New Roland 80 xl

Steve Mueller · Post by **Steve Mueller** » 28 Oct 2012 11:01 am

I know this amp has been extensively discussed on the forum but I just got a new one last week. It is excellent for any price but for $325 it's incredible. I don't use all the modeling features, just set it on black face, adjust the EQ for the room and give it some plate reverb. And it only weighs 35 lbs!

Lee Baucum · Post by **Lee Baucum** » 28 Oct 2012 2:27 pm

Yep. Looks like Roland accidentally hit a home run for the steel guitar community.

Brad Malone · Post by **Brad Malone** » 28 Oct 2012 7:07 pm

Steve Mueller, The Roland 80 XL is a perfect match for my Williams Steel... I now have 4 amps but only use the Roland 80 XL..glad you like yours.

John Wall · Post by **John Wall** » 29 Oct 2012 7:39 am

I did a search on the forum on this amp and I've never seen an amp get as many high ratings as this one. It must be good.

Lee Bartram · Post by **Lee Bartram** » 29 Oct 2012 7:49 am

Where did you get a new one for $324? thats a great price.

Bill Moore · Post by **Bill Moore** » 29 Oct 2012 8:28 am

Musician's Friend and Guitar Center regularly offer special discounts, if you spend a certain amount. That's probably what Steve is referring to. I still have the 80x, and I still don't really care much for it.

Henry Matthews · Post by **Henry Matthews** » 29 Oct 2012 10:07 am

I've got the Cube 80 that I bought for a steel amp but have only played it once with steel. My LTD blows it away tone wise, however, I do play six string and fiddle thru it and it sounds great. For steel is ok but prefer the LTD on Nashville 112.

Ray McCarthy · Post by **Ray McCarthy** » 29 Oct 2012 1:58 pm

Got mine delivered late Friday afternoon and played a Halloween party gig Saturday night. The guys in the band said it sounded "wicked good" and seemed to get even better as the night wore on--break-in? Even members of the audience who've heard us many times commented on how I sounded extra good. The clarity--by comparison the 112 would sound muddy.

I used the JC Clean channel with the highs, presence and mids all at around 10:00, bass at 3:00, plate rev at 3:00, and a little delay at about a half second.

I'm happy camper with this little baby

Darvin Willhoite · Post by **Darvin Willhoite** » 29 Oct 2012 6:17 pm

I have an 80X, and an 80XL, and I like them a lot for guitar and steel both.

Steve Mueller · Post by **Steve Mueller** » 30 Oct 2012 1:14 pm

I called the local Guitar Center in Cincinnati and they made me a deal for $325 plus tax and shipped it to my house free in 4 days. I also could have bought it through Sam Ash for $340 with free shipping but I liked the guy at Guitar Center

Alex Cattaneo · Post by **Alex Cattaneo** » 31 Oct 2012 9:04 am

Picked one up on Craigslist for 260$! Mint!!

Played it on a couple fo gigs, so far so good but...

Headphone output has this constant hiss, very unpleasant. Will try it with another pair of headphones, but these were SONY professional studio headphones so...

Also, the line out was so noisy that the soundman elected to mic the amp instead... not a good omen for home recording purposes... more on that later when I get home and try it in my home studio setup.

On the plus side, the amp is 16 pounds lighter then my NV400 (w EPS-15 speaker) and the onboard delay is a nice bonus.

Gus York · Post by **Gus York** » 22 Nov 2012 3:59 pm

Don't have the 80- but have used twin 60's for the last ten years-my steel-my guitar and more importantly my back loves them !

The sound is amazing-the weight is even better and the price is hardly noticable
compared to all those big boys we all used!

David Mason · Post by **David Mason** » 24 Nov 2012 9:56 am

There have been a whole slew of open=backed amps that happened to sound good, but apparently we had to wait for Roland to apply basic speaker technology to the combo amp...

Thiele-Small Parameters:
http://www.eminence.com/support/underst ... aker-data/

Gus York · Post by **Gus York** » 24 Nov 2012 10:33 am

So David- are we saying in a roundabout way (after reading the Eminence spec)
that a 10" Eminence fitted to my Cube 60 would make the amp even better?

The Eminence 15" in my Evans FET 500 was miles better than the Black Widow I had installed in it whilst the Eminence was being repaired!

Stephen Cowell · Post by **Stephen Cowell** » 24 Nov 2012 1:05 pm

I believe what he's relating is that the Roland cabinets are designed using the S-T parameters. This design makes the best possible use of the cabinet volume to achieve the best bass response... in effect, the port is designed to 'split' the bass 'hump' and even it out, sacrificing absolute bass output for an evener, wider response across the whole lower spectrum, instead of having a large peak at one frequency. It's a hi-fi way to design a cabinet... most good hi-fi speakers with ports use the Small-Theile design.

If you change the speaker, you will probably change the S-T parameters that the cabinet/port system was designed for... a turkey shoot, IOW. Open-back systems don't really care so much (unless the speaker wasn't meant for open-back use). I don't recommend changing anything about the closed-back Roland amps... they're highly tweaked from the factory.

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New Roland 80 xl

New Roland 80 xl

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