The L5T-112 is a 5 watt RMS, single-ended Class A amp. Laney has worked to strike the ultimate balance between exibility and simplicity. If you’re not familiar with single-ended Class A, there’s a single EL84 output valve connected to one side of the output transformer’s primary winding, and the other side is wired to the power supply. This gives less output power than the alternative push-pull circuitry but produces more even-order harmonics when overdriven. The Lionheart has two channels, clean and drive. There are Hi and Lo inputs: the Lo input is (maybe confusingly) for higher-output pickups and will give you a tighter sound. The Hi input (for lower-output pickups) is designed for a more open tone that might be mushed up if you use hotter pickups. The controls are cean volume, bright switch (for the clean channel), drive, drive volume, channel select switch, bass, middle and treble controls, reverb, and finally a tone control. This last one is quite unique in that it’s designed to work more like a guitar’s tone control than, say, a presence control on a regular amp. Around the back there’s an effects loop with a mode switch for connecting rack effects or pedal effects, or for bypassing the loop altogether. There’s also a foot switch socket for toggling between the two channels and turning the inbuilt reverb on and off. The speaker is a Celestion G12H 70th Anniversary driver.
THE LION ROARS
This is de nitely not a high- gain distortion monster, but its inbuilt drive tones are very expressive and responsive, great for blues, fusion, blues-rock or indie/alternative sounds where you need something a little more open and with great separation between the individual notes of chords. It’s very dynamically responsive, so if you’re the kind of player who likes to really vary their note attack then you’ll love this. If you tend to favour compression and sustain maybe a Laney Ironheart is more your speed. But for classy, rich, expressive overdrive this amp is damn hard to beat. The clean sounds are very open and rich, with a crisp clarity to the high end and a tightness and fullness to the lows. It’s especially great for single coil pickups, particularly the 2 and 4 positions on a Strat. Some amps get too thin in those conditions but this one keeps the body of your tone intact while still allowing the highs to shimmer.
IT’S GOOD TO BE THE KING
This is a great amp for those who need bold, ringing clean tones and rich, expressive, responsive, interactive overdrives. It’s not aiming to be everything to everyone, but if you’re in the market for a boutique-style amp which works with your playing instead of against or in spite of it, this is a great choice.
