Having done battle with ‘Goliaths’, Mark Tucker takes on ‘David’. Will he be knocked out stone cold, or seduced like Bath-sheba?

COMPANY BACKGROUND
Founded in the early 1980s, Schertler are a Swiss company best known for their high quality acoustic pickups. Schertler have recently made a few modifications to their already available acoustic amplifier, the David. We’ll take a closer look at the David soon, but firstly I’d like to give you a little background on this company.
   
Schertler have made their reputation in making specialist pickups for all manner of acoustic instruments, including guitar, resonator guitar, double bass, in fact, pretty much almost any acoustic instrument you care to think of. To the company’s credit, in the United States, companies like Gibson, C.F. Martin, and Santa Cruz are now offering Schertler’s Bluestick under-saddle condenser microphone acoustic guitar pickups fitted as standard.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS
The first thing that struck me about the Schertler David was a distinct similarity in design to that of an amp I had recently reviewed for Acoustic, namely the JAM 150, designed and manufactured by SR Technology. Ironically as I read more about Schertler’s history, I discovered an incestuous link between Schertler and SRT. Although this relationship is briefly mentioned on Schertler’s website as ‘Partnered’, I’m not clear as yet if Schertler use the very same SR Technologies self-designed amp and equalisation circuits. As with most Swiss products, whether musical or not, they normally have an air of quality and attention to detail. Schertler have certainly made no exceptions here - the David has an appearance of a solid, well-built amp.

FEATURES
This amp is very compact, boasting a neat and tidy 30cm x 34cm x 24.5cm wooden cabinet. Weighing in at 9.5kg, this amp is tightly packed. However, with only the one (very chunky) metal handle on one side of the cabinet, you do have to exercise some care when picking it up as it has a tendency to twist uncomfortably to one side.
   
The amps boasts two inputs that will cover just about any situation required, allowing phantom powered microphones, low level – high impedance and line level signals to be readily plugged in. A very comprehensive design has included a useful selection of outputs featured on the rear of the amp. These include DI, Insert, auxiliary, and line.
   
As far as I can see, the only visible changes that have been made to that of Schertler’s earlier David models are the additional feature of a bi-amped output. This simply means that specific frequencies are controlled by separate amplifiers i.e. the bass woofer and tweeter reproduce their specific frequencies by dedicated power amplifiers. This type of circuit is renowned for producing a much more efficient, smoother and more natural sounding sonic result.
   
The additional option to add an active sub-woofer allows the user to easily improve the amp’s frequency range and output power by simply plugging in an additional self-powered speaker from the Schertler range. The Schertler PUB-380 sub-box specifically amplifies very low frequencies and would be most effective with a bass instrument, although even with acoustic guitar where science states a guitar’s frequency extends only so low, there are many instances where a player will want to have absolute control of frequencies as low as 30Hz. When playing hard, bridge transducer pickup systems have a habit of inducing a bass thump. Where some see this as unnatural, others use it for effect and power. So really, these little amps are mini PA systems, with a sonic range to match.

CONCLUSION
The amp sounds wonderful, with a very smooth and balanced tone and bags of power. I tested a range of acoustic guitars with varying pickup systems, including bug, transducer and microphone - all performed very well indeed. Despite the available three way fixed tone - high, mid and low, with additional resonance control - I did note the absence of a more controllable notch filter or parametric or graphic equaliser. The resonance control is fixed at 180Hz, so when using a bug where the more honky mid frequencies (around 300 to 800Hz) are problematic, you have very little control. The ‘warm’ setting allows a different tonal shape that was often quite appealing, yet the options are only on or off. Despite these quibbles, I do think you will find it hard to find an amp with a better basic smooth tone than the David.