The 2008 LA Amp Show: Part One

It was a decidedly difficult assignment photographically speaking: various lighting conditions from the nearly pitch black Line 6 room to blasting back light from windows, fraught with personal danger,  and I think I may have destroyed the upper register of my hearing! But in the end, the Amp Show represents for me why I love the guitar and everything associated with it.  Here we have a show with relatively small builders who love what they do and who make some amazing gear. The builders are primarily based in the USA, offering products that are hand made and whose quality and attention to detail that remind you that pride, quality and workmanship are still very much alive.

A lot of the big names turned up: Fender, Vox, Marshall and Peavey. A notable absence was Mesa Boogie; I was surprised because they are located in California and a little sad, as I do like the Mesa’s. But the biggest treat was getting introduced to a lot of amp makers that I had never heard of before. These builders were the ones I came to see and they did not disappoint!

The Amp Show story is broken up into four parts to accommodate the 160 photographs that we took to cover the event in detail. I hope you enjoy our coverage of the 2008 LA Amp Show and be sure to check back for some reviews of some of the amazing amps we discovered!

Enjoy!

Star Amplifiers by Mark Sampson

You may know the name Mark Sampson, as he was one of the founders of Matchless amps and a design consultant for Bat Cat Amps. He now has a new outlet for amazing amps with Star Amplifiers.

Models range from 5 to 30 watts with both Head and Combos available. Reverb is available on most models and they have 1x12 and 2x12 cab options.

A basic looking amplifier, I liked the cab design and the position of the speaker jack was interesting. The amps are very solid looking, with strong attention to detail in terms of construction. These are not cheap, but they are top of the line. With Mil-Spec construction and point-to-point hand wiring, Star Amplifiers are hand built in Los Angeles, CA.

If you’re a Matchless or Bat Cat fan, this may be the ticket for you. I did not get a chance to really have a good listen to all of the models, but I plan to check out the Sirius Reverb for a full review. The Sirius has all the accoutrements that I like in an amp and I am very interested in the “Trim” feature. The Trim acts as a Mid control with a more pronounced effect on the tone than a simple mid scoop or boost.

For more information, check out www.staramplifiers.com

Club Amplifiers

Don Anderson has been building amps for 40 years now and the first thing you’ll notice about him is how much he loves his job. He is very passionate about his amplifiers and the quality of the product and from what I saw at the show he has good reason to be.

Club Amps have a basic look to them, reminiscent of the Fender Blackface amps of the 1960’s, with a black wrapped cab and silver grill. The concept behind Club Amps is an amplifier that you can actually use in a club! The Amps are designed to be compact and you can add cabs as needed for the size of the venue. These little guys are HEAVY! The output transformers are huge and the build quality is what you would expect from a hand made product. The amps are available in a range of 15 to 55 watts, with head, cab and combo options.

Club amps have a really forward sound with a solid tone; I was most impressed with the “classic twin” combo with the blues output transformer. It was darker than the rest of the amps in the Club Amp line, but it yielded a smoky, rich tone that sustained well with bends. I want to hear this with a Keeley modded TS808 Tube Screamer in front of it; I imagine the tone and character of the amp will only be enhanced

Don is sending over some amps for us to review (including some new models with reverb), check back soon for a series of in depth reviews of Club Amps.

For the latest on Club Amps visit: http://www.clubamps.com

Jaguar Amplifiers

I loved the tone of these amps! And even before I walked in the room I could tell I was going love them (I could hear them tearing it up down the hall!). Jaguar amps are hand built in the USA, point-to-point wired and built with the very best components (I never get tired of that).

They currently offer three amp flavors: The Twin (45 watts), The Lead (45 watts), and The Junior (17 watts).  All three amps are in a single channel configuration with a master volume and both high and low inputs. They are available as both a head and combo (1x12 and 2x12).

Check out: www.jaguaramplification.com for more information.

Outlaw Guitars

I have to say that I was surprised to see a guitar company at the amp show but it was a welcome surprise to be sure.

The headstock is very, very close to a Gibson but that is where the similarities end; the guitar has a small body, like a parlor acoustic with a bolt-on neck, two humbuckers and a stop tail. I was a little skeptical at first, but once I was able to actually play it I found the shape to be great for player; the small body was easy to manage. Outlaws have great upper fret access and a very comfortable body shape (and they’re light too!) The guitar has a basic control layout with volume, tone (the tone knob is a StellaTone “Tone Styler” for 16 different tone voicings) and a toggle pick up selector switch.

A unique and interesting guitar to say the least and I look forward to seeing more of these in the future, maybe even reviewing one!

Available with premium wood, stop bar tail, or Bigsby.

