Post by beyer160 on Jan 15, 2022 20:56:35 GMT -7
After horse-trading my way through many amps over the years, Dr Z has gotten on my radar. I'd never seen a Z in person until a month or two ago, when I ran into a used MAZ18 in a local shop. It was (imho) overpriced, but the amp sounded fantastic. As luck would have it, another one popped up locally not long afterward at a MUCH more attractive price. I bought it, and I'm sure I don't have to tell you guys how great it is.
BUT... it's not really what I'm looking for.
My Holy Grail guitar tone is the Who's Live At Leeds. I'm not in a Who cover band or anything, but I love the way Pete uses his volume controls to adjust his tone from chime-y cleans to balls-out rawk. I have several amps that will do this to some degree (Genz Benz Black Pearl, Traynor YBA-1, Ceriatone Yeti, the MAZ18), but none truly captures the full range of sounds Pete was getting out of his Hiwatts in '69-70. The MAZ18 sounds great clean and cranked up, but at 18 watts it gets compressed at full volume and EL84s don't have the gut-punch lows of EL34s.
I know what you're thinking- "just get a Hiwatt, dummy!" Sure, even though the Hiwatt name has been dragged through the mud since Dave Reeves died in the early '80s there are a couple places making good Hiwatt clones today (Ceriatone, Reeves, Hi-Tone). As great as those amps surely are, there's a slight problem. Pete's Hiwatts were customized with a Vox tonestack, which makes them sound different from standard production Hiwatts and thus all the modern clones, too.
This brings us to the KT-45. From all reports (and hours of YouTube videos) it seems to really nail the sound of the Townshend-spec CP103 Hiwatt. Which is great and all, but of course they're out of production. So my question (finally!) is, is there another Z amp that can cover this ground? The MAZ18 is in the ballpark, will the MAZ38 with its higher headroom compress less and keep the bottom tight at higher volumes? Is there something else I should look at? Or, was the KT-45 a dead end whose DNA didn't cross over into other amps?
I got excited when I saw reference to the Z80 (supposedly inspired by the Vox AC100, a Vox front end with EL34s in the power section), but it's a Masterbuild way out of my price range.
BUT... it's not really what I'm looking for.
My Holy Grail guitar tone is the Who's Live At Leeds. I'm not in a Who cover band or anything, but I love the way Pete uses his volume controls to adjust his tone from chime-y cleans to balls-out rawk. I have several amps that will do this to some degree (Genz Benz Black Pearl, Traynor YBA-1, Ceriatone Yeti, the MAZ18), but none truly captures the full range of sounds Pete was getting out of his Hiwatts in '69-70. The MAZ18 sounds great clean and cranked up, but at 18 watts it gets compressed at full volume and EL84s don't have the gut-punch lows of EL34s.
I know what you're thinking- "just get a Hiwatt, dummy!" Sure, even though the Hiwatt name has been dragged through the mud since Dave Reeves died in the early '80s there are a couple places making good Hiwatt clones today (Ceriatone, Reeves, Hi-Tone). As great as those amps surely are, there's a slight problem. Pete's Hiwatts were customized with a Vox tonestack, which makes them sound different from standard production Hiwatts and thus all the modern clones, too.
This brings us to the KT-45. From all reports (and hours of YouTube videos) it seems to really nail the sound of the Townshend-spec CP103 Hiwatt. Which is great and all, but of course they're out of production. So my question (finally!) is, is there another Z amp that can cover this ground? The MAZ18 is in the ballpark, will the MAZ38 with its higher headroom compress less and keep the bottom tight at higher volumes? Is there something else I should look at? Or, was the KT-45 a dead end whose DNA didn't cross over into other amps?
I got excited when I saw reference to the Z80 (supposedly inspired by the Vox AC100, a Vox front end with EL34s in the power section), but it's a Masterbuild way out of my price range.