PRS Archon Classic Review

The PRS Archon amplifier was released in December 2013 and quickly made its mark with modern metal guitarists. In 2021, the amp disappeared from PRS’ product line before being reintroduced as more affordable, Asia-built, 50W combos and heads, which remain in production. The new Archon Classic isn’t merely a rehash of the previous Archon, however. It’s a completely new and very different design. While the original Archon was a study in extremes—with pristine cleans and an ultra-high-gain lead sound—the Archon Classic is more balanced with slightly grittier clean tones and a more mid-rich gain profile.Designed by PRS’ Doug Sewell, who was a boutique amp designer when he met Paul Reed Smith at the Dallas Guitar Show when their respective booths were adjacent to each other, the 50W, two-channel, Archon Classic head is made in Indonesia and is priced at a very reasonable $1149.The original Archon 100 used a fairly conventional set of four 6L6GC power tubes and six 12AX7 preamp tubes, but the Archon Classic is outfitted with two JJ 6CA7 power tubes and six JJ ECC83S preamp tubes. I wasn’t too familiar with the 6CA7 power tubes so I reached out to Sewell for clarification. “Performance-wise, this tube sits nicely between an EL34 and a 6L6GC,” explains Sewell. “When voicing the Archon, this tube best fit the circuit and tone we wanted to achieve. The original U.S.-built Archons shipped with 6L6GCs. The 6CA7 Archon Classic gives a touch more British vibe and sweeter mids. Apparently Eddie Van Halen’s plexi Super Lead 100W had 6CA7s. Enough said!”Less is MoreOperationally speaking, the Archon Classic is as straightforward as you can get. The control panel has independent sets of knobs for the clean and lead channels: volume (gain), treble, middle, bass, master volume, and bright toggle switches. There’s also a set of global control knobs for presence and depth (which adds low end).The original Archon offered power scaling on the 50W and 25W models, but neither the reissue nor the Archon Classic offer the feature. This streamlining of the Archon’s controls is by design. Sewell adds, “As the Archon matured, our objective was to scale down the features, refine the tones, provide a much more cost-effective amp for a wider customer base, and break out of the metal niche many mistakenly perceived that amp to be in.”While PRS opted for a stripped-down approach with the Archon Classic, the back panel retains the useful bias adjustment jacks seen in the original. This allows you to use a multimeter to assess whether tubes are dead or have drifted out of spec relative to the other tubes in the unit. Adjustments can be made using a small, jeweler’s Phillips head screwdriver.Pure Tone MachineWhere the original Archon’s clean tones are hi-fi and pristine, the Archon Classic’s cleans are grittier, with more attitude. At its lowest clean channel setting, the output is already slightly driven, particularly when a bridge humbucker is in the mix. Using a single-coil yields a slightly cleaner tone, but with gain settings this low there’s not a ton of headroom to play with, even with master volume up pretty high. But by slightly bumping the clean channel’s volume up to 9 o’clock, the amp feels significantly louder and is much better suited for a band mix.When I push the clean channel’s volume to noon and bash away on a bridge humbucker, the Archon Classic delivers beautiful breakup that is, to my ears, just right—not too dirty but not too clean. There’s a lot of gain available in the clean channel, and if you turn up the volume between 3 o’clock and maximum, you get various shades of rhythm guitar crunch, from “Won’t Get Fooled Again” to “You Shook Me All Night Long.” There’s also enough sustain here for classic-rock lead sounds. It’s not often I can get pinch harmonics to pop on an amp’s “clean” channel, but I did here, with ease.Switching between channels is seamless and there are no pops or noise when clicking the one-button footswitch. The lead channel sounds voiced with a nod to ’70s and ’80s hard rock, rather than the more modern, scooped voice of the original Archon. With the lead channel’s volume around 10 o’clock, it’s about as dirty as the clean channel with its volume knob maxed. This is a great jumping-off point for creating an all-purpose, versatile two-channel setup, where I dialed the clean channel with the volume maxed for a hard-rock rhythm sound and bumped the lead channel’s volume to just under noon, to get a comparable but boosted sound for leads.The Verdict“Archon” is Greek for “ruler” and it’s not hyperbole to say the Archon Classic rules. Its simple design—the amp doesn’t even have a standby switch—makes dialing up killer sounds effortless, and such simplicity is huge when you want to get down to playing. The sole focus of the Archon Classic is tone, and that it delivers in spades.