Top Hat Amp Test

I went to Avenue Guitars in Edmonton briefly yesterday, and tried three nice sounding Top Hat amps. Their store is filled to the brim with really cool guitar gear. Like a candy store for me! I grabbed a Fender Am Strat and plugged into these:

Club Royale - 16 Watt Class-A 1x12 Vox Blue with EL84's
Club Deluxe - 20 Watt Class-A 1x12 Combo with 6V6's
Vandrbilt 33 - 33 Watt 2-Channel Head,26LG,GZ34

The 16 watt Club Royale sounded British. It had a nice and fat tone and turning up the amp a bit gave me grit. The amp was on the quieter side for me, but as a recording amp I think it would be awesome.

The Club Deluxe had more punch, and the 6V6's made the amp a little more American sounding, but still with a British grit to it when you turn up the amp. I really liked this one. It had a deep cab design, and the bass response was nice and tight. This would be a great club gig amp.

My favourite of all them was the Vandrbilt 33. Great tone, and very versatile. It easily went from big, clean tones to gritty British punchy grind. It cleaned up the grit good if you rolled back the volume knob a bit. This amp has a lot of headroom and would be a great fit for any gig for a blues player like myself. It was great fun to play with all these amps, but the Vandrbilt 33 gets the nod from me.

Read more about these nice amps at the Top Hat Amps Website.

Next time I go there, I hope to try a Divided by Thirteen amp. They had one there, but I didn't have enough time to test it. I've heard lots of raving about these amps. They'd better be true, since cost a small fortune.

By Robert Renman - www.dolphinstreet.com

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Posted by Robert Renman on July 21, 2007

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Comments on this blog entry

don peterson said...

the Tophats are great, but Avenue Guitars is the most poorly run Music Store I have ever been in. I had emailed the owner Brian that I wanted to buy a Tophat and would be in town to talk to him about the amps. Not only did he keep me waiting for 20 minutes a friend of his came in with a guitar trade and got in to see him right away. I went to try out a pedal while I waited and one of the clerks wouldnt stop playing guitar when I went to try out the pedal. I recieved a little note from Brian then with a list price of 2195. for the amp I was looking at-the guy was totally arrogant! That's O.K. Avenue Guitars- I kept my money in my jeans, plus I found a mint one on Ebay for 800$ !

Comment added on August 06, 2009

Kay Kastum said...

Wow. How I wish I could hear the tone from your actual playing. That will be cool.

Comment added on July 22, 2007

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July 21, 2007

Top Hat Amp Test

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