THE PREAMP SECTION Three channels The clean channel is not just clean! It is full of rich valve induced overtones. The middle or crunch channel offers traditional master volume valve preamp sounds and the high gain channel has a more modern, high gain sound. Bags of thick sound and fantastic sustain. The preamp uses ECC83 valves in a very efficient configuration. Definition control The definition switch mixes a small amount of clean sound into the high gain channel. This improves the definition of each note or chord whilst still sounding incredibly overdriven. This means you can play huge power chords without the sound just going mushy and indistinguishable. Alesis reverb To avoid many of the problems associated with spring line units in very high power amplifiers, such as microphonics, induced feedback and hum, our amplifiers are fitted with a well respected Alesis solid state reverb. The reverb sound is mixed into the preamp so that only a small portion of the audio signal passes through the processor (unlike rack effects where the whole signal does). Active tone controls After a great deal of research and testing we opted for active tone controls. We have created a circuit which complements the natural spectrum of a guitar pickup but with the added benefit of a much broader sweep for each control than conventional passive designs. Each channel has its own Bass, Mid, Treble and Presence controls. Channel mixing capability Not only is it possible to change between the three channels from the footswitch, but channels can be combined, any two at once or all three. This means it is possible to have a huge range of sounds available, all controlled from the footswitch. Reduced microphonics Vibration transmitted from the speaker cabinet to the components in the amplifier can have a major detrimental effect on the sound. This is particularly true in the early stages of amplification. Our amplifiers are very rigid and heavy and are fitted with special anti-vibration feet. All valves are mounted in gold plated ceramic chassis sockets and all the components in the early stages, including the control potentiometers are encapsulated in a dense epoxy resin. This virtually eliminates flexing of the components and thus prevents unwanted microphonics. It also aids heat dissipation and drastically increases the life of the circuitry. Crackle free controls The carbon track potentiometers used in most amplifiers degrade with time. This results in crackle and even in some cases produces dead spots. All our potentiometers have high quality conductive plastic or cermet tracks which, whilst a lot more expensive, do not suffer from these problems. About the power amp design