PowerAmps - Quilter MicroBlock vs Seymour Duncan PowerStage

ed lespaul

Well-Known Member
I was looking for a power amp to power my 4x12 Blue Voodoo cabinet. I grabbed a Quilter MicroBlock off eBay and gave it a test run. It worked really well. The cabinet is 4 ohms, and the MicroBlock was up to the task. The MicroBlock's output is 45 amps at 4 ohms, ~23 at 8 ohms and ~11 at 16 ohms.

It has 3 controls, Gain, Tri-Q and Master. The master controls the overall power of the unit. The gain is like any amp's gain stage. The Tri-Q has 3 main settings, at 0 it has a scooped sound, 5 is a rhythm sound, and 10 is a lead mid-boost sound. It's very simple to use. It also has a headphone jack to plug 1/8" headphone jacks into the unit. You can use the gain on the pedal to get a nice overdrive sound.

The positive is that it's incredibly small, and can be easily carried in your pocket as a backup. It probably wont be enough power for a higher ohm cabinet, but it works very well on a 4 ohm cab.

The main negative is that you need to engage the gain stage to get it working. The master at 100%, and the gain at 0% doesn't have any sound. Although understandable, it would be nice to have clean power.

Next, I tried a Seymour Duncan PowerStage 170. It has 4 knobs: Level, and a 3 band EQ, like any head: Bass, Mid, treble. The PowerStage is larger than the MicroBlock, There is no headphone jack, and is strictly a power amp. The power is incredibly clean. Even at very high volumes, there is plenty of headroom to maintain a very clean sound. The output is: 170 watts at 4 ohms, ~85 at 8 ohms.

The 3 EQ knobs give a 13 db boost or cut. It gives you a ton of tonal options, and makes it very easy to get a great sound out of any cabinet.

Positive: Very powerful, with pristine clean power, which is perfect for your Kemper, Helix or any other modeler.

Negative: I haven't found any negatives yet.


Wade Garrett

I am the projectionist.
If you ever find yourself wanting a rackmountable poweramp I can recommend the Palmer Macht 402.

Stereo guitar power amplifier

200 watts per channel into 4 ohms

400 watts bridged for mono use

Carefully tailored, guitar-specific EQ

Input sensitivity selector for use with preamps, pedals etc.

Built-in limiter

All major protections

Works with virtually any cabinet(s)

I used to gig an AMT R2 preamp into it and it was freaking loud! I'm glad you're enjoying the PowerStage dude, it really does look like a quality product.