This is a custom built amp made for me here in the UK by HTH amplification.Because I only play at home and have been frustrated that 50w and 100w heads are totally impractical for use at home or in a small studio I started being into small class A amps.My big disappointment was that these amps really didn't get close to the sound of the big Marshalls, Soldanos or Mesa amps because they used a small bottle tube like an EL84 or maybe a 6v6 , and that the amount of gain was pretty small and range of controls was often just volume and tone.Once I had tried a Cornell Romany 10w combo which takes either a 6L6 or an EL34 and found that it did sound like a big amp - albeit a clean Fender blackface type amp I knew that we could get a lot closer to what I wanted (and I was't dreaming)In discussing the amp I wanted with Ian at HTH I pretty much laid it on the line - I wanted to have a hot-rodded Marshall type amp that could handle classic rock and the 80s hair metal rock as well.I wanted an amp that could do the classic rock stuff like Zeppelin, Free, Ac/DC, UFO, Whitesnake etc but also one that could get the sounds of certain 80s players, whose Marshalls had been modified by techs such as Tim Caswell,, Lee Jackson or Jose Arredondo .In particular I was keen on the sound of the MArshall amp that Tim Caswell modified for S.I.R. Studios - the famous 39 amp that Slash used n Appetite and George Lynch was obsessed with and toured on the Under Lock and Key tour.With my taste in players being George Lynch, Slash, Michael Schenker, Matthias Jabs (Scorpions) as well as old schol players like Page, Kossoff etc - I had high hopes for the amp.We ended up making it so it was like a hot plexi - with an extra valve stage that could be cascaded in front of that sound and both gain stages controlled from separtae gain controlsWe added a couple of other features.One is a Lee Jackson style mid range boost control that has 6 positions on a switch - adding a more and more pronounced hump in the mids.The other feature which is much more subtle but great to have if you are an amp tweaker is a variable slope control - which replaces the slope resistor in the tone stack. In simple terms turned one way the amp sounds more like a Marshall in response and the tone controls have a slightly reduced effect when used and turned the other way the amp has more of a Fender like vbe and the tone controls have a more dramatic effect.It's very versatile - a footswitch switches between the plexi mode and the hot-rodded mode which makes it really practical as well.There is a great tube driven FX loop on the back and a switch that rests the bias so you can use different power tubes. I currently have a NOS Siemens EL34 in there although I have tried A USA made 6CA7 (just like EVH likes and Lynch used them too). It will take KT66s, 6L6, 6V6, EL34,6550s etcFor the chassis and cab we got lucky and found an old mid 80s 30w Marshall transistor combo which had a G12m70 speaker and was in good condition. We stripped all the amp guts out of the chassis and built from scratch. We finished it off with some custom fascia plates
you wouldn't use the meat knife on crusty bread but, equally, the serrated knife and straight edge knife aren't going to go through raw meat as quickly
Sounds great, like the cleans quite a lot too.Goes up to 11? Or are my eyes losing it
the knobs going to 11 was THE major requirement from Jonathan :lol:
