Booker V12M

Hello all! Mr. Walling's favorable review, below, has forced my hand.
BEWARE DEALINGS WITH STEVE GIBBS OR AUDIO BROTHERS! HE RIPPED ME OFF!
I naively sent payment-in-full. I have Mr. Gibb's email reply that he received my check for $911 on 29 July 2000. I still have no amp, refund, explanation, or, recently, any communication at all from Mr. Gibbs. Mr. Walling's may have been the last order filled.
I notified both email addresses at the Audio Brothers URL, given above, that I intended to publish this, and received no reply. I have kept my entire email correspondence with Mr. Gibbs, and will disclose all or any part to any party with a valid interest. I particularly welcome inquiry from any UK law enforcement agency.

The amp was built in 2000. I play blues, rock and jazz. It is versatile for the music I play. This amp has one channel. No effects loop or channel switching. It has volume,gain,middle,treble,bass and a sinlgle input. It has a ten inch Fane speaker and runs at 16 ohms. These are all the features I ordered and it is the stock model the audio brothers designed. It is small in size but has a big sound.

I use a custom built strat type guitar with two PAF pickups with a Schaller bridge. It really suits my style, which is blues rock and jazz. This amp is the most noise free amp I have ever plugged into. I plug directly into the amp. I play it with the gain at 12 o,clock and the volume at 10 o'clock with the mid full up, the treble at 12 o'clock and the bass at 5 o'clock for clean jazz gigs, and it is very full and warm with a very clear sound. As for my blues rock gigs, I run the tone controls at the same position but turn the volume up to 3 o'clock and the gain at 2 o'clock or higher. The amp does not hum or hiss like most high gain amps. It has a real good rock sound and a great blues sound. Very very musical to my ears. A much more natural sound due to the fact it only has around 12 watts rms,runs in class A with two EL84 output tubes,two 12AX7s and one 12AT7 with a solid state rectifier, and a cool sounding ten inch fane speaker that is surprisingly warm and full sounding. It feels great to crank it up and have a natural over drive that stays musical and not harsh or fizzy sounding. This amp doesn't work like high gain marshalls or boogies. It stays clean until you crank the volume way up and the gain beyond 2 o'clock, then it overdrives like a great blues amp should. No metal sounds are available. I purchased the amp for these reasons and it has proven to be what I was looking for. (Think Mike Bloomfield live at the Fillmore West and you will come super close to hearing this amp).

I asked Steve Gibbs many questions about this amp and found it to be hand wired point to point on tag strips,( no circuit boards to foul up over time). I do gig with this amp in coffee house gigs playing jazz, and small blues rock clubs and I do depend on it without a backup. So far it has held up great. I also use it around thirty hours a week teaching at my teaching studio. Sometimes leaving it on for seven hours at a time. I have had no break downs and it is real quiet. Some other combos I have used in the past would have their output tubes rattling by now!

It took me two years to decide to sell some of my gear to purchase this amp. I talked to Steve Gibbs many times through email and he has been very helpful and responsive to all my questions,(and there were many). I talked to a local amp tech and he assured me the amp would be easy to repair (if a problem ever occurs) due to the way the amp is designed.

I have been playing 35 years. I have an early MKIIB Boogie, and an 86 MKIII simulclass Boogie and an old DeArmand R15 single 12 Blue bell combo with two 6V6 output tubes and an old Silvertone combo. I love old amps that have one great sound. The Booker reminds me of an old amp with a fantastic warm tone that is able to be pretty bright if you choose to crank the treble. I would consider purchasing another Booker if it were stolen. I love the clean sound and it has a wonderful blues tone. I purchased it because of the design,and the lower wattage so I can crank it when needed and not hurt everyone in a small club, but still get that big driving blues sound. The cabinet is made out of solid mahogany and I know that even though I am carefull with my gear it will get a few battle scars down the road. I did purchase it to gig with so the use will just give it character. I like things that look like they have been used and enjoyed. That's what musical instruments are for, and I look at my amp as a combined instrument along with my guitar. They both help present my music to the listeners. I didn't want an amp with a lot of preamps and gain controls. I really wanted a quiet amp ( noise wise) and one that sounded good for solo jazz guitar at lower volume, and also an amp I could just turn up and drive hard for the blues. I tried out Fenders, Matchless, THD, and a few others and I like the fact that this has a British edge to it and is so well designed.
I did notice the first time I turned it up to a high volume the grill cloth would flap against the wooden speaker spokes on the baffle board, so I just ran a thicker rubber stip between the two points and that fixed the problem. I also new I was taking a risk getting the amp from England without having a chance to play through it first,but I emailed Steve Gibbs many times and we talked tone. I had a good feeling by the time I ordered the amp and it proved to be right on.

