(SCY)

EHX .22 Caliber, a poweramp that fits a pedal !

I recently bought that thing, Electro-Harmonix .22 Caliber.

Thought I was sceptic about its promises, but the thing totally changed my mind when I had a chance to try it.

Here is the picture : Imagine a poweramp that would be so small that it fits in a pedal format. Imagine that this tiny poweramp is loud enough to easy overwhelm the volume created by a metal drummer. Here it is, the .22 caliber poweramp.

That .22 Caliber actually replaces my HD147 amp head on rehearsals !

This poweramp has a single chanel, and is equipped with a normal/bright switch which adds additional brillance to the amplified signal. Its can be hooked to any cab rated 4 to 16 ohms. Now the key question : is this loud enough to make its place in a rehearsal or even in a show? The thing is designed to deliver 22 Watts.

That was my only concern when I bought this unit : I remember playing on 22Watts combo amps when I learned to play guitar, and there was no way to compete with my drummer in term of loudness. However, I found the super-light weight of the .22 caliber to be really convenient when used with small guitar preamp such as pods or my engl e530, so I decided to give it a try.

On a rehearsal with my band Beyond The Pain, I made several tests : I hooked my guitar directly into the .22 Caliber, which was connected to my Line6 Vetta II 2x12 Cab. First thing : Wow this is loud, I mean very loud. With the volume knob raised to 9 o'clock, I can play with my drummer without any definition or hearing problem. I made several tries with it, and never had to raise the volume knob upper than 11 o'clock.

With the guitar directly connected to the unit, I find the sound to lack a bit of brillance, even with the bright switch engaged. Luckily, with my PodXT connected on it, there's no problem at all, and the whole thing is just fine. I also had the chance to try it with my tube preamp (engl e530), and sounded excellent to my ears.

Who needs a preamp? You can even run your pedal rig directly to the .22 Caliber!

But the best thing is that with this unit you do not need to have a preamp. you can easy connect it directly to your pedal rig and go direct in a guitar cab.

I really like the universal design of the .22 Caliber, as it can be connected to almost any guitar cab (4 to 16 ohms), its size and weight(it has found its place in my guitar case, so that I always have it if needed), and its sound (it can sweetly overdrive when volume is raised past 12 o'clock).

Some home-made pics !