smallest pro REAL giggin CLASS A amplifier

[Cary Chilton]

CANADIAN MADE ..... EH!


Hold on to your beers and check out:

New little discovery of mine at:

http://www.stephensonamps.com

check out the STAGEHOG. It is very cool and a totally portable amp ,but with genuine plexi type tone and many many more possible tones that BLOWS aways the NANOAMP. In fact, Mr. Stephenson told me as of last week David Lee Roth's guitarist was really stoked on it.

I asked him more about it, he said it IS an class A amp (power scaling, full sized pots, tranys etc) that has 1 watt RMS. It can be used as a preamp type pedal into an amp (select the right jack) or BETTER, plug into a 150W (effective 20watt) 4 pound crate solid power amp; then into a 4x12 for giggin volumes!! He may even have a 600W solid state amp -effective 100 RMS- that may be available by him in the future!!!!! THE INVISBLE MARSHALL STACK!!!! HAHAHAH
OK now imagine, you bring a guitar, pedal board (stage hog and trans power amp inside) to a gig, using the house 2x12 or 4x12, blowing away everyone with your tone at 100 WATTS RMS but no one can see an amp?? hehe Killer!!!! I think may be ordering one soon, but the wait for these is about 3-5 months. The price is higher, but this IS not pedal. IT is a pro boutique amp, that may be used as a pedal, clean boost etc. THe portability of a pedal, but HUGE REAL TUBE AMP TONE. Man, I wished I saw these things 2 years ago!!! Mr. Stephenson has worked on my vintage plexi and 1000's more boutique amps. He has an impressive cliental and like PaulC, he is geniune great guy!

BTW I suggested that he contact musictoys.com to be a dealer, but he can't even keep up with all his orders as it is. He said he would love the business, but he is a one man operation. Mr. Stephenson like Brian Mena and Paul Cochrane does all the ptp, hand craftmanship himself. I think we ALL what kind of quality their work is!

Enjoy

 

[bluesdoc]

Mmm, the V-Stack pedal comes to mind........

jon

 

[GCDEF]

$600 Good luck. I'll stick with a Tonelab SE for that price and get a whole lot more.

 

[Swarty]

What would be the purpose of power scaling with a 1 watt amp?

 

[Blueser]

Originally posted by s2amps
I'm guessing feature frenzy?

Nice!!! Newbie shows up just in time to SPAM the thread while slagging another builders products!

Class act for sure!

 

[Cary Chilton]

I don't why the PS is on 1 rms. I know from the mod on my my amp ( that power scaling can slightly change the tone, compression of my amp. It gives my marshall, many cool nuances).

I guess the main idea Mr Stephenson had for the PS was because he made this unit with the notion of using it with a opwer amp of some sort. The 1 rms, is just for bed room level practice at killer tone. I am guessing, but I will email him and ask. Or you ALL could check it out yourselves. I just posted it because I found it be a cool little discovery since so many here spend big dollars, on Klons, BJF's, Fettos..... I never thought 150 more for a real class A amp would generate negative comments.
Each to their own, I guess..

peace

 

[Blueser]

Originally posted by s2amps
I'm not slagging anything other than to say it is expensive and I too question the benefit of power scaling on a 1 Watt amp.

Tough crowd.

Well....What you wrote was that you did not find it to be worth the price tag. That is very different from "its expensive".

Have you tried the Stagehog pedal to substantiate your "findings"? If so, what was it that you "found" that failed to deliver the value you expected from a $600 pedal?

Just seems a bit fishy, that you are a builder who happens to offer a competitive product (tube OD pedal), and jumps into this thread being critical of the value of a competitors offering, while having no prior credibility or value add to speak of.

I don't own a Stagehog, or any other Stephenson products, and while I would agree, that they seem pricey, I own amps/pedals from other builders that would certainly fall into the "pricey" category, and have realized great value due to the incredible tone they deliver.

 

[r9player]

Stage Hog has been mentioned here and there on the forum actually. Seems to have left favorable impressions with those that used it.
One draw back it seems his hog is pretty popular and he eh doesn't get to build a lot of his higher watt amps ..

 

[tedwoods]