I wrote the first submission fo this amp in January of 1999. I just ran across it and feel I should ad some notes. First of all, I suggested that I was going to switch to carbon comp resistors. Well, I didn't and found that warm magic - plus the British assertiveness - I was looking for anyway just by experimenting with tubes (once my pocketbook recovered from the initial purchase, that is). I think that this amp is absolutely beautiful sounding with Tesla EL84s, one Eugo EI 12AX7 in the V1 spot, and 12AT7s in the V1 and V2 spots. It's really rich, smooth, yet still gangly when pushed. Second, I finally gigged with this amp a couple of times and was amazed at how these 15 watts cut through the din of a band. It seemed that no matter how loud the mix got, my amp continued to cut through. I'm not sure how to describe it, but the amp has more cut than any amp I played or heard before. Plus, you'll never have to adjust the preamp mix to get your tone out front. This thing doesn't broadcast your sound, it *eminates* pure tone! Finally, the Booker output is the loudest damn 15 watts you'll ever hear! I mentioned in the first review that the lack of headroom really makes the amp a one trick pony since, to get yourself out in front of the mix, you'll overdrive the amp. Well, when I began using a lower output 12AX7 and two 12AT7s in the preamp I blew off a lot of the gain. Consequently there's a lot more headroom, and since this amp cuts so well, I'm sure folks who aren't really looking for a lot of overdrive can get some really sweet, warm, and juicy tones (though chicken pickers should look elswhere). In short, I found my Holy Grail!

The Audio Bros. built this amp to be simple. The whole package consists of a single channel rated at 13.5 watts. It's driven by a pair of cathode biased, class-A EL84s, three 12AX7s, and a solid state rectifier. Controls consist of Volume, Middle, Treble, Bass, and Gain. That's it. My Booker was built with an extra Gain stage (identical to the HiWatt Custom 20), twin AlNiCo ten-inch Fain loudspeakers (hence the "ta" in Booker V12MTA), and a mahogany cabinet. The cabinet is simply gorgeous, though it's built more like furniture than a piece of touring equipment (corners are glued and braced, not tongue-and-groove). If you're a road warrior you may want to have the Audio Bros. build a sturdier cabinet. For what it's worth, Steve Gibbs (one-half of Audio Brothers) insists that the cabinet makes more of a tonal difference than switching up from ceramic to AlNiCo speakers. The Booker is a one trick pony that's perfectly suited for doing what the amp is tended: straddle the fence between clean, to crunchy, to singing overdrive, with the brightness and punch characteristic of EL84s. A rating it in this category doesn't make much sense as a description; it's not an amp that is designed around features.

The amp has one sound - it's bright and assertive and capable moving seamlessly between clean, grit, and soaring overdrive by rolling the tone and volume pots on the guitar. (For reference, I play a Hamer semi-hollow body with Lindy Fralin humbuckers.) Steve Gibbs described the Booker as the bluesiest of British amps, and this is perhaps the best description of the sound. With the three tone settings at 12 o'clock and the volume and gain both at 2 o'clock the amp is big sounding but gritty and punchy with lots of chime. With the volume pot at 10 there's a lot crunch, at 7.5 the tone just a bit crispy, at 5 its clean as morning. Roll the amp's volume up to 10 and leave the gain at 7 and the amp truly comes alive. With the guitar's volume at 10, think of one word: SUSTAIN! Roll the guitar's volume back to 5 and the tone is clean, up to 6.5 for crispiness, and up to 8 for crunch. With the Booker's tone knobs straight up, it's is a real rocker - more punky than metal - and has the quality of an amp that's about to explode. If you're playing a bit tentative, the thing might scare you. My biggest surprise - and a truly pleasant one - came as I cranked the Mid. Almost as much as its alters the tonal balance of the guitar's signal, the Mid changes the character of the amp, giving rise to a bluesier tone. With the Mid cranked, the Booker is fatter and brighter than a Fender. And if it's not as lush, the Booker is punchier and more assertive, with a sweeter, chiming top end. Plus, it never flabs-out. With the guitar's volume and tone pots partially defeated, the Booker could even be described as jazzy. I usually play with the Mid at about 3 o'clock, which allows the bridge pickup to retain its cutting brightness and really fattens the neck pickup. If you're willing to use, not just the volume, but your guitar's tone pot on the fly, you can straddle a large range of tones from blistering lead, to punky rhythm, to crispy folk-rock, to either snarling or sultry blues, to mellow jazz. Super cool. Steve Gibbs will tell you that this amp is not a super distortion machine, but when the class-A overdrive kicks this amp really sings. Mine has the same extra gain circuit as does the HiWatt Custom 20, and I found myself fighting preamp gain until I replaced the 12AX7 in the V3 spot with a 12AT7. I'm not sure how much gain the extra stage adds, but with it and full compliment of 12AX7s in the preamp, it should be plenty unless you're looking for super buzzy, Mesa Boogie-esque distortion. For more of a blues tone and overdrive, go with the unaltered Booker circuitry. If you want a rocker, go with extra gain stage; you can always fiddle with preamp tubes until you find the right balance. As fat and big sounding as it gets, the amp is still very bright. I'm not sure about the specs on the Booker without the extra gain stage, but mine came with boosts on the treble path in the preamp. My tech disconnected these and the amp warmed-up considerably yet still retained its characteristic brightness. The modification changed the character of the amp's gain: it took off all of what preamp "szhushzziness" there was and it allowed the output stage to really sing without being too distorted. While the amp sounded good with the treble boosts, it was a bit too rock 'n' roll-ish for my taste, sacrificing headroom for fuzz. It's a pretty noninvasive modification and my tech said that it would be easy to put these on a switch that wouldn't enter the signal path. I decided not to because I didn't want to scar the chassis but I'm sure the Audio Bros. could easily configure such a switch. Also, at some point I may replace the stock resistors - which aren't bad - with carbon composition resistors. This should warm things up some more without defeating any of the amp's cool brightness. Don't get me wrong, it sounded great stock - big and fat, bright and gritty. These mods can just let me get the Treble control past 12 o'clock (!). Overall, the word that comes to mind when

