LA Amp Show 2007: Kick Off

[dstroud]

I gotta say the Amp Show is one of the coolest things I've been to. I've been twice and both times had a great time! All the people are very cool and getting to hear so many amps is awesome! Now onto the amps!
I went and I can say Cameron definitely has one of the best hi-gain amp head's I've ever heard. I played the CCV and CCM pretty extensively. It's hard to say which is better. The CCV is more open, buth the CCM has a really nice smooth mid tone. Lots of tone options with these amps too. There are bright switches, multiple gain controls, etc. On the CCV I was playing some AC/DC and UFO riffs and Mark dialed it into a really good Marshally tone. Then I asked him if there was an Yngwie tone in there, and he got that dialed in too. But, it can sound not Marshally too. It's a pretty unique amp!
Another one of my favorite amps was a modded Marshall 1987 at the Mercury Magnetics room. The guy there said it was modded and they are thinking about selling the mod kits - that was one of the best Marshall's I've ever heard.
Kasha had some cool stuff like a little box you plug into the 1st tube slot of an 800, plexi, valve jr. or any other type of that amp. It was a lot of gain but too loose on the low end for me. Red Iron had some great lower gain amps. I was way suprised by a Matchless 3 channel head - this was kind of like Eric Johnson in an amp, very woody and sustainy tone. It was through a 2x12 open back, I'd love to hear that through a 4x12.
The Egnater amps are awesome too, the versatility is unheard of and their hi gain sounds are as good as anything. Another company to look out for is Blackstar. They have an awesome non-master type ptp head. It has a selector switch that lets you go through Bassman, Twin, and different Marshall type amps. My buddy had them crank it on 10 - that was rediciously loud, sounded awesome, and they gave us t-shirts for asking them to do that, pretty cool! They have some great pedals too. They said there amps were gonna be in Guitar Center by christmas, so be on the lookout for them! Played throgh some Hero amps, there were ok, but a little pricey. I got home and realized I forgot to plug into the Fuch's Frost, dang!
Again, all the people were really cool, and I would recommed going to any ampaholic!

[Lution]

Originally Posted by deeval

I also asked the Guy at the table if you had to be present to win,He said NO!Just fillin all the info.
That sucks that you didnt win the prize.

Man, talk about a serious communication breakdown!!!

I'm pissed off for ya, Olin, and I wasn't even there.

Next time, somebody better tell the Guy at the table what the hell is going on!!!!!

[Robal]

I liked the Kingsley ToneBaron I heard. It had a lot of different sounds and they were all good to my ears. I generally don't like amps with a lot of knobs and switches, but these all seemed to be useful.

[Macaroni]

I loved the Kingsley ToneBaron too, but how could I not, since it's a logical evolution of my Kingsley Deluxe 32 Custom. I'll be getting one for sure, with a few custom features.

[bluessyndicate]

I wandered the halls from 10 - 6pm...this year.

I was blown away by the Kingsley's...The Tone Baron and the Deluxe 30 are incredibly well thought out amps in terms of the very useful features that allow, amongst other features, a one channel amp (Deluxe 30) go from clean to mean, with a switchable 3 levels of gain....possible of pretty high gain with stunning cleans. The Tone Baron takes that preamp and ups the ante allowing one to mix and match power tubes to achieve sonic variety as well as different power levels, Series vs. Parallel operation of clean and dirty channels and other useful features. It was funny to watch people walk by..some stuck their heads in and saw a few people in a sparsely decorated room just playing some blues/jazz and they moved on...others came in with this look of OMG listen to that tone, and they stayed to play and were blown away. That combined with how nice/accommodating Simon Jarret and his wife Christine were....very glad to have finally gotten the chance to get my hands on a Kingsley after all this time of hearing other talk about. Other than the Guitar Player Editors Choice award the Deluxe 30 got around 2001 or so...it would seem that not enough people get exposed to Kingsley Amplifiers...if they were I'm sure a lot less Bruno's, Two Rock's and other very fine top notch Blues/Jazz/Rock platforms would be sold in favor or Kingsley's... (yes this is a glowing review, but for legitimate reasons).

The other mind blower of the show for me was the Gjika E84L amp. It does not have nearly as much tonal variety as the Kingsley's had, but it did have nice rolled back cleans and great harmonic complexity/overtones in a one channel format. His other amps sounded very fine as well, but that E84L was just a monster for harmonic complexity, another very fun amp to play.

As for a Marshally vibe. The Southbay Ampworks Major Crunch with the nuke switch is a monster! I'm already set for marhsally tones, but otherwise that would be a great pick. Jim thought out some great features there.

