Carr Amplifiers have quickly gained a reputation for producing ultra high quality, point-to-point wired amplifiers that are hand made in Pittsboro, North Carolina. Mr.Carr’s amplifiers are not just tributes to past designs, they represent a new direction for American made tube amplifiers. I got the chance to speak to Mr. Carr about about his beginnings in the amplifier business, his views on tone, and what is in store for Carr in the future.

About a week ago we reported on the AC/DC Backtracks Deluxe Box Set that is packaged in a working amplifier (best box set EVER). Well, our friend Adam at Satellite Amplifiers read the post and gave us some additional information about the box set.

TomasZewicZ Amplifiers is easily a contender for the best tone of the show; it would really end up being a steel cage death match between them and Wizard Amplifiers.  It would be hard for me to pin these amps down to one particular sound or inspiration. These amplifiers have a very broad range to them in terms of available tones that you can dial in.

Ahhh LSL Guitars, what more can I say about thee? The T-Bone 52.5 you sent us for review received our first ever “Editors Choice Award” because quite frankly this guitar floored me. I really didn’t want to send it back, in fact had it not been already sold the LSL might still be here in San Francisco. Lance Lerman, the man behind the LSL, brought down a bunch of his Teles to show and from what I witnessed, he was making new fans each time someone played one.

The Wattgrinder room turned out to be one of the most interesting rooms and definitely the most controversial. Darryl Ford was showcasing a new line of 12AX7/7025/ECC83 tube replacements that he calls the “ToneGrinder.” So what exactly is a ToneGrinder? Here is what the WattGrinder website says:

When we were recording the Ugly 18 review at Hyde Street Studios in San Francisco a Producer from the studio beside ours dropped by to borrow a cable. He walked into the live room to find Mike Sopko warming up the Ugly 18 with a 58 Les Paul VOS, he stood and listened for a minute, then remarked “Ugly amps? Not a thing ugly about that.” I could not have said it better myself.

The Fender room had a few new additions to complement the usual line of high quality amplifiers.  It seems the folks in Corona, CA have been busy with some new custom hand wired reissues and a few bass amps.

Joe Kelemen has been in the amp building business since 1994, starting out with the original “JoMama” line of amplifiers. Since then Mr. Kelemen has been hard at work on a new line of amplifiers under the “Kelemen” name, the resulting amps are the hand wired marvels know as: The Roadrunner and The Raven.

The Guitar Center Vintage Collection room was divided into two sections: American Vintage and International Vintage. On the American side we have some Tweed, Silver Face, and Tolex Fenders, Gibson, Gretsch, a Silvertone (I believe it is a 1482), and a Diaz head. The Vibroverb and Vibrolux Fenders were especially nice. The amps were in near perfect condition, and reminded me that the classics will never go out of style.

The Egnater room was showing their well-rounded line-up of amps with the Rebel 20 head and cabs, Rebel 30 head and cab, the Renegade 50 head or cab, and the flagship Tourmaster. There was also a new addition to the already versatile Egnater line up – the 15-watt Tweaker.