London City Amps

[Dave Sloven]

Obscure Dutch company, around in the '70s and '80s, made 100W tube amps called 'Bulldog'.  Apparently they have started up again and Eric Daniels and Alwin Zuur from Grand Supreme Blood Court (a Dutch death metal band comprised of members of Asphyx and Hail of Bullets) are apparently using 200W heads made by them:

How in the world did you come up with your guitar sound? I swear from 1991’s ‘The Rack’, with Asphyx, until this album, your guitar tone is undeniable. It’s definitely one of the heaviest tones, explain the equipment you use and why you feel this tone is necessary in the bands that you’re a part of?

Thank you very much. Well, it’s not only the equipment which makes the sound; of course it’s important the stuff is adjusted to get along all together. The choice of picks and the type of playing-style makes a lot difference. I am used not to touch the strings on a soft way, I like to play rough, to get the emotion into the gear I use sort of speak. It’s natural doing this to me. Way back in the beginning till up to know. I see a lot of guitar-players play their instruments, afraid to break em, but I don’t care, it’s part of the job. My original Floyd Rose trems are used to the abusement I use em. It’s take it or leave it. But good equipment is important. I used to play Marshall valve amps, but now I play on London City heads, they have more power, and that’s what we like, in rehearsal room we play f#%kin loud, so loud you can feel the air from the speakers, so the amps we use are handle the job. Alwin and I use 200 watt heads. We also have a full endorsement deal with SKG (Serpent King Guitars) guitars, we use the “nighthawk” flying V models, they have a tremendous amount of sustain, good playability and made as solid rocks, we are happy with this deal. The owner is Henri Sattler, well known as chief from God Dethroned. He is guitar-maker now, and we have a very good relationship together. Further our sound go to distortion-pedals, to get the buzzsaw sound we like and you can hear at the album. Also we use EMG pick-ups all the time. The heavy tone and sustain we need for the doom parts, I always said the doom parts must be heavy and sound heavy, with our equipment we manage that.

200W tube amps?  I'm sure they are loud!  I'm trying to imagine them practicing somewhere on these amps, sounds kind of scary!  Anyone heard of these 200W London City amps?  I can't find any information on them.

http://www.londoncity-guitars.com/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/London-City-Guitars-Amps/119043664790797

My Peavey is loud enough for me, but I'm curious. Sounds like they got some prototypes.

[Mr. Air]

I don't know much about amps, but I have never heard of 200w tube amps. Seems like overkill to me, but I might be wrong.

[marauder]

Blackmore used 200W Marshall Majors.  Must be deaf as a post.

No need for 200W amps on stage these days.

[Dave Sloven]

Yeah I can't imagine why they would need a 200W tube amp.  If they are solid-state or hybrid I could almost imagine it, but a 120W tube amp is as loud as a 200W solid-state amp in my experience.  But I see no indication that this company has any reputation for solid-state stuff, and indeed seemed to fold up when solid-state became cool and has only reappeared when high-gain tube amps are the thing.

Daniels must gave abused his ears playing in Asphyx for all those years with that buzzsaw sound, maybe he needs the extra volume?  I don't know.  I do know that his sound does rely a lot on brute force, literally pounding the listener into submission.  Maybe he thinks more is better?  I don't know.  I've only seen clips of them playing live but they didn't sound dramatically louder than bands playing 120W amps.  You can see the amps behind them in this clip.

Grand supreme blood court- Fed to the boars live @ Summerbreeze 2013

It might also be the case that it was an error in the transcription of the interview.  He might have said that 'we use two hundred watt amps', meaning him and Alwin use an 100W Bulldog each.  They look like the old Bulldog amps in the video, which were 100W.  Unless they have recently built prototypes that have double the power amp capacity, I'd say they were 100W Bulldogs, which pre-date Meso Rectos but have a similar look without the high-gain sound.  I'm pretty sure their extreme gain comes from pedals

[Dmoney]

Verellen Meatsmoke is a 300watt amp for Bass or Guitar (they say) out of Seattle I believe http://www.verellenamplifiers.com/products.html

wattage and power and how loud stuff seems is a bit hard to pin down unless you have experience of playing the things. a 200watt valve amp is going to have a lot of headroom in the power stage and that will effect the tone of the amp, but you might not play it all that loud. I imagine the relationship between a 100watt and 200watt is gonna be like a 50watt versus a 100watt. Take from that what you will. A Mesa Triple Rec is 150watt, The Diezel Herbert is 180watt. +100watt amps aren't that uncommon but once you go over a certain power it means more valves, bigger iron and therefore more expense for what you've already pointed out might not be a huge benefit or may even be a problem a some venues in this day and age now that suitable PA's are pretty easy to come by. Trying to gauge the difference listening to clips is going to be hard especially since you're probably listening to PA mixes in some cases.

[gordiji]

I seem to remember the marshall majors where 130db at full tilt. Also Blackmore had his 'adjusted'  giving 275w or something.(you need to be behind them)