Well, they setup the amp for me and I pulled a Les Paul off the wall, plugged it in and no sound. After a few minutes, the salesperson came back and asked me if I liked it and I told him that there was no sound. He looked at it, and putzed around a bit, but no sound. He called in another salesperson who fiddled some more and when nothing worked, called in the manager. The guy checked cables, fuses and everything else - said that the cab was 16 ohms but it was plugged into the 8 ohm tap, which probably blew the transformer. He looked at the amp, looked at me and said he could make me a good deal if I wanted it. He said he had $750 into it and gave me that price.

At that time, everyone left the room and I started putzing with the amp. I changed the power to vintage/half and there was now sound - I just tested by plugging a cable in the front and touching the tip not wanting to make too much noise. I then changed everything back and the amp still worked. At that point, I pulled out the power cable and went to negotiate with the first salesperson. To make a long story longer, I got the amp for $700 out the door. I still need to get a midi footswitch that will work with it, but I'm pretty happy. It sounds much more Mesa than Marshall, but it's a change. I may or may not keep it, but it is very Recto on channel 3 with the boost. Maybe I'll just get rid of my DR, but this amp is very loud!!!! Not very practical at bedroom, even in the 15 watt mode.

Anyhow, what would be a good footswitch go with it? Their midi implementation for the channel switching is weird, so I need a controller that can send different program changes.

[markD]

the best switch to use is the rivera headmaster. i have seen them on ebay for reasonable prices...100-250 depending on the condition.

[BigDaddyD]

I have 2 Riveras, a Duarte and a KHR 55 with the headmaster. The KHR 55 is my main amp. It is one of the first ones and my friend bought it for me as a gift. I got it from Ebay and it needed some slight work, so I sent it back to Rivera on the original owners dime and they agreed to fix it for cheap. When they realized that it was one of the first of the series, the tech told me that he was going to (if I wanted) to bring it up to new spec and not charge us for that, because of what it was, and reprogram the headmaster to my taste as well. When I got the head back it was, as they say, "tits." It is my favorite amp of all time, and I love Riveras to begin with. Channel two is Marshall. I have always played Marshall, and channel two just nails it. The built in boost on this head can do away with the, not enough gain crowd. If you need more gain, you probably need to learn to play cleaner and stop hiding behind the gain to cover your mistakes. There is oodles of gain....so much that I barely use channel 3. It takes pedals amazingly well too, so you can always add more gain that way.

[lhrocker]

the best switch to use is the rivera headmaster. i have seen them on ebay for reasonable prices...100-250 depending on the condition.

I'll keep my eye out for a headmaster, but in the meantime, I think I'll go with a Rocktron midimate. My current FC-200 can only do Program changes in numeric sequence and I need PC 97 - 103. I should have kept my Ground Control Pro.

[BigDaddyD]

It is definitely the footswitch of choice for a khr.

http://www.rivera.com/products/footswitches/headmaster.php

I had them program mine to operate like a simple footswitch...1 is channel one, 2 is channel 2, 3 is channel 3, 4 is boost, 5 is reverb, and 6 is loop.