Rock Block Review

[Clump]

A couple of weeks ago there was a Surprise Sound Labs Rock Block on TGP for a pretty nice deal ($200 vs almost $400 new). My research found not a lot of info out there for them. I bought it and have been messing with it for a while and wanted to add a review for others looking at them.

I'm a home player looking for some crunch at reasonable volume levels. I have a 5F1 with a tone stack added and a 15W Egnater Tweaker. My cabinet is a Fender SC112 with an Eminence The Tone Spotter speaker.

My Rock Block has a JJ ECC83 in the preamp and a JJ ECC82 in the power amp. According to the builder this is good for .4W clean and 1.0 watt max. It's got a brick for power and runs on 12V DC.

The amp does have some clean head room and sounds good clean, but that's not why we're here.

It's got some nice crunch when turned up. It's still loud, way above conversation or TV volume. Turning the guitar volume down keeps some crunch, but it's better maxed. The builder says a 12AT7 in the power will reduce it to .8 watts max. I plan to pick up 2 and try them in both positions to try to tame the volume.

With my Les Paul with 57 Classic pups it sounds good, but not great. It REALLY likes single coils - P-90s and a Tele really sound good with this amp. If I had to describe the sound I'd say it's got some Vox chime and sparkle. I like a little reverb and I'm finding I don't need it with this amp, it's got some shimmer plugged straight in.

I tried it briefly as a pedal and it works as a clean boost, or dirt pedal. My interest was as an amp, so this was just a few minutes messing around. It definitely works as a pedal, but I didn't try enough to decide how well.

Sorry, I don't have a good way to record a clip. The only mic I have is a Logitech USB. There are some clips on Youtube that represent the sound very well.

I emailed Surprise Sound Labs asking about a manual and within 1 hour had a reply with a copy of the manual.

So bottom line I'm satisfied. It's still louder than I want, but does have some headroom. If I paid full price I might feel different about it. I think my Tweaker pretty much can do what the Rock Block does, but in a much bigger package with way more power on tap. The Rock Block is 3.5" x 5.5" and 3.75" tall at the top of the tube guard hoops, so it's definitely compact. Hopefully a tube change will drop the volume.

It's got blue LEDs under the tubes

Here's the warning on the bottom

The warning didn't work

 

[bilbarstow]

Thanks Clump for the nice review and especially for the gut shot. I've considered one of those in the past myself. If you put the AT7 in the pre-amp socket, you may actually lose some of the gain, so as well as reducing volume, you might actually end up with MORE clean headroom. Still, worth a try, you never know what combination will work best for you and what will sound the way that you want.

Congrats !

 

[MiniB]

Very interested ione of these.

Rock Block Amp Gibson LP Goldtop R7 Lead - YouTube

 

[Clump]

Very interested ione of these.

Since you're interested, a little update.

I picked up a pair of NOS GE 12AT7 tubes. It really doesn't work well at all in the preamp - fizzy and nasty, not nasty in a good way at all. In the power amp is a whole different story. 1 of the tubes is much quieter, so I settled on that 1. With the 12AT7 clean head room is all but eliminated. It will play clean at very low volume, then it starts to distort. I'm able to get nice bluesy distortion at conversation volume. Sabbath type distortion comes at a nearly comfortable volume. It's still pretty loud at this level, but much more bearable than the stock 12AU7.

I hope this helps.

 

[eddy999]

Have you tried an ECC99 for the power tube?

 

[Clump]

Have you tried an ECC99 for the power tube?

According to Surprise Sound Labs that will increase the clean and max power, which is opposite of what I'm trying to acheive, so have not tried it.

 

[eddy999]

The ecc99 is a great sounding tube in low power output sections, nicer than the usual at/au7, however you are correct that it would increase the output power so not what you'd want if you want lower volume.