I've got a Stage Hog for more than two years now.The pedal does what it promises to do and then some.You've got to try one to really appreciate it.Under the hood you'll find a real tube amp with power and output transformer,meticulous attention to detail(the construction belongs in an industrial museum!)and superb tone to boot.
The first thing that struck me when I got it was how ALL the features were actually worthwile and spot on.
The scaling apart from taking the volume down,which is beneficial when driving the load,also changes the compression and saturation characteristics in a very natural way.
Then you have your standard gain,tone,volume knobs as most OD's and a final tone shaping knob which cuts highs in the load section.Very useful for matching the unit to amps that are either "bright" or "dark"or all points in between.
The gain knob reacts like a non master volume amp turned up,the tone knob is never overpowering and always keeps some "air" for the note to breath and the volume cntrols the post output transformer/load level like an overal attenuator of some sort.
The switches on the side also work superbly.The bright switch is not vicious,just adds liquidity to soloing,the boost switch pushes the output drive with a nice sweet edge and the tweed/plexi switch alters the basic flavor of the overdrive.
There's also a switch for when you might encounter ground loop problems and switching to the required position negates this.
The thing is, all the various combinations sound good in many diverse situations and provide you with a multitude of realistic amp colours that never get in the way of your given mood or musical direction.
The Hog remains smooth,detailed and expressive at all times.The unit,despite packing a mini amp,does not add any more noise than a standard TS style pedal would add.
For me the ultimate test and unfortunately a most painful one was when I had to replace it when stolen.I didn't hesitate for a second!
In my misfortune I was redeemed to some extent by the fact that the newer model,like the ones marketed as we speak,had also a remote footswitch so that the unit could reside close to your rig and only have the footswitch on the floor.

Ted

 

[Cary Chilton]

I just thought it was cool with a SS power amp, and a guitar and you are good to go anywhere!

 

[Cary Chilton]

it isn't a pedal, it is an amp. Yes it is a different device all together....... whew!

 

[PaulS2]

I've had my Stage Hog for about 4 months and find it to be a stellar piece of gear. Does exactly what it's supposed to do with a great tone. Many tonal flavors inside and all controls are musically sound.

Pricey...a little but much cheaper than the money I would have spent trying to find something like this elsewhere.

 

[Scottone]

$600.00 doesn't seem that spendy, when you can easily drop $300.00+ on a fuzz pedal. Look at the internal pics on his site...there is a lot of construction time in one of these.

I have one of Mark's LJ-15 amps...If this is up to that standard, it would be money well spent.

 

[Cary Chilton]

you have the LJ-15??? What is it like to play? Like a plexi/super champ???

 

[fakeox]

Here's another Canadian class"A" amp I've been lusting over.. Twice the power, less than half the price & less than 1/4 the controls.
http://fab.stuff.home.comcast.net/fab_scamp.htm

 

[Cary Chilton]

Nice little amp!! little bloated sounding, but quite nice. I were to guess, it may get farty when you put her on 10, though.

 

[LaXu]

I think it's a pretty cool product. I'd describe it as a miniamp that doubles as an overdrive pedal. For example people don't seem to have any trouble spending $300 on a Klon Centaur or $400 on a Z-Vex Nano Head so I'd say the price isn't really totally over the top.

In any case, Mark Stephenson is great to deal with and builds a quality product. I've got a LJ-10 head myself, it's actually the one pictured on the website.

Scottone, how you likin' that LJ-15? What do you use it with (guitars, pedals, cabs?) and for what kind of music?

Oh and if those Fab amps are made by who I think then I'd avoid them. Do a search on Harmony-Central forums..basically seems he builds crap.

 

[Jerrod]

Originally posted by LaXu
I think it's a pretty cool product. I'd describe it as a miniamp that doubles as an overdrive pedal. For example people don't seem to have any trouble spending $300 on a Klon Centaur or $400 on a Z-Vex Nano Head so I'd say the price isn't really totally over the top.

In any case, Mark Stephenson is great to deal with and builds a quality product. I've got a LJ-10 head myself, it's actually the one pictured on the website.

Scottone, how you likin' that LJ-15? What do you use it with (guitars, pedals, cabs?) and for what kind of music?

Oh and if those Fab amps are made by who I think then I'd avoid them. Do a search on Harmony-Central forums..basically seems he builds crap.

It's the same guy... although none of the amps on his web site seem to actually be on fire in the photos.

 

[Scottone]

Originally posted by LaXu

Scottone, how you likin' that LJ-15? What do you use it with (guitars, pedals, cabs?) and for what kind of music?

The LJ-15 is a really cool amp. I have a London Power Studio amp/Sustainor pre-amp combination, and I really liked the power scale, but it is a bit heavy to haul around. Actually Kevin O'connor had said really positive things about Mark's stuff, so I ordered the LJ-15 as a more portable alternative.

My LJ-15 is a stripped down version that only has one output channel. I'm running it through a large 2x12 open backed box loaded with Greenbacks, and in this configuration I can churn out some outstanding Voxes tones and well as some great tweed sounds. Interestingly enough, my buddy who plays SRV style Texas blues really likes the amp as well and he's a dyed in the wool Fender guy.

Currently, I'm using a ProAnalog MkII and Topboost, a Pedalworx Dirty Angel, and a Lovepedal Vibe and they all sound great with this amp.

For guitars, it's a CS Tele w/Kinmans, '72 Tele Thinline, and '75 Les Paul Deluxe and they all work well with the amp.

Oh yeah, I play everything from blues to power pop...

 

[fakeox]

Hi LaXu, i did go look @ Harmony-Central: True there are some horror stories but i saw a lot more people gushing about tone and builder.