Laney L50H Lionheart

In the last few years there has been a trend in favour of vintage style amps. The shift has been away from brands like Mesa, Peavey, Line 6, Engl and Krank; back to the the old stalwards... Fender, Orange, Vox and Hiwatt. This hasn't been isolated to just amps, with guitars following the same trend… ESPs being replaced with Fenders and Schechters with Gibson. This period of change has caused a few brands to go under the radar; one of these brands is Laney, and after playing a Lionheart, I don't really understand why.

The Lionheart is a made-in-the-UK, twin channel, 50watt singled-ended Class A amplifier. It's loaded with five EL34 tubes in parallel. Some of the features include: footswitch controlled reverb, a Hi and Lo input, effects loop, as well as band pass EQ in the form of a Tone knob, and a Dynamic knob; which is basically presence.

The first thing you will notice about the amp is that it looks great, and that's all the counts right? But does it sound great? Having only ever played a Laney 15w practice amp when I was 15 I was interested to see how they sounded, and how they would, if they could, produce a great 'British' amp sound. From my first slightly out of tune chord I was already digging the amp. With the amp on the dirty channel and all the settings at 12 o'clock, this amp already was warm, the break up was great, and the tone was spot on.

The amp handled everything I threw at it, from a jazzy, only slightly overdriven tone, through to a full gain monster, this amp could do it all, and did it in style. The clean is bright and shimmery, the reverb is a great example of a spring reverb, and the gain is thick, warm and full of depth. For me the most impressive thing about this amp is its dynamic ability, even with full gain it never becomes over saturated - the way the amp would open up the harder I hit my strings, for me, is a sign of a great amp; I never felt like the amp was in control.

The only thing I wish this amp had that it didn't was greater control over each channel. The single EQ control for both channels really frustrates me on any amp, and this was no different. I also found the clean a little too clinical at times, and wished that I was able to have control of the gain and could introduce a little break up.

Laney have really outdone themselves in producing an amp that is versatile, well made and sounds great. And for the price, buying a Chinese made 'British' style amp seems crazy. Unless you are looking to buy an amp made in the UK ten years ago, this is the closest thing you will find to true classic vintage tone in a modern amp.