Over the past 39 odd years I have produced many bespoke amplifiers, both solid state and valve, in addition to the production items made by MAJ Electronic. I have listened to the views and sounds of many many excellent players. I have looked at and repaired and restored literally thousands of pieces of equipment, and have noted many points about these products, both from a sonic and an engineering point of view. I have acted as a reference point for many "boutique" amplifier makers throughout the world, and also made assemblies and cabinets for these same people. All good stuff. Given all this, I and other notables have long formed an opinion of what sounds good and what doesn't. The original Fender (5F6) Bassman, the early Marshall and Laney variants of the same design, the Gibson GA-50/75 as used by the Beatles, the Vox amps and early Hiwatts all produce this incredible rock guitar sound when driven to full power (and more) by a Strat/Tele/Les Paul/335/SG type guitar. (Yes I have a Strat/Tele/1964 335/1961 SG - Les Paul Junior actually to be correct/Burns Vista Sonic/ and a couple of Ricks) Period. Now modern amps have God knows how many channels/Preamp overload/on board FX/Drive/ Distortion/Ultra distortion/Mega distortion/Terra distortion?... you name it. And all generated within the preamplifier. Some are actually very good - and they are versatile. Great for the bedroom, but they dont make THAT sound. ANYWAY with all this in mind, and being asked SO many times to produce a top quality hand wired valve amplifier, I drew up my specifications with a view.

Have a look at the results on the "amplifiers" page.

Having said all that, there has always been a case for solid state amplifiers. I have been making (and selling) them from about 1968. Correctly designed and used there are some great advantages to solid state, even if they dont quite make "that"sound.. So I am a slight (slite) hypocrite as well as being opinionated. But please read on:

Commercially solid state amplifiers have been around fom the mid 60's. Earliest ones I saw were from Burns (the Orbit). They were well designed, sound quality was good, but the build method was AWFUL - I hated working on those amps. Still do - and yes I still own one - a Double 12 model. The T60 from Vox provided a then powerful 60 Watts rms (but only if you could afford TWO T60 cabinets to fully load the little Germanium output stage). I have one of those as well.. Beatles etc. In the late 1960's VOX decided to go the solid state route and introduced the Virtuoso/Defiant/Supreme amps. And some similar bass amps to boot. These were well received, used by the Beatles and everybody else who could afford one. They had on board footswitchable reverb, tremolo, and DISTORTION, with output power up to the then magic 100 Watts available from the Supreme. The distortion facility on these amps was no more than a simple Germaniun diode clipper, but worked well and I'm sure saw service on the Beatles "Revolution" track and also is probably responible for the fuzz bass on "Drive my car" and others. Great amps. Problem was Vox designed these amps to run into traditional 15 Ohm speaker loads -quite an acheievement a at the time.. But given that the average musician knows as much about matching speakers of the correct impedance to his amplifier as he does about the working of his own kidneys, it is not surprising that these amps went horribly wrong all over the place. I did really well out of those at the time..

Then HH came along in the early 1970's and turned the solid state market upside down. The IC100's and later VS units were built to an impeccable standard and looked fantastic, they supported 4 Ohm loads were quite reliable, they were versatile and they sounded good. I looked hard and long at these and their op amp designs... And the Carlsbro Stingrays.

If the 70's solid state market belonged to HH, then it has to be said that 80's belonged to Laney. Their Sessions and later Linebackers were great sounding products at competitive prices and they did really well with them. And their AOR/Pro tube valve amps were a cut above the rest. The (unrelated) Axxess Sessionette 75 was also a really good sounding package.

Both the solid state Guitar and Bass amplifiers use traditional Hitachi Mosfet output stages. These have a very accurate neutral response and are quite bulletproof in use.

Have a look at them on the amplifiers page.