single ended hand-built amplifiers
This is a class A single-ended all-valve amplifier powered by a single KT-88 putting out around 11w. An 18w version uses the 6550 tube but can be converted to 22w by using KT88s and plays like a 50w amp. The 3 watt version using the 6V6 tube contains extended preamp for high sustain guitar solos, for practice or recording and overloads early in the signal.
I’ve used the SE11 amp in many conditions and various situations and have absolutely fallen in love with it for its clarity, versatility and simplicity.
Its been used for indoor gigs and recordings playing anything from blues, funk and rock, and have used it for acoustic gigs supporting folk singers, songwriters and have used it as a practice amp. The amp has been played with various guitars and pick-up types, with or without pedals of various nature, from drive/distortion/fuzz pedals, chorus/vibe/phase wah-wah and delay pedals. In every case, I found that I could dial in the sound that I was after to highlight the properties of the instruments used and to support the music genre I was playing.
The amp complimented perfectly every possible combination and with the right approach on the controls it became part of each instrument. Every time I had a different set up, the amp could adapt and become part of each set up in a unique way.
Angelos Oikonomopoulos (Session Guitarist)
It is a “clean” amp by nature, ideal for recording/ studio work. A small amp with features that are simple to use but also give you a huge variety of options. The amp can be a chameleon of sounds and can adapt to various sounds with various instruments. The amp lets the instruments be heard in a very honest way.
It is equipped with a Celestion Vintage 30 speaker which is a quite sensitive and honest speaker, designed to deliver the amp's sound without cutting back. This combination makes the amp extremely clean
There is a spring reverb tank with an innovative control for signal intensity that goes to the tank, on top of the traditional reverb knob.
It has the flexibility of being in two amplification modes, Normal (Pentode - traditional guitar amp mode) or Ultra Linear (UL - traditional hi-fi amplification).
One of the amplifiers best features is the Ultra Liner (UL) Mode that you can use instead of the normal (Pentode) mode. The UL mode of operation of power pentodes/beam tetrodes (where the tube operates somewhere in the middle between triode and pentode) is widely used in hi-fi applications and it provides a very clean sound for your instrument - that is “crystal” clean in that it would be very difficult to distort the sound.
When using acoustic instruments, the results are very rewarding. Another way you can use this is if you have a high output instrument that you want to keep very clean, for example trying to achieve old school jazz guitar sounds.