Amwatts Amps and Cabs
Amwatts Amps and Cabs
Amwatts has been building handmade, high quality guitar amps and speaker cabinets for 20+ years. We were one of the first in Australia to replicate the famously sought- after amps from the 50’s and 60’s from the UK and USA.
Our amps are built to the highest standard and we strive to build the best vintage style instrument amps and speaker cabinets, using the highest quality components and materials available today. We don’t just replicate, we add a fine attention to detail in every aspect.
We build amps and speaker cabinets to bring you the vintage tones of Blues & Rock ‘n’ Roll you’ve wanted.
We want you to get excited and we WANT you to play our products from the moment you hear them. Because when you sound good, you play good.
In these days of mass production, we pride ourself on hand crafting amps and cabinets for tone, quality and longevity.
We have proudly built amps for professional musicians to the bedroom beginner through and all levels in between.
Amwatts products are lovingly hand built on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia.
Mark Watson, Amwatts Australia
PENGUIN
Introducing the latest design from Amwatts Amps Australia newly developed in 2024, A handmade ,hand wired old school guitar amplifier co-designed by Amwatts and Michael/Warren from Penguin Vintage Guitars in Sydney
THE CONCEPT
After the success of the Amwatts 15w Grande Expresso 1 x 12 amp , the first original design from Amwatts, We discussed a 5 watt version incorporating the Amwatts Custom Universal Gain Stage preamp design, this is to cater for people who like that classic vintage tone of old but are looking for lower volumes for home and studio use. Don’t let the 5 watts RMS fool you, this little amp still packs a punch.
THE DESIGN
PreAmp: A single input vintage style standard triode input followed by – A custom designed universal gain stage and tone stack – this is where Amwatts differs from conventional big name preamps. This allows a higher gain/sustain crunch that can be cleaned up simply by using the guitars volume control. E.G With your guitar volume on 10, you’ll get pure rock n roll overdriven tone with plenty of sustain.As you wind down your volume, the signal cleans up without loss of top end clarity, so your clean and dirty tones are controlled from your guitar (old school).
Gain: The gain knob adjusts the grid leak of the universal gain stage. It’s a subtle increase of the gain structure of the amp, Simply by adjusting the amount of signal that passes through this part of the circuit you can add another dimension to the tonal pallet of the amp.
Tone: The single knob tone stack pays homage to the late Ken Fischer from Trainwreck amps, It combines his TMB tone controls into a single knob, It has been designed to work with both Single Coil and Humbucker style pickups, unlike other tone knobs its full range from 0 – 10 is useable
Master Volume: 5 watts RMS can still get pretty loud, especially with the gain that the Amwatts Penguin can provide. At Michael and Warren’s request, a Master Volume was incorporated for added control.
Output: A Single 6V6GT output valve as used in all the vintage Single Ended low wattage amps from the 50’s, but we couldn’t just copy it directly, Amwatts biases the 6V6GT to approx. 90- 100% dissipation unlike the 50’s counterparts which were over biased , This gives more headroom and nicer bell like qualities to the tone plus adds longer life to the valves. Combine this with a Jupiter 10” ceramic vintage style speaker and you have all the ingredients of yesteryear combined with modern day versatility.
SPECIFICATIONS:
- 5 Watts – Single Ended Cathode Bias Output
Gain – Volume – Tone – Master Volume controls - Speaker Extension Socket
- Tubes: 1 x 5Y3, 1 x 6V6GT, 1 x 12AX7, 1 x 12AY7 *
- Handmade Custom G10 Board
- High quality Mercury Magnetics transformers made to Amwatts specs *
- Jupiter Condenser Yellow Cap axial capacitors – 50’s Astron replicas *
Wirewound Ceramic resistors in the high voltage circuit - 2 Watt Carbon Film resistors for less hum than the original 1⁄4 watts *
Aluminium chassis with chrome etched faceplate - High Quality US Filter Caps/Cans
Handmade Acoustic Grade Pine cabinet with dovetail joints and floating baffle * - Jupiter 4 ohm 10SC – 10″ 25W Vintage American Ceramic Guitar Speaker
Amwatts Amps use the philosophy “ The better you sound, the better you play” Try an Amwatts Amp today
Amwatts Grande Expresso 20
What’s it based on ?
This is one of the first questions an amp builder gets asked – is it British/American based?
The answer here is “yes to all” – a bit of everything.
Valve technology hasn’t changed much since last century. There’s always been limited parameters to work within, and that’s exactly what we’ve done. We’ve chosen the basic tried and true classic public domain designs (Western Electric) and morphed them into our own custom recipe.
So what is it based on? I’d say Marshall, Fender, Supro, Trainwreck, Dumble, Boogie and all points in between.
Keep it Simple
Input section is standard minimalism, simply taking the guitar signal and amplifying every nuance – then feeding it into a passive responsive tone stack, just one knob, with great tonal variations across the sweep.
Next
A Universal gain stage opens all the harmonic possibilities a guitar can produce. We’ve added a gain knob, this controls the bias/clipping of this stage – counter clockwise gives you organic 50’s tweed style tones without the flub and ugly distortion. As you wind it up, you add fat punchy natural overdrive reminiscent of those 60’s /70’s super groups. Keep winding and it gets into high gain, long sustain face melting overdrive that goes way past 11.
Then simply turn down your guitar’s volume and it cleans the signal, maintaining clarity and the full range of your guitar’s tone.
Output is a Cathodyne Phase Inverter feeding 2 individually Cathode Biased 6V6GT output tubes into a 1 x 12 speaker – the individual biasing means you can use mismatched 6V6’s as they bias themselves separately. Think 5E3 with a twist.