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On to amplifiers, Steve Morse made an appearance during Day 1 at the Engl booth. An admirer of the brand, Morse once described his signature 100 E656 Engl head to Guitar Player magazine as “something no other amp has, which is a nice transport clarity in the upper register.”
Debra Devi from the Rock band DEVI, visited the booth during Day 2, tried out several amps, and explained what attracts her to Engl: “Engl amps deliver massive gain, crunch and sustain — yet they also serve up the most gorgeous crystalline, bell-like clean tones. I’ve played a lot of modern and vintage amps, and I’ve yet to find one that is as powerful, versatile and dynamic as an Engl. They’re beautiful beasts!”
The Artist Edition is a new amp head Engl debuted at NAMM this year — a product with history dating back to 1996, when Engl released its Ritchie Blackmore Signature Amp. Engl built a special amp with Doug Aldrich in 2005, a year later an amp was handed over to Gary Moore to use in the studio, and within a short time, players such as Jimmy Page, Vivien Campbell and Paul Stanley put in orders. Engl describes its concept for this product as “simple handling with maximum performance.” You also can hear it live, played on stage by Paul Stanley, Scott Gorham and Ken Hammer. Finally, Engl decided to make this luxury available to the general public.
Another new product Engl presented this year was the Tube Poweramp E810, a stereo tube poweramp, with EL84 tubes delivering 2×20 Watts with two power amp channels. It is compact, and Engl describes the sound as “absolute authentic tube sound.” The sound set feature allows for versatile sound formation options.
Gibson Brands surprised everyone this year by releasing Gibson Les Paul Reference Monitors, which are marketed toward, both, engineers and music fans. Les Paul-inspired appearance is unusual with the coloring, including cherry, tobacco sunburst and cherry sunburst. Diamond-like carbon coated titanium tweeters, non-woven carbon woofers and custom-like amplification provide large headroom and ultra-clean transient impulse response. In February, these will be avail-able in three different sizes. Prices are (LP4) $599 USD, (LP6) $799 USD and (LP8) $999 USD.
Another intriguing NAMM story concerning high-end boutique amp design was the joint effort of Diamond and Soldano to create the 327SD. The “327” part of the name refers to Soldano’s favorite Hot Rod engine. “SD” stands for for Soldano-Diamond. The 327SD starts with Diamond’s platform, with its famous clean channel. The output section of the amp switches between Diamond’s EL34 platform to Soldano’s 5881 platform.The circuit design for Channel 2 (gain) was developed in a joint collaboration. Both channels have their own tone controls. Master Volume and Deep control offer further tone modification. A/B control on Channel 2 provides two traditional Diamond voicing options, and it has an effects loop. The 327SD is powered by 4×588 and 6x12AX7, giving 100 watts of pure vacuum tube power. The 327SD has a limited production run and can be purchased through Diamond Amplification.
Peavey jumped on the downsizing band wagon this year with its new Peavey Classic 20MH and 6505MH that reduce classic Peavey designs to portable mini-heads. Both mini-amps have two channels, attenuator switches with a choice of 20-, 5- or 1-watt output levels, 2x EL84 power tubes and 3x 12AX7/ECC83 preamp tubes. Unlike many similar-sized amps, these have EQ, re-verb and an effects loop, and USB and headphone connections. 6505 is what used to be known as 5150 and was designed in collaboration with Eddie Van Halen. Peavey renamed the product when Van Halen defected to Fender.
Peavey also is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and the occasion was marked during the evening of Day 1 with a Peavey Golden Anniversary Bash, which was held at the Hilton California Ballroom in Anaheim, Calif. Rickey Medlocke, Robert Randolph, Johnny Van Zant and Anthony Hall of Lynyrd Skynyrd performed during the celebration.
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