DV Mark Triple 6

DVMark is an Italian brand which has developed a devout group of followers from gear heads and guitarists to producers and engineers all over the world. And while their gear may have been sometimes placed in a corner with the Stratocaster-playing dad rockers, The Triple 6, or 666 for Slayer fans, is about to change this trend.

This 120 Watt all valve 3 channel amp is based on the DV Mark Bad Boy, with the main change being a more aggressive gain and tone controls. It's got a bunch of cool features like self-biasing, loop assign, usual channel switch and a solo button. It has equalisation for each channel, presence and gain control, as well a volume.

Channel one is the clean channel, and it's a nice rounded warm vibe. It doesn't really have any break up, even when you push the gain. That can be good or bad depending on personal taste. Importantly, it sounds great. A lot of amps made for 'metal' forget about clean, so its nice that this amp has the ability to really showcase DV Mark's ability to create a really nice sounding tone.

Channel two offers as much gain as you'll ever need. I had the gain about halfway and was playing through every metal riff I've ever played. The amp puts out a really tight, distorted tone. It's clear, crisp and you can really play some faster, intricate stuff without it being swallowed in saturation. That was the best thing about the amp for me, the fact that no matter how low I had my guitar tuned, the amp still put out a clear and powerful sound. Channel three is just a bigger, nastier version of channel two, and is marketed as the 'Lead' channel, which seems fairly redundant considering the footswitch has a solo function to boost the volume for lead breaks.

So basically the amp sounds fantastic, and for a metal/hardcore/hard rock player looking for a versatile amp I think this is a great solution. It doesn't have the muddy wash of the Mesa and it's a tighter, less 'fizzy' amp than the Peaveys. My only qualm is that the amp navigation took a little getting used to. However, if you are patient enough to brush your long metal hair every night, you are most likely patient enough to play this amp.