If I still had long hair and played Dokken live, rather than just in my home, I'd be all over a Cameron as well.

So many fine amps besides what I mentioned here....so I listed just my top pics.

Enjoyed playing a few fine private owned Les Pauls, and very much enjoyed the Lentz guitars.

I had a blast.

_______________
Scott

[Wallace]

Originally Posted by voojo

Anybody get a chance at the Reeves Custom Lead w/power scaling?

Yes! The white one. Modern gain, old school voicing (if that makes any sense). I liked it and if I were in the mkt for beast, its classic side would win me over. The power scaling worked quite well. All the way down to living room vol. Power tubes grinding. Other Hi gain amps I liked were:

King Amplification Rocket 88. This is a two channel that offers PS at its best, an exceptional clean chn. and very smooth silky gain w/tons of sustain. Elegant & unique. Those 2 KT88's with King's twist on PS is way cool! **Val is a friend, but everything I say about his work is the truth.
His classic amps are a bench mark for quality. Ive spent alot more time with his amps than just this show**

Blackstar. All the way from England just for the day. Four guys from Marshall got tired of their gig and started their own company. Nice guys too. From Hi gain paint peeler (100w?) all the way down to: 30w combo and a 15/5 w two chn. Keep an eye on these guys, they have buzz going on. Exceptional tone..

Cammron. If you want multi channel metal mayhem. It was so loud in there, I couldn't get past the door. (every time I past that room) Brutal power. Very hi gain.

Although other amps I played had hi gain, the ones above were most like the Reeves. There were many others I didnt get to as well. Way too much for one day!

[Dana Olsen]

Loved the Lentz guitars - Scott had one of the best "S" type guitars I've ever played, and the other guitars, like the one Ken Rosser played, were wonderful too. Of course Ron Thorn's guitar were off the map too.

I dug the Kingsley amps, the King 33, the Swart 20w Atomic Space Tone was amazing - a great grap 'n go 1x12" combo that sounds a little blackface and a little something else with great reverb and OK trem. Oh, and the Swart booster pedal sounded really good with it! I played through a Fuchs 1x12" ODS combo that sounded great - Andy's amps get better and better, he's constantly improving. Had a great time with Moss et al from Brown Note Amps (D'Lite etc).

I played through the Gijka amps with a Scott Lentz guitar or two - that was very nice. There were 3 amps set up, all w/ different output tubes - great way to hear the difference in tubes. KT-66, KT-77, EL-34 - very cool. The amps sounded very good but I didn't try the 'gain' sounds which are activated by and through a large-ish floor pedal that has some circuitry inside - it was really loud and the end of the day when I was playing and I had too much ear fatigue to want to crank it. Still, the Gijka(s) sounded great to me.

Good to be able to play tons of guitars all with different Lollar pickups in 'em -excellent opportunity to hear Jason's pickups. I dug Jim Seavall's 4x12" bass cab a lot - sounded GREAT. Always good to see Jim Wagner and Carol, met Vinnie from V-picks, and got a V pick too - cool! Dan Bouls(sp?) sounded great through the 65 Amps, Billy Yates too.

Bad Haggis played, and yes, it's IS Mike Hoffman, Kim Hoffman of Hoffman amps older bro. Mike is freakin AWESOME - just stunning guitar playing, and great tone (though not loud enough - Mike's a pro and used great self restraint) from the Hoffman Valkyrie 3ch pre amp and 15w ultra-linear power amp. Mike Sims (NWA, Dr.Dre, etc) was there -he sounded great through a D'lite. Mark Goldenberg sounded great through everything he touched, but mostly the Greer amps and Thorn guitars - which make most folks sound good, and make Mark sound GREAT.

Had dinner with Andy Fuchs, Billy Yates, Paul Marr, Moss and the Brown Note crew, Simon from Kingsley and wife Crissy, Jim Seaval & Jim Wagner at the next table. Excellent time, nice amps, good folks.

I 'mos 'def got my $20 worth. Thanks Loni, Dana O.

[1973Marshall]

Originally Posted by Lution

Man, talk about a serious communication breakdown!!!

I'm pissed off for ya, Olin, and I wasn't even there.

Next time, somebody better tell the Guy at the table what the hell is going on!!!!!

I saw so much cool gear, networked and had a lot of people treat me wonderfully. A few companies offered me artist deals, and I appreciate it since they aren't rich. Richard Goodsell made a wonderful offer to me, as he is a really stand up guy (it wasn't his responsibility). I hung out with him for an hour after the show, and when Ron from Rex Bogue came in telling us about how I had won the amp - he felt really bad. Too bad no one offered to do anything.