For more on Outlaw visit: www.myspace.com/outlaw_guitars

Goodsell Amplifiers

Models range from 7 to 33 watts with both head and combo offerings. Goodsell makes classic looking amps with broad offerings in terms of speaker and cab options, as well some models sport tremolo and reverb. All three of models offer a variable power switch that will take you from 17 watts to 5 watts, for example, without affecting the tone of these lovely amps.

Sadly Richard Goodsell was not at the show due to a family illness (hope everything is ok, Richard!), but the good folks from Westwood Music were on hand to answer questions and give demos of the amps. I really loved what I was hearing in the Goodsell room and I want to get to know more about these great amps.

Get more information at: www.goodsellamps.com

Tonic Amplifiers

SF Bay area made since 2003, the LA Amp show served as the official launch for the production run of Tonic Amps. Tonic Amps are all hand built in Redwood City, CA by Darin Ellingson and his team of craftsmen.

The single channel amps they offer use your guitar’s volume to allow a range of tones from clean to a deep singing overdrive. The two-channel amp (know as the “Absinthe”) offers a high gain lead channel and a vintage channel. Both amps had an overdrive tone that sounded perfect to my ears, a thick tone that had the right amount of break up when you really dug into a note. I look forward to hearing more of these amps in the very near future!

Tonic also makes “one-off” custom amps that clone the tone you’re looking for or create something entirely new. Tonic offers both NOS tubes and even NOS parts,like transformers. The option list also includes: voltage regulators, flight cases and a very cool Single Ended/Push Pull knob that allows you to dial up tones that are full SE, full PP or anything that is in between. They also have a wood shop in house to create the cab of you dreams!

Really nice looking amps with awesome attention to detail, I like the compact design of the heads and the speaker cabs look great (let’s be honest, the look can be just as important as the sound!). Tonic is also the Distributer of Fane Guitar Amp speakers out of the UK, and is working with them on some new designs.

Look for an in depth review of Tonic amps soon!

Get more information at: www.tonicamps.com

Peavey

Peavey has been around for a long time: 40 plus years now! And with the awesome gear they were showcasing you can understand why. They were showing a new line of completely customizable amps where you choose the wood, tubes, speakers; they refer to this as the “Have it your way” line of amplifiers. You can really spec just about anything and they will make it for you!

Peavey 1.5U7 is a small 1 watt hand wired head that is made in the custom shop (it is the small black head in the photos). This little monster really blew me away. It sounded fantastic with the volume turned all the way up, a real thick singing distortion that I could play for hours on end. But the part that really sold me was the volume. I live in a flat in San Francisco and that really limits that max volume that I can turn an amp up to, so this amp is a welcome surprise. I also really like the looks and the fact it is hand wired and made in the USA. The head is powered by one 12AX7 and one EL84 producing one watt. The little guy can be customized to your hearts content with various woods, coverings, knobs, etc. If it sounds like I’m gushing it is because I am. This little amp was definitely one of the highlights of the amp show for me. Oh yeah, it is also only $600!

Peavey was also showing off some custom shop guitars like the HP and Jack Daniel’s (the HP guitars are a favorite of mine, they are like the Wolfgang, but with very cool upgrades like a trem lock). They also had the JSX amps (gotta love the tones Satch has on his new record), Windsor amps, and the Classic series (that can also be fully customized).

All in all, Peavey is coming out with a lot of really cool gear lately. It is nice to see them pulling ahead as a real alternative to the Fender and Marshall lines with attractive prices and cool options.  

For more information go to: www.peavey.com

Kasha Amplifiers

John Kasha was showing a wide variety of gear at the show, a veritable truck full of gear!

Starting with the “quick mod” box that allows you mod your amp in roughly 5 minutes and add another channel. The sound of this little box was really something else all together. John had a series of amps that he had wired up with the Quick Mod QMU-01. From a Marshall JCM800 to an old Gibson Bass amp! All the amps sounded great and the best part is that the mod is not permanent so you can keep the amp original in case you ever want it to be stock again. The mod added an entirely different gain structure to the amp and greatly improved the tone of the amp.

The “Rock Mod Brick” 2 Channel amp is a small foot print amp akin to the Orange Tiny Terror and Peavey 1watt (in terms of size). But this little amp head is different in respect to the amount of gain it is capable of getting out of such a small box (there are four 12AX7’s in that little box!). I have to say I love this trend of small amps with amazing tone. The Brick was also unique, with the ability to program the 2-button foot switch with relative ease.

John was also showing his RoBo 1x12 combo amp. This amp is unique in that the cabinet can tilt 0 – 80 degrees via a foot switch. This design allows you get the sound of both a closed back and an open back cab. If you are playing in a club the cab allow you to angle it in such a way that you can monitor the sound without blasting the person in front of you.

John will be sending us a Rock Mod Brick for a through review, check back in a few weeks for it!

For more information have a look at: www.kashaamplifiers.com

The Guitar Fixation coverage of the LA Amp Show 2008 continues HERE.