Zombie : Fun little amp

I play metal. This is a tiny Mesa Boogie clone. It plays metal too.

Obvious jokes aside, this little thing is awesome. It's not a straight-up clone of the mkV. More like an ideal mix between a few boxes. Overall distortion has a boogie character but is tighter than you would expect. It really benefits from hitting the front with a boost. A clean boost preferably.

Materials feel sturdy. Nothing feels cheap ( except the comically large BT antenna I guess ). The serial FX loop works as expected. The direct ( cab emulated ) out sounds ... good enough. A raw output would have been nicer than an emulated one but it's built for headphone practice, not recording directly, ultimately.

It sounds fabulous on a Benton v30 and even better on more serious cabs.

Where it fails, and why it gets 5 stars for sound is how it handles harmonics. If your playing benefits from a ton of well-defined squeals and/ or natural harmonics, I'd recommend you stay away from this box. Can you pull them off here? Technically yes but they will sound somewhat underwhelming. No amount of eq will change that significantly.

I was entirely fine with pinch harmonics on all the amps I've had so far ( and on most direct out cheapo preamps too ) except this. It could always be that I got much worse at them but I doubt it since natural harmonics don't shine as they should either.

All-in-all I am loving this tiny lunchbox and don't see myself parting with it any time soon.