I genuinely liked the Goodsell 33 a TON! It reminded me of the /12 FTR37 taht I like so much, only it had a little ore grease, and a little more Marshall/Vox flavor with the El84's. The gain was beautiful! I prefer it to most EL84 amps as it actually stayed clean and chimey all the way up. I also liked Cameron's amps, and Grier (or was it Gries? uuugh) and the Reinhardt and Kingsley. Matchless was one of my faves as always.

For me it was kinda personal in that I have a high energy personality so i don't amp my anxieties by waiting around for raffles - just not my thing. I also do NOT give out my address and number like that. If you are in LA you understand more than anybody!

I only gave out all that info because they said you don't have to be present - so yeah, I have to B*tch about this a bit to get it out of my system.

[Rick Towne]

73M, for what it's worth, if, as everyone seems to confirm, they called your name, and you were told you didn't have to be there to win, it's your amp.
That's how contracts work.

[Loni Specter]

Originally Posted by 1973Marshall

I saw so much cool gear, networked and had a lot of people treat me wonderfully. A few companies offered me artist deals, and I appreciate it since they aren't rich. Richard Goodsell made a wonderful offer to me, as he is a really stand up guy (it wasn't his responsibility). I hung out with him for an hour after the show, and when Ron from Rex Bogue came in telling us about how I had won the amp - he felt really bad. Too bad no one offered to do anything.

I genuinely liked the Goodsell 33 a TON! It reminded me of the /12 FTR37 taht I like so much, only it had a little ore grease, and a little more Marshall/Vox flavor with the El84's. The gain was beautiful! I prefer it to most EL84 amps as it actually stayed clean and chimey all the way up. I also liked Cameron's amps, and Grier (or was it Gries? uuugh) and the Reinhardt and Kingsley. Matchless was one of my faves as always.

For me it was kinda personal in that I have a high energy personality so i don't amp my anxieties by waiting around for raffles - just not my thing. I also do NOT give out my address and number like that. If you are in LA you understand more than anybody!

I only gave out all that info because they said you don't have to be present - so yeah, I have to B*tch about this a bit to get it out of my system.

Hi all,
I'm still de-compressing but I wanted to adress this prize drawing issue right away. My front desk volunteers were not given any instruction as to what the protocall would be regarding the prize give-a-ways. My fault.
I did give away abunch of stuff to people not in the room and they will be contacted.
We had some really nice amps contributed by Fuchs, Goodell, and Ugly and a Rockmod by Kasha. I promised the manufacturers of the main prizes that I would take pics of the winners and the amps. HELLO. How could that happen if they were not present? I gues it all comes down to me screwing up and not briefing the fron desk.
What could have happened is if someone in the crowd knew for certain and volunteered to go get the initial picked person, they should have said so and I would have waited and moved on to the next prize. So that's just the way it went down this year. Lyle Workman's name was picked as well and he lost out too.
I was also amazed at the lack of visitors to the open table room next to the ballroom. Everyone was issued a map and exhibitor list, bu a lot of folks never even saw that room (SRV guitar was there)
Overall I think the show went off very well and We will be back next fall.
later, Loni

[fusionbear]

As i mentioned in my post in the SHL, The amps that did it for me this year were the Fuchs TDS100 (gotta get one quick!), the Red Iron T-Rex (That amp is the Non-Master 2 EL34 cathode biased amp I have been looking for all my life!), and all the Swart's, man did they sound awesome for being so small. Got to see Loni and the SRV Tele, very nice! Thanks Loni for making this happen. See you next year for sure......

[archtopjazz]

Hey Loni,

Met you over at Eric's a few weeks ago.
Great show. Looking forward to next year.

Jim Hinds

[Normster]

Thanks for a great show, Loni! I had a blast (along with the rest of the Brown Note crew). Man, what a priveledge to hang with such great people. I can't say enough good things about the people who took the time to play our amps. Definately good times!!!

[AmpMan1961]

Loni...
What a great time. Everybody seemed to really enjoy themselves, myself included. The Tone Wizards Forum was a blast...Thanks for having me contribute. Lots of friends old and new...the show just gets better and better.
Keep up the good work and we'll see ya next year, NAMM for sure.
Kudos to Moss and Normster for a huge time at the Brown Note room...
Fantastic. WCR gets better every year and Jim at Southbay Amp works provided great hospitality and great fun. Hoffman, Kasha, Greer, Fluxtone and many others made the event one to remember. Great folks and good times, and of course many great players.
Thanks for making it happen Loni.
Billy Yates

[big mike]

Good to see ya again Billy!