Fatman iTube 452 review

Fine rhythm

Given the Fatman name, it's only appropriate that we played tracks from late, lamented blues lard-tub, Freddie King. King's ability to wrest a groove out of a guitar was an inspiration to the likes of Clapton and all that followed down that path, so any potential flat spots in the amp's rhythmic performance.

Fortunately, the iTube 452 turns in a very sweet sense of rhythm, or more accurately a very sweet sense of the melodic. No, it's not as tight as a solid-state amp, but what you lose in precision, you gain in fun factor.

Those 45 watts deliver one hell of a thwack, too. You can get to really turn up the wick to party levels, although you do get an extra dose of creamy-smooth even-order distortion when you decide to really raise the roof.

This only makes things sound harmonically richer than usual (it's why guitar players still cling to valve amps). Not only can you turn the amp up to meaty levels, you find yourself drawn to the upper regions of the volume dial; not because the amp doesn't cut the music mustard at lower volumes, but just because you can.

Deep bass

You have to be canny in partnering up the iTube 452 though. The speakers need to be reasonably efficient and capable of handling a lot of power, but not the sort of boxes that explore the bottom of the deep-bass ocean as a matter of course.

This is because the amplifier is not good at delivering deep, well-controlled bass. We suspect this is down to iron, or the lack of it; the transformers could do with being bigger to help with the low notes. However, used with a pair of speakers that better match the amp, the rewards are potentially great.

There's a visceral sense to the sound of the iTube 452. No shrinking violet here, music is presented red in string and stick; big, powerful and gutsy. The accent is on the 'big' as the amp throws out a large-scale sound with a big, deep soundstage.

These are not vital aspects to the sound though, what it has is 'mojo'. This elusive quality – part coherence, part dynamic range, part boundless energy – all adds up to an amplifier that just won't leave music alone.

The Fatman's mojo

All this talk of 'visceral' and describing the amp's 'mojo' underlies its one biggest flaw; it's not the most transparently neutral amp on the planet.

Everything sounds really, really good through the iTube 452 and that's the problem; it pretties up music that sometimes doesn't need prettying up. Stick on something with plenty of boogie and you'll end up tapping your foot and playing air guitar; replace it with Schoenberg... and you'll end up tapping your foot and playing air cello. Every now and then, even the most heads-down of us want a brief view of the cerebral.

Oh yeah, there's an iPod dock, too... this is essentially neutral and the tone of the iPod sound is largely informed by the amplifier itself. This helps smooth out anything recorded in 128kbps AAC or less.

Like the girl with the curl, when the iTube 452 is good, it's very, very good and when it's bad, it's horrid. But if you like the enticing and downright funky (in a 'hot damn' not 'last year's stilton' sense) presentation, make a date with the Fatman and try it for size.