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Site still
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Where
amplifiers are built to a standard not a price point.
Lizzy
Amplifiers:
Lizzy-1, (“Tweed Deluxe”, 5E3 style circuit)
The Background Story:The Story:
My
educational background consists of an undergraduate degree in Physics and
graduate work in Electrical Engineering.
In order to pay the bills I have worked for a Navy research lab since
1989. Yeah, I do all that nerdy engineering stuff—research, design, test and
evaluation of prototype electro-optic sonar systems.
What
led to this near obsession with hand-built vacuum tube guitar amplifiers? Well basically a broken butt or sacrum to be
more exact. The cause was probably the weekly hauling of my Mesa Boogie to and
from practice, up and down stairs, in and out of a car etc—all 66 pounds of
back-breaking amplifier. During
recovery from this injury I wisely decided to sell my over-weight, though great
sounding, Mesa, and search for a lighter alternative. One of the guitar players in the band plays a Fender Blackface
Deluxe Reverb, 22watts, 37lbs and it has no trouble breaking through a live
mix—often considered the top “club” amplifier. So I looked into buying one, but
while surfing I stumbled upon, “Rebuilding a Deluxe Reverb
Reissue Amp featuring MikeyMann Amplification”, by Wayne Reno. That
site started it all. The engineer in me would much rather build something
myself, the way I want it. Plus
consider that the cost of a vintage amp is not insignificant, and those amps
will generally need several hundreds of dollars put into them to get them back
to a reliable, noise-free gigable amp.
And the thought of buying an assembly line built modern tube amp with
design decisions influenced by cost and the general near impossibility of
repairing or modifying them due to their pc board based construction was not
appealing. Yes, a hand-built, point to
point wired all-tube amp seemed the only way to go.
I just couldn’t stop there. The tube amp bug had bit
with this taste of success. For kicks I wanted to see if I could build a little
practice amp in what else but an Elvis lunch box. It too worked better than
expected for a little 4 watter. During this process I realized that having that
55watt Mesa Boogie was way over kill. Heck a 22 watt Deluxe Reverb will keep up
with most any stage volumes encountered.
Additionally could the amp be lighter and simpler?—less is more when
playing in front of people. There’s no time to fiddle with knobs and weight
wise the less to carry in/out of a club at 2am the better. (As C.T. once
remarked to me, “So, Chris it’s come to this-buying amps by weight”). Well it is about minimizing weight and
complexity while providing just the right amount of clean headroom or volume as
needed for one’s particular playing style.
Hence, the move to the famous Fender Tweed Deluxe 5E3 design. Three
knobs, 25lbs and about 13 watts of pure tone. Properly modified it will keep up
in any live setting, heck even the stock setup will work for practice or with a
proper monitor system. I just love this
amp design! 1955 never sounded
better.
All amps are 100% tube based, utilizing point to
point wiring with chassis mounted jacks, pots and tube sockets—no pc board
mounting used. Every amp will be custom
configured for YOUR playing needs, and you will be involved in as many design
decisions as you desire. Check out each
amp page for further info.
Thanks for reading
Chris Hansen