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Sound Well, hell, this thing has shown up my formerly beloved POD to be the artificial thing that it is. It's been years since I last had a valve amp - a Vox AC30 - and I'd kind of got used to the sound of pedals and simulators. But, phew, this obscure Starfield really has a great sound. Thanks to separate drive controls for the clean and dirty channels, you can squeeze anything from a chiming clean Fender sound to a near-Plexi sort of tone out of the thing. And thanks to the Master volume control, you don't have to wake the neighbours (this amp, turned up, is incredibly loud). It won't quite do the Mesa/Boogie thing, but it gets just as dirty and not too far off. And all with that nice clear note articulation and responsiveness to pick attack that only a valve amp can give. I play a 1984 Jackson San Dimas superstrat (H/S/S) and an early Fernandez Stratocaster copy, a faithful clone. Combine those guitars with this amp and you can sound like anything. Well, almost. Incidentally, the Starfield amp has restored my interest in the Fernandez Strat. It was sounding thin and disappointing through the POD, compared with the Jackson, but no - the amp shows that actually it's got that great cutting Strat tone all right. Suffice it to say that I'm really impressed with the amp and I can't imagine why Ibanez couldn't sell enough Starfields to keep the line alive. Were they overpriced, perhaps? If you can shed any light on this weird thing, please write to me at dbNO-SPAM@pixie.co.za (remove the NO-SPAM, naturally!). I'd be very grateful for anything you might know, or even any bewildered remarks you might like to make.... Don
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