Amwatts Grande Expresso
GRANDE EXPRESSO/ EXPRESSO REVERB
Amwatts mid-sized valve combo is a wolf in sheep’s clothing!
A handmade, hand wired, old school style guitar amplifier designed to incorporate a combination of Vintage
and Modern tones.
THE CONCEPT
The Grande Expresso 1 x 12 guitar amp is Amwatts’ first original design. This 20 watt powerhouse
incorporates Amwatts’ Customised Universal Gain Stage preamp – a circuit that uses an additional triode to
increase the clarity/gain structure and versatility of the amp.
Based Originally on the Famous and much loved 5E3 Tweed circuit of the late 50’s.
Amwatts has taken it to the next level.
The concept is to set your guitar’s volume on 10 and adjust the amp to your desired highest overdriven
gain/sustain volume setting, then simply wind back your guitar’s volume to clean up the tone.
I personally like to leave the guitar on 7-8 (ala Hendrix) for rhythms and 10 for solos, it puts it all at your
fingertips.
THE LAYOUT
PreAmp: A single input, vintage style standard triode followed by a custom designed universal gain stage
and tone stack – this is where Amwatts differs from conventional vintage 5E3 tweed replicas. This provides
higher gain/sustain that can then be cleaned up simply by using the guitar’s volume control, whilst retaining
tonal clarity.
Gain: The gain knob adjusts the bias of the universal gain stage.
With the knob set to 0, the amp displays standard vintage 50’s 5E3 Characteristics but with a tighter bottom
end minus the 5E3 Flubbing out. As you dial it higher, your sound opens up by increasing sustain, crunch
and harmonic overtones …. More than you’ll ever need!
Tone: The single knob tone stack uses the classic Bassman Treble/Middle/Bass style gain stage but with the
settings set at a fixed level. We have studied the Tone Stack Calculator of the famous Bassman and
come up with our own recipe for the 3 knob setting. We then adapted it into a simple 1 knob tone control.
So it’s simply set it at our favourite setting for your classic Bassman tones. Wind it off for more bass or turn
it up for more top end. It combines the TMB tone controls into a single knob and has been designed to work
with both Single Coil and Humbucker style pickups.
Output: 2 x 6V6GT Cathode Biased output valves in push/pull mode takes us into famous vintage tweed
1×12 territory, but without the flub and fizz that early circuits were prone to display.
NB: The Grande Expresso can also be ordered in a 2 x 6L6GC 25 watt version for those wanting more!
