SonicCord Reviews
Guitar World: May 2004
"It seems like every time we turn around, another upstart amp builder is offering a boutique example of tonal "perfection" that no one can afford, sans the second mortgage. So what would you say if I told you that one of the most responsive and open amplifiers available today costs [less than a grand?] Cynics and tone snobs, kindly step aside. Stephen Boudette, respected engineer and founder of the New England [based] SonicCord Company, has loosely based his Toad amp on an amazing '49 Super [likely] built by Leo Fender himself. Built from military-grade components and 70 percent handwired, the Toad has a relatively simple circuit that effortlessly produces NOS vintage splendor. ....In Class A mode, a pair of ... 6L6 tubes pump a pure 19 watts of extremely touch-sensitive tone and scary dynamics through the ...open back cabinet. Switch over to class A/B and the Toad leaps to 32 watts of uncompressed drive and top bite, with copious levels of headroom. The Toad's controls include hearty ...knobs for volume, tone and Mood. the tone sets the level of high-frequency response, and turning it counterclockwise seemed to "age" the amp's components and smooth its immediacy without affecting its character. Twisting the Mood dial fine-tunes the attack from puppy soft at one end to guillotine sharp at the other. At this price, there is simply no other amp that can come close to matching the Toad's spacious clean tone, pinpoint articulation and high volume crunch. Get one before these guys come to their senses."
--Eric Kirkland
Tape Op: July/Aug 2003
"Is it me or is modeling getting out of control? Seems like every plug-in, amp, outboard effect, keyboard, and even guitar these days relies on modeling circuitry to simulate some classic sound or other. But what about gear that just plain sounds really good (as opposed to gear that simulates gear that sounds really good). SonicCord, a New England based amp company, has stepped up to the plate with ....amps that just sound great and, through creative tube circuit design, are capable of getting a variety of amazing sounds. I stumbled upon SonicCord almost by accident. My band played a benefit show that featured fourteen groups each playing a fourteen minute set. Needless to say, band changeovers were harried, and to save time, there was a backline of three SonicCord amps. As we took the stage, the soundman encouraged us to hurry up, plug in, and play. So I plugged my guitar into a SonicCord Toad 20/32 watt (switchable) combo (powered by an ECC832, an ECC83 and a pair of 6L6 tubes, with a single 12" speaker), left the controls as they were, and started the set. My Telecaster took on a new life, barking notes out of the amp. Not to bad-mouth my trusty Fender Blues Jr. combo (which really has served me well in clubland and in the studio), but the Toad sounded so good I felt like my playing improved radically. The tone was appealingly growly, with plenty of headroom for dynamic playing. Kind of tweedy, I suppose. Steve Boudette, the man behind SonicCord, was at the show and I complimented him on his nice amp design. He offered to bring a Toad to my studio for me to check out further. Turns out the Toad (named after a cool little club in Cambridge which was the inspriration for the amp's design; a just-loud-enough tube amp, light enough to carry a few blocks to the corner pub) can switch between two modes: Class A mode yields a slightly compressed tone with plenty of bite (think Vox AC30), while the Class A-B opens up a bit more headroom for a slightly cleaner and louder sound (think tweed Deluxe). In the studio, the Toad was a blast to use. In addition to the standard volume and tone controls, there was a mysterious third knob marked "mood," which seemed to nudge the sonic character from Fenderish to British and anywhere in-between. The mood control took a bit of getting used to, but was ultimately very musical and much more useful than the standard hi-mid-low controls on so many amps. From semi-clean Blues tones to class A skronk to quasi-Marshall stack without the decibels, it was hard to make the amp sound bad. It's no secret that smaller amps can sound bigger in the studio when miked-up, and the Toad happily stuck to this stereotype. I tried miking it with a large diaphragm condensor, a ribbon, and the old standby SM 57 with great results on all three; the recorded guitar tracks sounded huge and well-balanced..."
-Pete Weiss
Barry Rudolph
I was first attracted by the name of this combo guitar amp but it turned out to be one of the more worthwhile pieces of equipment I saw at the recent 2003 Summer NAMM Show in Nashville. Toad is hand-built with a big nod of reverence to the classic amps of yesteryear. The Toad is a super portable combo that has two switchable power modes: 20-watts and 32-watts. The design concept is to have a great sounding amp that will go, work and sound great at any size venue. Between the back panel mounted Power Mode switch and the front panel Mood control, virtually any tone can be created--even all the way back to early British amp sounds.A pair of 6L6GCs powers the Toad and there are 12DW7A and 12AX7LPS in the preamp section with Volume, Tone and the aforementioned Mood control knobs.
-Barry Rudolph