When Bogner isn’t designing amps for Line 6 he also builds his own boutique amps, recently rebranded as ‘Custom Shop’ to make space in the product range for his first mass-produced line, the Alchemist. Aiming to deliver the flexibility, pure valve signal path and rich tone of his higher-priced kit at a reachable price level, […]
Vintage Amps
Peavey Windsor Studio Amp Review
Able to swamp output valves and with a built-in power soak, the Peavey Windsor Studio is one of the hottest affordable home/recording/small gig amps out there. Peavey introduced the Windsor range in 2006 with a name, as well as a look to the cabinet Peavey Windsor Studiodesign. That suggested a British amplifier influence. A trend […]
Mesa/Boogie M6 Carbine Combo bass amp review
The 600W M6 Carbine combo is hand-built in Petaluma, California from marine-grade birch plywood. It’s bulky – 761mm high, 546mm wide and 454mm deep – and hellish heavy at 43.6kg/96lbs, but it has two castors at the rear for tilt-and-roll operation. Phew. The M6 has not one but two 300W neodymium-magnet 12″ speakers and an […]
Fender Princeton Reverb
The sweet-toned, low-powered Fender Princeton Reverb always gets vintage Fender amp fans scrabbling for their wallets. Fender’s reissue of the legendary Princeton Reverb has been just as eagerly awaited as their ’57 Deluxe. Small valve amps are back in vogue, as most guitarists have twigged that they can’t really crank 50W or 100W amps at […]
TecAmp Puma 212 Bass Combo
Tall, simple and conservatively-dressed, TecAmp Puma 212 Bass Combo offer an efficient German take on the perfect bass sound, at a price. Review by Gareth Morgan TecAmp Puma 212 Bass Combo has been designing and building professional bass equipment for over 20 years. This unheralded German company was the first to use neodymium speaker technology […]
Harma Cabinets & Bass Metaphors
Got a Fender Blues Junior, Blues Deluxe, Hot Rod Deluxe or Deville? These cabs are the perfect match. The Bass Metaphors is a mini multi-effects unit for bass sporting a two-band EQ, distortion and compression. It can also be used simply as a preamp or as a DI unit with EQ. Six black plastic knobs sit […]
Elmwood Bonneville 50
Swedish valve outfit Elmwood made its name with the 60W and 90W Modena rock heads, but the Elmwood Bonneville 50 aims for max portability and any sound you want. Review: Huw Price What’s the Swedish for ‘brick shithouse’? This amp is built like one. It’s a hell of a lump to carry about, and I’d […]
AXL Standard 30B Bass Combo
You don’t want to haul a full bass rig when popping around the guitarist’s house for tea and a spot of songwriting. Even though lighter and more compact gigging bass rigs have become readily available in the last 10 years, you still don’t want to be chucking that much kit into the car for a […]
Victoria Electro King
Something about Gibson amps reminds us of the Tommy Cooper gag about the Stradivarius and the Rembrandt. Does Victoria Electro King know something we don’t? Huw Price makes a discovery. Considering the reverence for Gibson’s 1950s guitars, it seems inexplicable that values of Gibson amps from that era haven’t kept pace with contemporary Fender amps. […]
Hartke LH500 Head / HyDrive HX115 & HX410 Cabs
Hartke made its name with aluminium speakers, then offered paper ones, and now are back with both in the same package. Gareth Morgan finds out what’s going on. Hartke built its first cabinet specifically for the late, great Jaco Pastorius in 1984. But the company’s probably most famous for the later use of aluminium-coned speakers […]