Has anybody tried out a Traynor YCS50 yet?

I tried a YCS50 out for 2 hours yesterday, my impressions.

1.) hard to dial in
2.) bright - really bright.
3.) It did not work with the strat I grabbed off the wall
4.) The PRS MCarthy was a match made in Heaven
5.) When I finally got it dialed in --WOW--

This amp suprised me it has several design features that make dialing in require some time. For instance the volume controls are not LOG - I think- they don't seem to do much for 80% of the range and then the last 20% is where the magic starts to Happen. With the gain stages set low the amp sound thin and trebly.

The Expander - I hate it , the scoop I will never use it. Modern... jurys still out.

Eq in general is better than the YCV series.

Where this amp reall shines is: the Brit / American switch - and the Prescence Resonance/ Voice switch - plus the dial in boost circuitry. and the 15watts Class A!


First The Brit/ American switch actually switches the Tone stack preamps configuaration- as it says in the literature - Going to the brit setting and cranking the gain and Volume up in the clean channel gets a Very Nice Very CHimey _VERY_ touch responsive sound that works really well at lower volumes - I didn't get to crank it. THis grits up nicely as the guitar volume is turned up and as you dig in with the pic. The american setting sounded more like the YCV50 a lttle darker a little thicker mids - it wasn't for me - More Headroom.

The Resonance - Presence /Voice - I set these ccts in and dialed them to about 9:00 on the presence and 3:00 on the Resonance - it added a lift that sweetened the spectrum nicely. - nothing radical but I had to keep the presence down to avoid ICE Pick Hi's

Switching these out is theorecticall Open Loop - but the sound wasn't quite there - I would like to play with this at higher volumes though.

The Lead Channel was capable of some Very Marshally Lead Tones, and I think a few others, Hi Gain is not my forte! I thought the Boost Volume control makes this very usefull -For Me The YCV preset boost was allways over the top and I never used it.

Over All I was able to dial in a crunchy rythm sound and pull up the volume for lead, then hit the boost for a little more punch - nice.

All of my testing was done on the 15 watt side - going to 50 is louder -with a bit more girth but I wasn't comfortable and didn' have my earplugs! It's Loud.


This amp will make a crappy single coil - even a $1200 crappy single coil sound bad, It will make a $3000 guitar sound like it should from dark smoky Jazz tones to crunchy blues to you name it.

I need to grab my guitars - an american strat with noiseless pu and an EPI Elitist 335 to see how they work. If they work this is my new amp!

Cheers, Mark.



ps also need to see how it sound on Axis - I can't stand the YCV50 on Axis. This is how I need to play in the small room I tend to play in.

I haven't actually played through the YCS50 yet, but I assume it's the "little brother" of the YCS100, which I've owned for several months now. It sounds from Telemark's comments and the description on the Traynor site that the amps are very similar. The following comments are based on that assumption.

1) I agree - it is a bit of a MF to dial in - much like the Boogie DR's. But once you get the feel of the thing it gets easier.

2) Yes - it is kind of bright, but if the tone stacks are anything like the 100 you can dial it out to a large degree. There is still a "hairy" element to the tone at lower volumes (like many similar high gain amps). Also, the factory pre tubes are a little harsh for this amp. I swapped V1 & V2 with Tung-Sols and it's much better.

3) I can imagine that it didn't work well with a Strat. Again, assuming it's the same basic architecture as the 100, it's very sensitive to guitars & pickups...more so than any amp I've owned. I can't even swap between my SG & Ibanez comfortably tone-wise, let alone between humbuckers & singles. I haven't really tried very hard to dial in my Strat on the thing though. That guitar is used almost exclusively through my Trinity sIII.

4) It does like humbuckers, that's for sure.

5) Agreed 100%


Now, with all that said, I will say I'm not the biggest fan of the "class A" mode on mine. It compresses a little too much. The full-power mode sounds more open.

The "Brit" voice mode does sound a little thin at lower volumes. It starts coming alive with the volume past noon (when the output tubes start cookin' more).

I don't like the modern mode much. It scoops the tone WAY too much. I do like the "scoop" switch in vintage mode though. That's where I've found the sweet spot for the DR type tones.

As for reliability, I really can't say. I've had no issues with mine, but I don't gig with it so I'll reserve my opinion. But, as with any amp this complex, there's always potential for issues. People always say the old single-channel non-MV amps were more reliable. It only makes sense...there's less stuff to break!

I've also found that the amp seems to be sounding better as time goes on. I wonder if the whole theory of tubes needing a "break-in" period is actually true...

All I can say is for what the YCS series can do, they're a steal at this price point - especially for the average Joe like me who can't toss $2k+ for an amp.

Bought it!

I went back to check it out again and bought it.

This time I grabbed a 70's reissue Strat and went straight to the clean channel, turned of the (voice) feedback loop, Class A 15watts

Sounded perfect to me got the reverb sounding just rite. For some reason I couldn't overdrive the channel this time...the ice pick hi end was gone.

Switched to the lead channel for a litte wingsdsre! inspiring amp to play so I took it to a gig tonite. worked great for adding a little lead to a folky accoustic set.

I used my American Deluxe strat with SCN pu;s

So I guess I have to take back any comments I made above about the Strat incompatibility!

Bought it!

I went back to check it out again and bought it.

This time I grabbed a 70's reissue Strat and went straight to the clean channel, turned of the (voice) feedback loop, Class A 15watts

Sounded perfect to me got the reverb sounding just rite. For some reason I couldn't overdrive the channel this time...the ice pick hi end was gone.

Switched to the lead channel for a litte wingsdsre! inspiring amp to play so I took it to a gig tonite. worked great for adding a little lead to a folky accoustic set.

I used my American Deluxe strat with SCN pu;s

So I guess I have to take back any comments I made above about the Strat incompatibility!

Cure for the Brightness

I found the brightness to be a result of too much presence and with the presence reosnance cct out I was able to dial in smoky jazzy tones with out any problem.

Also the Expander is another source of brightness - use with care,

The eq;s are very interactive and take a little more care than a Fender Hot Rod or a YCV series amp, Eq is also quite dependant on drive level.

THe drive and volume controls seem to work a little differently in that the final 80% of the control is where most of the change happens.

So far I find that I like to keep the drive and channel volumes up between 65-95% and this sweetens and thickens things up nicely.

Since I started doing this I only had ice pick troubles once and that was the Expander CCT.

The presence cct can add a nice lift to the sound but I like to dial in without and add it carefully to see if it is really needed.

YMMV -Mark.:banana: