No its not another guitar….But a guitar amplifier!! Every musician searches for a certain sound, we search for the sound that will makes us different from every other guitarist out there. Granted sometimes we sound like the musicians that influenced us. So I set out to find the amplifier that would capture my sound. I say capture cause I believe that 90% of what comes out through the amp will be the guitarists touch and feel through his instrument. The other 10% will be from the instrument and the amp.
I played Fenders, Carvins, Marshalls, Crates, Bugeras, Mesa Boogies, Line6s, and Voxs. They were all good amps and some stood out more than others. They were all tube amps as well. I wanted that warm tube feel. The sound varied in many ways, some had a 1×12 speaker others had 2×12 speakers and some of the fenders were 4x12s. This process of going and trying them was no easy chore! I dragged my most pickiest guitar with me to many places. They were all great amps with great qualities and great sound! But I was still not close to what I wanted!
I remembered that a couple of years back I was at a guitar store and was playing through an Traynor tube amp that sounded very good. I was playing a jazz box that I wanted to purchased. At that time I was impressed with the amp. I thought I will call my friend over there and see if he still has these amps? What could it hurt and if he does I am running over there with my guitar and play. I called and told him what I wanted. When I got there he had two amps setup for me that he thought would have the sound I wanted.
So side by side there was a Fender Reverb and the Traynor YCV40WR. The Traynor was the first one that I plugged into, and what a sound! All setting were set to neutral and this thing was sounding great! Alot of headroom on this amp and extremly clean! Onto the Fender Reverb again set to neutral the sound was shimmery and not as fat as the Traynor. The Reverb on the fender was lush. After 30 minutes on both I told him to take away the Fender Reverb. He then brought a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. Great amp and I noticed that the sound on it would be best for blues and while I could play jazz on this amp the sound was also not as fat as the Traynor.
So my choice was made, and I took the Traynor home! There at the house I threw all my guitars at it and it handled every single one! So I am stoked that I have the amp. I believe the headroom comes from the two 6L6s that it houses. They are the same tubes that the Fender Twins have. While I would love to own a Fender Twin the $1400 price tag was out of my ball park. So many thanks to my friend Bert Hatch and Shiva over at Space Music. Here is their number…
N4KMA