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PG's Jordan Wagner walks us through his latest review on the Burriss Dirty Red head, which is featured in Premier Guitar's January 2011 print issue. Read the full review here - http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine...

The Burriss Dirty Red head is a little 18-watter that is fired by three Mullard reissue 12AX7 preamp tubes, an Electro-Harmonix EZ81 rectifier tube and two JJ EL84 tubes in the power section. Burriss, hot off the heels of the release of their popular Royal Bluesman, packs a lot of both qualities in their newest little monster, the 18-watt, EL84-driven Dirty Red. It's also built around a cascading preamp design that enables higher-gain sounds at lower volume, which gives it the goods to stand tall in the mini-amp crowd. On the front panel, you'll find a familiar 3-band equalization section consisting of Bass, Middle, and Treble knobs, along with separate Gain and Master volume controls. But nestled between the Middle and Treble controls, you'll find another knob called Top Cut. Burriss says the control is designed to tame the high end and warm the signal at higher gain settings. Anyone familiar with a presence control will find it works in a similar fashion. Finally, there's a Loop switch for engaging the effects loop, which can also be activated using a footswitch inserted into a rear-panel TRS 1/4" jack.

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Beelzebub Binky on 01/11/2011	Unfortunately, that was a pretty lackluster review, with a moment or two of lukewarm enthusiasm. I can't help but think that, with more experience and understanding of the design, the amp might have captivated more of the reviewer's attention. I'll bet you can get more compelling cleans with the preamp turned down (especially with humbuckers), and master volume up. And, what about their use of the EZ81; might it be significant to the response of the amp? Might even remind you to compare the value of this amp to a well-known classic...
Spanky on 01/08/2011	Not a bad little amp and nice review. Still think I'd lean more toward the mainstream offerings though at this point.
Paul on 01/08/2011	Great review, I appreciate the honest feedback on this amp. If I could have 2 amps this might be one of them but the fact that it doesn't go the distance on the clean tones makes it fall short for me but it sounds like this thing is going to bite into the Budda, Orange, 18 watt market. I do agree with the reviewer about the cool feature of being able to power your other pedals with the footswitch of this amp. Also the on/off switch for the loop - very hip! Again, thanks for an honest pros and cons approach to this amp.

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