Review : Soldano SLO Mini

I’m going right to the conclusions here. If you like the sound of a driven amp, with just a guitar, a cable, a head and a cabinet, run, do not walk to your Soldano dealer with $250 USD and get yourself a Soldano SLO Mini.

At the risk of someone being offended, my first words on hearing the first chord (happened to be an A Major) out of this thing, were “Holy Shit!”

I have a number of presets for my Quad Cortex, and for my Kemper, as well as the superb Neural Soldano SLO plugin. I kind of knew what kind of tones to expect from a fully tube driven Soldano. Sadly my budget cannot tolerate even a Soldano 30 and cabinet but when I first heard of this SLO Mini, I started looking into one.

I had trouble believing that a solid state amplifier, that is smaller than the box holding a pair of low rise boots could ever deliver “that sound”. I hummed and hawed and finally had a good conversation with my trusted Sweetwater Sales Engineer, the inestimable James Ridings. I freely admit to be untrusting of marketing and advertising materials. I also am aware that many of the reviews on the web have a compensation something buried somewhere. That’s ok, that’s their business and the credible people will always tell you if they got something for their review. But a lot do not. So being the untrusting type that I am, I ended up bugging James. He knows his stuff extremely well, and I know that Sweetwater is very committed to customer service. He’s never steered me wrong and has earned my trust, so when I asked him about the Mini SLO, I believed him when he told me it sounded incredible for what it was and that I would be impressed.

James’ record remains unsullied.

Soldano SLO Mini

This is an amplifier head. This means that to use it, you have to plug it into a separate speaker cabinet. The head is actually as simple as it looks. Very basic and straightforward controls on the front, that we all can understand. After the On/Off switch there is a small toggle to select between Normal and Deep. Deep adds more low frequency punch, as you might want with a Strat bridge pickup or any pickup where the lows are quieter than the mids or the highs. Try the switch in both positions and pick the one that you like. Then there is a Master Volume knob. You know what that does. Then we have the standard Soldano tone stack, Presence, Treble, Middle and Bass. You know what they do. Start them at 5 and tune to your preference. Then there is the Gain control. Let me just be clear, that there is lots of gain at all settings. If you are looking for pristine cleans, especially with hotter humbuckers, you are in the wrong country with this amp. Finally there is a toggle to switch between crunch and overdrive. Crunch is, in my opinion best for big barre chords, where Overdrive gives a bit of a mid boost so your lead lines stand out a bit more.

The amplifier is rated at 30 watts into 8 ohms. It is solid state, and has no tubes (valves for my UK compatriots), and while this may cause some to poo poo it, those folks would be, as far as I am concerned, wrong. And I have been, admittedly until quite recently, a bit of a tube snob. Work using MOSFETs has really moved solid state amps along in the last couple of years and this head sounds and feels like a tube amp. Moreover that silly math that we have become accustomed to where you might need a 100 watt solid state amp to sound and feel like an 18 watt tube amp is, in this case at least, not a consideration. This 30 watts of solid state sounds and feels like 30 watts of tube power.

On the back are two speaker out jacks, for either a single 8 ohm load or 2 16 ohm loads. There are next the jacks for the Effects Loop. Send and Receive. No knobs, no controls, just plug and go.

Did I mention simple?

As the amp has no reverb, I might be inclined to stick a nice reverb pedal in the effects loop, but I’m having too much fun right now to go do that. If I record something that really needs reverb, I will add my fave EMT-140 plate reverb in post production on its own bus.

The power supply is an inline adapter type delivering 24 volts with an AC standard cable on one side and a standard looking power connector on the other. The power supply comes in the box with the amplifier. It is quiet and does not get hot in prolonged use.

That’s all there is to it.

Plugging In

For the speaker cabinet I used a PRS Stealth 2 x 12 cabinet. I like the response of this cabinet and I like the sound of the Celestion V series speakers in it. It is a closed back cab, and definitely has that British vibe. It’s also not cripplingly heavy at 56 pounds. The cabinet is rated to 150 watts, so the SLO Mini isn’t going to hurt it. Those Celestion V series are also very efficient speakers so they don’t need a lot of power to get moving.

I used a proper speaker cable to connect the head to the cabinet. I mention this only as a reminder that a guitar cable is NOT, NEVER, an appropriate speaker cable unless you like fire and the destruction of your amplifier. I set the head on top of the cabinet, but it is so small the feet on it are not high enough to clear the cabinet carry handle. The head itself weighs all of 4 pounds.

With Humbuckers

I set the tone stack knobs all at 5. I put the Normal / Deep switch in Normal mode. I put the Crunch / Overdrive switch in Crunch mode. I set the Gain at 5 and after plugging in my Gibson Les Paul Axcess with a standard Ernie Ball guitar cable, I turned the amp on, wound the Master up to 5 and standing about 6 feet away, hit that first chord.

