58 Alma Vale Rd, Bristol, BS8 2HS 0117 3307607
HUGHES AND KETTNER
Hughes and Kettner have made a name for themselves over the last 20 years as a company prepared to use technology in the pursuit of tone but whilst some of their kit seems very high tech, at heart they are just well made, great sounding valve amps. With a list of users including Allan Holdsworth, Alex Lifeson and Tony McAlpine this is a company that produces amps that satisfy the most demanding tone merchants. These are hard working amps that have been thought out with the kind of features that people actually need and that work with the minimum of fuss.
STATESMAN DUAL EL84 (20W) £699
The Dual EL84's of the name give you 20Watts through the single 12" Eminence Rockdriver Cream speaker. There are two channels, clean with a volume control and drive with a master volume and gain control- both channels share a three band EQ and reverb level control.
The clean channel has a good vintage vibe to it with a nice chiming tone. Take the dial past about 11 o'clock and you start to bring in some nice power amp edge to the sound with some drive and crunch - not loads of clean headroom here but then that isn't really the point, with an output stage that responds like this you need to here it in action. On the clean channel you get the marvellous 'twang' button that tightens up the low end and boosts the mid range to really live up to its name.
The gain channel gives you plenty of options from a gentle crunch right up to full on saturated sustain - all the drive tones perhaps having that slightly 70's feel rather than a bang up to date modern tone. As an extra option there is a footswitchable boost which brings in extra gain.
A nice touch with this amp is the reverb balance control on the rear which allows the amount of reverb each channel gets to be varied. There are speaker outs for extension speakers, an fx loop and the amp can be used with two footswitches (one supplied) to control channel change, boost, fx loop, and reverb. This is a great amp in a small convenient package giving you vintage inspired tones and looks with modern features for a very reasonable price.
Its bigger brother gives you more of the same but with 40W of power:
STATESMAN QUAD EL84 (40W) £799 - also available
Two 6L6's take the power of the Statesman range up to 60Watts giving you much more clean headroom to play with. We have two channels with separate 3 band EQ, Master volume on the drive channel and a shared reverb and presence control. As with the other amps in the range we have the very useful drive boost and twang buttons - the boost kicking in more gain on the most 'vocal' frequencies and the twang tightening up the low end and boosting the mids. The 6L6s here feeding into 2 12" Eminence Rockdriver Cream speakers give you the kind of tones you would expect - 'glassy cleans' with more bottom end and mids than the EL84's with plenty of clean headroom and classic rock drive tones with plenty of punch. This amp has all the features of the range - reverb channel mix control, fx loop, speaker extension sockets, and two footswitch inputs for switching channel, boost, fx loop and reverb.
If you need cleaner tones and the extra versatility of the channel arrangement then this is the one in the range for you.
Details to come
Details to come
This is a much better amp than it has a right to be considering all the features packed in for the money. How you need to think of this amp is as a 4 channel amp with separate EQ and effects on each channel - the fact that you have to programme it is really secondary and it really is so easy to do (honest!). All you do is select the channel you want, tweak the EQ and effects and push the store button. You can tweak any setting whilst in use without affecting the stored programme if you need and there is an overall volume control to adjust your playing level without affecting the programmes. There are three separate digital effects processors for delay, modulation and reverb which are all very quiet and offer a wide range of musical effects. The delay is fully controllable with volume, time (up to 1400ms) and feedback controls (can be tap tempoed via MIDI), the chorus, flange and tremolo are preset but work well in most contexts and the reverb is very good for a digital effect. But, saving the best till last we have to say that this is a superb sounding amp and at the price worth considering even if you have no interest in the programmability and effects. The clean tones are dynamic, responsive and warm and the distorted sounds take you through classic 'British' EL34 tones up to high gain American saturated distortion on the Ultra channel.
50W 1x12 Combo £999
100W 2x12 Combo £1225
100W Head £1075
Even if you are a complete technophobe we could have you using this amp in 5 minutes. Everyone should give this amp a try as it really is that good and so simple to operate. This is probably the only amp design that successfully marries a cracking valve amp with high quality digital effects.
A full range of speaker cabs is available including a matching 4x12 for the Statesman head.
Check out the Hughes and Kettner Website
The full range of Hughes and Kettner Amps are available from Jam Guitars.