PRODUCT REVIEW
imperium H- 150
CiCoGNaNi
By BRIAn BARR
Manufactured in Italy by pro audio equipment
manufacturer FBT, the Cicognani (pronounced:
chee-koh-nah-nee) Imperium H- 150 head with
4x12 cab is a beautiful-looking rig. The black
tolex and silver grillecloth with stainless steel
logo screams good design. It’s very similar in
appearance to a Mesa, but there is one thing
that really sets this amp apart from a Mesa
Boogie aesthetically: the insane amount of
LEDs on the controls. Turn it on and the amp
comes to life in bright blue, green, and red.
The use of individual LEDs on the digitally
encoded pots, in place of the usually arbitrary
numbers 1 through 10, can be a bit intimidating at first, giving it the appearance of a hard-to-use piece of gear. It really isn’t true, though,
as I discovered after diving into the completely
programmable valve amplifier with 127 selectable and user storeable presets (accessible
from the control panel or a MIDI footswitch).
This combination of valve tone and modern
technology provides the guitarist with a perfect
blend of both worlds. The Imperium is not a
modeling amp designed to replicate other
amplifiers; it is an analog tube amp all of its
own, but with digitual user preset and recall
capability, it’s setting the bar a bit higher for
other amps of its ilk.
Loaded for Bear
The Cicognani Imperium H- 150 is a class-AB1
amplifier with five 12AX7 preamp tubes and
four 5881 power tubes. There is only one
input provided, along with three EQ controls—Treble, Middle and Bass is all you really
need when it comes to a well-voiced amplifier—as well as Gain and Volume controls. A
final Master volume control for live use can’t
be preset, but the rest are programmable,
so when you adjust them to creat and save
a preset, or use a MIDI footswitch to toggle
presets, you’ll see the front-panel LED indicators on the pots light up according to the
level positions. These LEDs also make it easy
to see your settings no matter what stage
lighting conditions you have to deal with,
which is a good thing.
There are six Sound buttons for selecting pre-
installed amp sounds: Clean 1 and 2, Sexy,
Crunch, and Lead 1 and 2. This allows you
to create presets in any given Sound mode
and switch to other presets in other Sound
modes, like having a six-channel amp, or
even six different amps at your fingertips, all
with presets accessible via MIDI footswitch.
Also on the front panel are the four buttons
for the four pre-preamp effect loops available
on the back of the amp. Any stompbox effect
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