The circuitry is point-to-point and quite impressive looking. Any tech worth their salt could repair it. I'd use it without a back-up, but bring a bucket load if valves and fuses. (Buy 'em when you can; you'll use 'em someday.) As I said earlier, the mahogany cabinet is built something like furniture; this can be a problem if you mistreat your equipment. UPS dropped - threw? danced upon? - mine, so it arrived splinted and with its glued joints separated. Though the amp could have been packed better, the jolt knocked both of the loudspeakers' magnates off-center, so it seems to have been quite a shot. (Audio Bros. learned their lesson, though; when they shipped the replacement cabinet it was packed in two boxes with plenty of styro-foam and all sorts of stickers marking its contents as "fragile.") The circuitry deserves a rating of 10. If you get a cabinet that is suited to your uses you can add three points to the overall total; you'll never have to worry about a Booker melting down.

Steve Gibbs at Audio Bros. is as helpful, friendly, and as trustworthy as a buyer could hope. I'm sure I was a pest before I decided to go with the Booker, and Steve politely and completely answered all queries without a hint of "hard" sale. He was as horrified, and I think a little more distraught than I, over the damage to my cabinet. True to a perfectionist personality type, he didn't seem so much concerned about the loss of money as the unfortunate end to one the products of his labors. He was responsive and replaced both the cabinet and speakers, though this took about eight weeks due to a backlog of work at the cabinet shop.

I've been playing for about 15 years and have had a Fender Twin Reverb for most of that time. I used to play through 2 distortion pedals to get the tones that I now get better from the Bookers with just a volume knob. (No more looking for a pedal that doesn't change the character of the amp.) If it was lost or stolen would I get it again? Certainly it's worth purchasing again and I don't regret buying it. But if I had the cash in hand I may get excited about something else or decide I wanted a different sound altogether. If I decided to get another Booker I'd have Steve Gibbs make one with the mods I described above and probably go with the standard circuitry. But hindsight's 20/20, and all that. Whatever my decision, I could get different but I doubt much better. (The rating is based as much on my feelings that the perfect amp has yet to be made as on an average of my other ratings.)

Made By Audio Bros. England 1998 Dual EL84 output stage. 3 12AX7 Pre amp stage. 13.5 watts output. Single input. Controls: Gain, Bass, Middle, Treble, Volume. No channel switching, or any other bells and whistles. The Amp is made of finished, solid mahogany. Looks like a 1920's era radio. The controls are on the top. Probably Best suited as a Recording/Practice amp, But is extremely loud for being only 13.5 watts. You could definitely use it in a small club gig, unmiked.
The only feature that is really lacking is an external impedence selector switch. It is set to 8 ohms, but is internally switchable to 16Ohms; But this is obviously a real hassle. Too bad, because this amp sounds unbelievable through a 4X12 cabinet.

The amp has been tried with a variety of different guitars, Fenders, Gibsons etc. Makes Fenders really come alive. If you have a "Fat" sounding Strat or Tele, there is no better amp. Humbuckers really make the amp sustain at higher volumes, and it seems to really favor Gibson style guitars. The amp is very clean and punchy, but breaks up nicely as the volume goes up. With the Gain and volume at about 2 oclock, there is not a "Fatter" sounding amp. The Booker is especially suited to "Blues". It does not overdrive like a master volume Marshall, but instead, starts to break up as the volume is turned up. By cranking the gain, the tone controls, especially the treble, have mor presence and effect. Instead of channel switching,you can roll off the volume on the guitar to clean up the sound. This does not work very well on most amps, but the Booker really sounds nice with the guitars volume down. The guitar's tone control is suddenly very useable now also. The Mid control seems to be voiced at a lower frequency than you are normaly used to, but it really zeroes in on the fat tone of a guitar. It is also very quiet.

Have not gigged with it, but after opening it up,and seeing the point to point Hand wiring, it seems to be built like a bomb shelter. I have used the "sister amp" : the Hiwatt Custom 20, and if it is half as reliable, I would have no worries.

The Audio Brothers could not have been more helpful, and I am looking forward to buying more of their products soon. Steve Gibbs Has been the most helpful person I have ever dealt with with guitar products. They Definitely stand behind their products.

I wanted a well built, great looking, fantastic sounding amp, that was easy to transport. That's what I got! Can't imagine a better amp. You are not going to find a better made, better sounding hand wired amp at twice the price. Period. There is one thing I hate: The amp looks so good, that I am living in terror of that first big scratch.