Allen Class Act

This is a year 2000 Class Act "Mini Plexi" in 1-10" combo form. The current model is substantially larger and heavier, and is a 1-12". have a thing for little tube amps and this one really does it for me. It is a single-ended, single-channel master volume amp which accepts a number of different power tubes; 6V6, 6L6, EL34, and KT88 (I suppose it would accept a KT66 as well) without rebiasing (although I am sure that would help once you found your personal favorite combination for tone. Mine is definately the EL34 tone; I think that is what this baby was made for.

The controls are Volume, Treble, Bass, "User" (Middle), and Gain. There are two inputs, High and Low. It is a handsome little devil with its' jewel power lamp, metal "standby" toggle switch, and chicken head knobs finishing out the front panel. The cabinet features an open back and is about a foot square, eight inches deep and nicely finished in black tolex with a woven silver grillcloth. The speaker is an 8 Ohm Jensen Special Design (sounds like a little Grenback!), and the Chassis is aluminum and super sanitary. Very well built.

It has only one speaker out for 8 Ohms; it would be nice to have had multiple outs or an Ohms selector switch.

This is a recording or "bedroom" amp; super light at only 20 pounds. Not loud enough to gig with unless you are doing an open mic or coffee shop thing.

I have a number of different guitars I play; my main thing is early USA made "San Dimas" Charvel guitars which are usually hotrods with one or two humbuckers and the finest necks known to man. I played a two-hum '81 Charvel that is my main axe, an '81 Charvel Telecaster with Lindy Fralins, and a friend's new McInturff (spelling?) with two hums.

It came to me with a 6L6 and two very hot "Leslie Organ" preamp tubes which are obviously of high-quality European or US manufacture. It squealed like the proverbial stuck pig with the brige hum (Duncan Custom) of my main guitar; too hot in the preamp for a hot hum-equipped guitar. Since this is my axe of choice, I usually "tune" around this guitar. So, I played around a bit with the tubes, and ended up with a new JJ 12ax7 in the first position, the "stock" 12ax7 in the second position, and a new JJ "blue bottle" E34L in the power slot. I set the controls at 12 o'clock (5) to get things going, and WOW! I could not believe the singing overdriven Marshall-like tones that were coming out of this little amp! After a bit of tweaking, I was at about 7 on the gain, 7 on treble, 6 on bass, and 5 on mids. I had the volume dimed since it is not a tremendously loud amp anyhow, and you will want to take advantage of the "roll back" on your guitar's volume knob anyhow.

I was blown away at the grind, sustain, and sing this little thing has. I noticed right away the lack of bass response, and the fact that turning the bass up past about 6 just flubbed out the tone. Chords were full and distinct, with the overdriven crunch that early non-master Marshalls have. The strong suit was lead work; this little baby truly sings. Palm-muting was a big letdown as there is just no "chunk" to be had out of a 10" Jensen Special Design and an open back cab.

The Tele was bright and spanky on the bridge pickup; and the neck pickup really sang (as did the humbucker in the neck of the previous axe). One really special thing about this little amp is how it is reactive to your picking dynamics; light picking cleans the tone up dramatically, while digging in yields the crunch. Rolling off the guitar volume did the same. These are two signs of a great tube amp, as is the controllable harmonic feedback that the amp graciously yields. If there were a way to enclose the back and get some bass response, I would rate this a 10.

We plugged this into my friends Bogner Shiva 2-12" Celestion CL80-equipped cab, and I shit you not, it sounded about as good as his Shiva. Not quite, but very, very close. The tone IS that good. The McInturff was great too, a bit darker and jazzier, but fun and full.

I would have thought that a second speaker out and a matching closed-back cab would have been the pinnacle of this little combo's design. As it stands, I suppose you could swap the speaker for a 16 Ohm, build a sealed 16 Ohm cab to match, and use a "Y" cable out to both to achieve this end and still stay at 8 Ohms resistance. This would be an ultra-portable tonal powerhouse capable of hanging with all but the Metal crowd (I love that crowd, dammit!). Well, maybe even a little into that territory too depending on the palm-muted tones and bass response. I will have to try it and see!

This is three years old, but new to me. I would say it is built like a tank. Not too much to go wrong here and no design flaws I can see (other than lack of Ohms selector).

I can only go on second-hand knowledge here, but I believe what I have heard. Top-notch service, and Mr. Allen is reputed to be a very intelligent and helpful man.

