Anderson amps.
I met Jack Anderson back in 2002 at the Portland Rose City Vintage Guitar Show where I listened to his hand made amps for the first time. To say I was impressed is on the money, I walked away knowing that one of these days I would add one to my collection. So fast forward to 2006 and after spending about a year on Jacks waiting list I received my Anderson 20/45
During the creation of my amp Jack would send pic's of it's progress. Here is a shot of the insides during the construction and then the final product.
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As you can see for yourself these are hand wired works of art that are created by an individual who I will very respectfully call "possessed" with build quality and tone. Every minute detail is worried into place to achieve what is more than likely to be high on anyone's top five "best of the best" list for build quality.
Jack works with every customer to build an amp that is truly custom made for you. I elected to go with his 20/45 head cab option (I don't like combo amps) and had it decked out with tube driven verb and tremolo along with the variable tube boost circuit and channel switching. The only option I didn't go with was the tube buffered FX loop, I don't use effects.
I requested the cab to be loaded with a couple of Ted Webers 12's, specifically an alnico Silver Bell and an alnico Blue Dog both with light dope. I've had quite a bit of exposure to and experience with Ted's speakers and back in 2002 I had a local customer with a Carvin Belair and the tone he was after fell right between these two speakers so I recommended that he try one of each. About a month later he showed up grinning from ear to ear with the amp and a few minuets later I found out why. The combination of the Silver Bell and Blue Dog were truly outstanding!
Jack had not tried Ted's speakers yet and was worried that the amps voice would not be a good match. He agreed to give them a listen and not long after Jack called with that child like enthusiasm that we all get when tone knocks at the door, proclaiming the Webers to be it!
I whole heartedly agree, Jacks 20/45 with the alnico Silver Bell and Blue Dog is right at the top of my short list of the five "best ever" amps!
The tone? Well, it's a little piece of heaven! The one thing that impresses me the most is the amps ability to get that sweet spot at just about any volume. Even at lower volumes you can get a pristine clean and then dig in and get a bit of breakup. This is one of those amps where just playing a nice open chord lets you know instantly that you're playing something very special.
The drive channel is deceiving, and has more gain on tap than given by first impressions. This is because it's so smooth and defined that you don't realize how gained up you are. The current preamp tube lineup is a Gold Pin ECC803S in V1 which is insanely rich sounding followed by a couple more Gold Pin ECC83S's which seem to work better in the drive channel where the GP-ECC803S's where almost too lush.
As for power tubes my son Eddie and I just can't quite decide from one week to the next! The amp is so expressive and sensitive to power tubes that it just makes everything sound good in it's own way. We have run 6V6's, EL34's, E34L's, KT77's, 6L6's and KT88's in it and both of us seem to come back to the JJ 6L6GC's for a while and then off to another flavor for a few days.
A conclusion? It's hard to come to one because this amp won't let you stop playing. Dollar for Dollar it's the best amp on the planet and taking the dollar out of the equation nothing changes! The only bad thing about a Jack Anderson amp is the waiting, (I think he is close to being two years out now) but you know what they say, good things take time!
You can find the Anderson amps here at http://www.andersonamps.com/