And just about deafened myself. I rolled the Master back to 1 and played with the switches and the gain level. When I set the guitar down to start writing this review, the Master is at 4 and the Gain at 2.5 and it is really really loud. All the cats have run for another floor, and I have an ear to ear grin on my face. Of the fifteen or so amplifiers that I presently have, no other amp has made me so happy in the first minute as this one, and I am very fortunate to have bought a number of amplifiers and kept a good number of them over the last 45 plus years.

I like the Les Paul Axcess for this kind of amp test. It’s one of the original ones, and the factory pickups are quite hot. They are each wired for coil splits and they sounded spectacular through this amp. That guitar also has a time invested and properly balanced Floyd Rose bridge that returns to tune do matter how much you whang on it. I have it strung with my custom balanced set of Curt Mangan 9.5-44 coated strings and in the right amp it really sings and wails. Just FYI, I never turned the volume controls on the guitar up past eight. My experience has taught me that humbuckers can get a bit too muddy for my taste with the stock Gibson pots wide open.

Single Coils

I have an old Mex Strat that is completely redone with Lindy Fralin Pure ‘54s and the incredible VegaTrem VT-1 bridge/vibrato system. I started with the same settings as I ended on with the Les Paul and as I expected it was a lot quieter. The Fralin pickups are really low output, a sincere and superlative match to real Fender 1954 pickups. It was a bit bitey, so I switched from Overdrive back to Crunch and from Normal to Deep. With the volume control at 8 and the the pickup selector in position 4, hello SRV! I’m starting to understand why Eric Clapton loved Soldanos with his Strats so much. The amp works with the guitar regardless of pickup selector position and that vibrato system is so superior to Fender’s now rather ancient design that there is no binding at all and the pitch shifts are so smooth that the amp can really fire them out. I expected the SLO Mini to be good with humbuckers and in fact it is great and I am really so pleasantly surprised with how it sounds with the Strat.

Really Short Examples

Let’s face it, there are lots of examples on the net featuring this amp, so there are multiple options for you to hear. I’ve attached a recording of just over a minute just to give you something quick.

For both, the tone stack is set at 5 across the board, master volume is at 5 with gain at about 2 1/2. The first sequence is the Les Paul Axcess, bridge pickup, volume at 8, tone all the way up, no coil tap. The amp is the Normal position and in the Overdrive switch position. The second sequence is the Strat, position two, volume at 8, tone all the way up. The amp is in the Deep position and in the Crunch position.

The microphone is a Shure SM57 about three inches off the grill cloth of the PRS Stealth 2 x 12, and aimed halfway between the cone and the rim. The mic goes into a UA Apollo with a Neve 1084 preamp in the UNISON slot with the controls all neutral. The signal is then recorded into Studio One V6 because I was closest to a Windows machine. I added a Universal Audio LA-2A Silver mono compressor in post and increased the compression to 40 on the dial from the default of 30 and used the gain to make it up to unity gain with or without the compressor. The Neve preamps (1084, 1073 and 88RS) and Teletronix LA-2A compressor are my go to tools. I used the Shure SM57 because it is so widely known and used and it works so well with high sound pressure levels.

My Quick Thoughts

If you play rock and need an amp that can be extremely loud, and is so light it can fit in a backpack, and you have no need for a clean tone, you cannot in my opinion beat the Soldano SLO Mini. For $250 USD, it is an incredible value. Just be sure to match it with a decent cabinet and solid speakers. I am looking at grabbing an old used 2 x 12 cabinet with some failed speakers (it’s an open backed birch cab) and if it works out, I will put a pair of Celestion NEO Creambacks in it. I have a NEO Creamback in my cream Tonemaster Deluxe Reverb and regular Creambacks in both of my Fender FSR Hot Rod Deluxe Mark IVs. In a smaller cabinet they are my favourite sound and I think that the Soldano SLO Mini would be great that way as well.

I live in Canada, and Soldano products are really scarce on the ground up here, so I did buy this little guy from the United States. I earn no commission or referral revenue, so my recommendation to give Sweetwater a try is completely my personal perspective. If you do decide to call in, ask for James Ridings and tell him that Ross sent you from That Guitar Lover dot com. I know that you will be impressed by his service. And if you cannot get to James, be confident that the other Sweetwater Sales Engineers are also really nice folks backed up with a ton of special training and knowledge.

My enthusiasm for the Soldano SLO Mini does not wane. Yes it can be punishingly loud, if you ask it but it sounds so awesome and I can always count on an ASMR shiver down my spine on that first power chord. Get one. Seriously.

Thanks as always for reading and please subscribe to both the articles and the podcast to be notified when something new is posted. I’m Ross and until next time, peace.