NAD - Cornell Traveller 5

Mr Grumpy

Mr Grumpy

Ambassador of Comings and Goings
Country flag
It's a 5W amp that has attenuator settings for 5 watt, 1 watt, one-quarter of a watt and one-eight of a watt. It has hi and low input. It has volume and gain controls. It has a speaker out.

Thus, it should be perfect for home, practice and small gigs which is all I'd ever do. Oh, also it's pretty small and light, so I can walk it to my office ( about 250 metres away from my apartment) at weekends when nobody else is around and play it loud...

Here is the weblink: Traveller 5 | Cornellamps

Screenshot 2020-03-12 at 16.07.11.png

Some quite well known artists play this brand.

Screenshot 2020-03-12 at 16.01.13.png
 
So, it's not a cheap amp, but I got it from Germany without paying EU taxes, and the transportation fee wasn't so bad. Somehow, the amp sneaked through Korean customs without them charging me the US$130 due, so the amp ended up costing me 400 Great British Pounds which isn't cheap, but it isn't expensive either, imho - what else can you get for the money that's made in England by hand with the features that I like?

Cornell1.jpg

Cornell2.jpg

It's nice quality. Looks pretty and a bit different from the norm. Compared to the DSL5 and Origin20 I had it's similar quality - but both of them were excellent, imho. No complaints.

Cornell3.jpg

Cornell4.jpg


Cornell5.jpg

From the manual:

"The Clean path has been filtered to reduce the middle honk produced by the speaker. The Mean path allows the true speaker sound." After initial playing, I've left it on the clean; sounds nicer to my ears, and plenty of OD when the gain is turned up. I bought a few pedals to goose this amp anyways.

"Output Switch: A=5w, B=1w, C=1/4w, D=1/8w. Note that unless the volume is adjusted above the power selected, you will not notice any change in output level." After a quick play around, I noticed that they did seem to be different voicing on the different power settings even when the (perceived?) volume wasn't changing. All the sounds were nice, no duds.

"High input impedance = 2.2 MegOhm. Low input impedance = 47KOhm." I'm not sure what that 'means'...

"Output = 5 Watts RMS, Class A". First impressions were it was very quiet for a 5 watt amp - my Marshalls were very much louder on the 5 watt settings. I actually thought that I'd left the amp on the 1 watt setting when I maxed out the gain and volume, but wasn't upsetting the wife. I'm thinking there may be something strange there, early days... (suits me fine)

"Dimensions: H = 15in (380mm), W = 17in (430mm), D = 7 1/2in (180mm)" It's a nice size, and there's space for a 10" speaker with quite a small magnet if I wanna change out the speaker.

"Speaker: Celestion 8-15, 8 inches, 15 watts" I really don't like these lower cost Celestions. The ones that came in my DSL5 and Origin 20 were horrible speakers that were massively improved by upgrading to a greenback. But, thusfar, to my great surprise, the amp sounds good - better than I thought that speaker could sound, but it's early days...
 
Cornell6.jpg

The power chord is kinda attached and comes out of the back, but I couldn't get it out cleanly, so decided to take the back off - might as well have a looksee...

Lots of screws, self-tappers, don't really like them at all, and they were not all in straight as an arrow - hard work getting the back off! After all the screws were off, needed to unscrew from the electronics - which is screwed in at the back and at the top, so you have to take care.

Cornell7.jpg

400 pounds doesn't seem like a huge amount of money for all the work that went into it.

Not at all impressed with the speaker or the little bit of material in the bottom right hand corner...

Cornell8.jpg

Cornell9.jpg

This screw was a bit of a bastard, my mind was telling me it was gonna get stripped and be an issue, so I decided to leave it off for the time being and make sure I have the perfect screwdriver head before I force it back in.

Cornell10.jpg

Sounds - I will update this later. But, it is not a Plexi sound, it is not a VOX sound and it is not a Fender sound. It has its own sound. Nice. A pedal platform really, but also nice cleans and some OD sounds which I like, but will need to play through all the options more on the different attenuator settings - as always when I buy a small amp with various settings, I'll probably end up leaving it on the 5w setting as it sounds best even at low volumes. But, I'm interested to see if I can max this out and rock like a nutter on the low attenuator settings and still sound good? I'll report back...

Now, practice: combo speaker, 1x12, find those amp settings I like best, OCD, SG Special, happy days...

Cornell11.jpg

20200312_165857.jpg

^ those knobs are upside down??? So, to give you an idea, it's on 5W, gain is maxed, vol is close to maxed, tone is maxed. Not that loud, not shrill on the highs either.
 
Last edited:
Congrats...you are onto something...am really opening my P brain up...the smaller amps driven record so well. My inner self still says you need a moving truck to haul your guitar rig around...but in the studio..just not needing it.

The 84 driven is going to be a blast.. looking for the perfect single 6l6 now...cause love my fenders but really wanna work the amp all goosed up on the verge of an explosion.. my hearing has also been coming back last few months
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top