With a tone vocabulary that spans clean, smoky, grinding, and growling—plus a Two notes speaker simulator—the 25-watt Airwave is a ferociously fun, potentially formidable amp for any size stage or studio.
Needless to say, the splashy news about Supro’s Airwave is its onboard Two notes cab sim that expands the amp’s studio and live capabilities, not to mention a player’s creative options. Having Two notes cab simulations onboard is a cool thing. It takes many of the cab sim tailoring capabilities of, say, the Universal Audio OX or Boss’ WAZA Tube Expander, and makes them part of the Airwave’s amp architecture, which is no small victory for convenience.
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But the 2x6V6 Airwave is a very cool stage and studio amp before you ever touch the cabinet simulation capabilities. At 25 watts, with tube-driven tremolo and spring reverb, it’s a cool alternative for players considering a tweed Deluxe, Deluxe Reverb, Princeton Reverb, or, for that matter, any of Supro’s excellent low- to mid-power combos. But while it’s not quite the blank slate a Deluxe Reverb is (the Airwave’s voice is generally more compressed, with lower headroom), if I had to record or play a show with the Airwave, a delay pedal, and a guitar, I’d do so confident that I had about 4-zillion awesome, tender-to-gnarly textures to work with.
Little Basher
The Airwave is a handsome amp, designed with lots of vintage Supro motifs, a wide aluminum control panel, rocker switches, and a control layout that are more than a little evocative of the Rolling Stones’ early Ampegs. There’s also a little Stones swagger in its voice. For while it can do a very convincing approximation of bright, almost-cleanish Princeton Reverb or Deluxe Reverb sounds, it’s basically grittier than either of those. Not in a way that confines the Airwave to garage-rock trash realms, but which hints at sepia-tone speaker sounds and a loud, rowdy vintage Supro or tweed Fender edge when you dig in with a flatpick. These savage-around-the-edges facets of the Airwave’s personality are tempered, perhaps, by the 12'' speaker, which adds thickening counterpoint to the barky midrange growl and enhances bass frequencies. It helps make the 3-band EQ section feel more sensitive and interactive, too.
The tone variations available between just the EQ and master volume/gain control interplay are plentiful. But all those sounds can be dramatically recast and even made electrifyingly aggressive with the onboard, switchable boost and drive, which are activated by the two rocker switches on the front panel or optional footswitches.
Alternate Realities
To interface with the Airwave’s Two notes capabilities, you download the Torpedo Remote app. But you can obtain excellent sounds without going deep, thanks in part to the amp’s onboard boost and drive switches. They feel like pedals perfectly selected to work with the amp and each other. The drive in particular is tough and snarling. And though your results may differ, to me the effects feel organically enmeshed in the fabric of the amp’s output. Both effects can be gritty, punchy, and explosive extensions of the amp, and together they can make it sound huge for 25 watts. The Torpedo Remote app calls up more-or-less photorealistic representations of several studios and live spaces (ancient temples included!), microphones, and cabinets. As in many other cab sim applications, you can readily and easily change microphones, slide microphone positions back and forth, switch between virtual cabinets of various sizes, as well as add preamps and reverbs with easy-to-use analog-style interfaces. If the wealth of sounds here isn’t already everything you need to get a great recorded sound, they get you off to a great start. What’s important, though, is how seamlessly they function with the whole range of the amp’s tones.
The Verdict
Although $1.5K might seem like a lot to pay for an Indonesia-built tube amp, it’s noteworthy that amps like the Fender ’65 Deluxe Reverb reissue are now pushing the $1.8K barrier. But the Airwave includes a useful and well-integrated Two notes Torpedo cab sim solution worth several hundred dollars by itself. Most impressively, Airwave excels in both the purely analog and digital cab sim realms without compromising capabilities in either. The amp has loads of personality and range. It’s up for a punky Kinks/Ramones rumble or Alvin Lee rippage, but just as eager to please as a clean-cut extra in a Jaguar-and-spring-reverb surf party flick or vintage soul session. If you’re the kind of artist inclined to do a little of all that in your recording and performing life, the Airwave satisfies on every count.