I am a "reborn" guitar player from the days of my youth. I could not get a guitar to sound good to save my life back then, so I played bass! A few years ago I got back into guitar and have hit it heavily. I feel like I was always a guitar player, although I was trapped in a bassist's body. I bought good equipment (Bogner amps, Charvel guitars, light effects) and did it right this time. This is fun!

All-tube, class A, high gain master volume amp. Can be used with 6V6 (4W output), 6L6 (7W) and EL-34 (7W) power tubes WITHOUT rebiasing (basically a "Plug and Play" deal); 2 ea. 12AX7 preamp stages. Preamp is Marshall-style (T-B-M tone controls after both pre-amp stages). Low and high sensitivity inputs. Killer tone.

The amp is available as a DIY kit, or fully assembled by David Allen. I chose to build it myself, (for the fun of it!) having some previous hands-on experience with tube electronics. The assembly instructions are top notch and allow even a beginner to assemble the whole thing without major problems, as long as soldering is mastered.

Every aspect that affects the construction & its effect on tone is covered; if you read the manual before you start, you'll have no problems. Obviously a well researched manual. A great learning tool for amp enthusiasts willing to get down and dirty. It took me about 30 hours to do the whole thing; I took my time to make sure every connection, every crimp and every wire's dress was dead on; the amp worked perfectly the first time I turned it on.

The tone depends pretty much on what power tube you are using. I use the amp with a 16 ohm THD Hotplate attenuator (against David Allen's advise!), since 7W is still too much for my application, to get power stage grind. And I use a Ibanez TS9 or a Fulldrive II to boost the signal a little. I use a Celestion Vintage 30 speaker (mounted on a Marshall Studio 15 amp cabinet - open back). I use 2 Sovtek 12AX7WXT+ tubes on the pre-amp (I like the grind!) so you can see that what I set myself up with is a pint-size, full range high gain machine!. The tone controls are very interactive, and the amp can get very shrill or boomy if you don't watch what you are doing. But it is easy to dial up a great sound. Guitars used with this amp: Peavy Wolfgang, Gibson LP Classic & PRS McCarty.

With the 6V6 tube, the amp gets a bit mushy at full tilt (preamp and master full on), even with the bass control off; I've heard some people say that this is very similar to a Fender Champ, but since I've never played one, I couldn't vouch for that.... Still, the sound is very usable and feels "authentic", especially for blues music.

With the 6L6, the sounds at full tilt are very gritty and grainy, very much like a Soldano HR-50 type grind.... clean sounds with both of these tubes are very warm and Fendery, with just the right amount of compression, they almost make you wish the amp had reverb....

The reason I got the amp, though, was for its reputed plexi EL-34 tone. People have dubbed this amp as a "baby plexi", and they are right! You can get an authentic Van Halen 70's tone out of the above set up, and this pleases me to no end! You get great sustain (in an old Marshall vein rather than a Mesa Boogie, i.e. saturated but not super compressed) and when you back down your guitar volume to half or so, you get that elusive, crunchy Marshall rhythm sound (with a good humbucker) with the dynamics that you only get with authentic power tube grindage. Noise levels are not particularly low with this set up, but the trade off is TONE! A great set up for heavy playing at low volumes! Being Class A, the power amp responds a bit differently than a real plexi, but the tone is all in there. I have to try this set up with a Greenback 4X12 cab to see how it performs... The clean sounds with the EL-34 are not as nice and warm as with the 6V6 or 6L6, but that goes with its Marshall character.

The amp motorboats when I set all controls on full. I was told by David that I was pushing the power supply past its limits by diming everything, and that was the result. To rectify the situation, I just lower the bass or treble until the puttering is gone. This is to be expected with this high gain set up, though, and it doesn't bother me, since the tone is good! As far as reliability, since I don't gig, I can't offer a pertinent assesment. But since the amp's construction is point to point, and the quality of the components is high, my guess is that it would be extremely reliable.

David is nice guy to deal with, and he backs his product. If there is something wrong, he makes it right with no fuss.

Even if you don't put this amp together yourself, and have David build it for you (749$), this amp is an excellent value. But if you assemble it yourself, you'll get far more out of it. Don't be put off by the price/wattage factor here... Think of it as a great investment in terms of TONE!

If you are a Marshall tone fanatic doing a lot of playing at home, you owe it to yourself to try this amp.