Bruno Cowtipper 90 head

I bought the amp from NR in the earlier post, and guess what? He is dead on, This amp by tony bruno is sparkly and full of rich harmonic overtones, I had Dave at Avatar build me a 2-12 closed back cab and installled two hellatone 60L's (broke in v-30's) This amp is dynamically rich, and then I added in my Keeley compreesor and Zendrive, and Analog Delay, still trying several different ones from my collection, Go ahead and feel Johnson, Bonamassa, Ford, ect, ect. On stage I use a 65 pro reverb Celestions gk100's reworked by Bill Humphreys with Mercury and Sprague OD's, a 66 super with k110's, and for the bigger venues I now am very happy with my Bruno Cowtipper 90, thanks to NR for giving it up! Sincerely, Big B

Stellar

Bullet Proof

Don't need it

12 on a scale of 1-10

Volume, treb, mid, bass, reverb, reverb tone
works for me

Pretty good, a little boring. I thought it would be more 3-d like.
Tried it with a 12ax7 as face inverter, harsh as hell.
put the old one back in. Better.
Not that punchy unless you turn it up loud.

Build pretty solid to me, a little messy but so are Matchless.

Bought it used from a guy on TGP.
I wanted one when I heard an idol of mine playing through a Cow tipper 90. To bad for me it turned out that it was the guy that wrote the not so great review, it's a small world after all. His Bruno is amazing. I'd just never heard anything like it -SRV Dumble, Yeah man.
so I was a little disapointed when I met the guy at one of his shows
& he told me the whole story.
I'm thinking about getting his upgrade, either by Him or his personal amp tech. when he is on the road he does not have the time to mess with his amps if something breaks down, I think that's why he wrote that he took it to his tech, the work together I think.

I like it a lot, but it just did not sound as good as I thought it would. Had I known the whole story, I'm not sure I would have bought it.

I have been a working musician for over 20 years and play in all styles and have never found a better amp than this. I can go from sparkling cleans to Jeff Beck to Holdsworth heavy tones with a few tweaks of the knobs and a couple of pedals. Tony you RULE man!!!
What on earth the guy in the other review is talking about I don't know. If he's an amp tech as he states in the opening sentence why would he have to take it to another amp tech to fix something he calls minor? Probably plays guitar as poorly as he spells LOL!
What's more I have a bright switch on mine as well as a mid boost switch. The mids are great and the reverb is the best I've heard and I've owned several blackfaces. This amp is a blackface on steroids.

Simply the best. Only limited to the player's ability and imagination.

I lucked out on this one. I buy and sell a lot on ebay and 1 of every 2 amps arrives busted or totally d.o.a.. Thanks UPS and Fed Ex. Actually I've swithched to DHL. They have yet to mess up and their service rules.
As for Tony he was kind enough to forward plenty of info. to my cabinet maker immediately upon request. Thanks again Tony and thanks to Ear Candy for an unbelievably great hand-made cab at an unbelievably low price.

GREAT. No complaints. Also, Bruno's rep/dealer at Ultrasound is aces as well. He spent much time going over the amp with me. Thanks Ken.

Lot's of great stuff out there. Comes down to individual choice and my vote goes to this amp. I've owned and played more than I can list here and I would still take my CowTipper 90 over any of them.

-Build for me by Bruno in 2006.
-One trick pony, but that's what I like.
-One channel, volume, treble, mid, bass, reverb, reverb tone.

Well, no matter what Bruno says, being a tech myself I know that his amp is just an AB763 Twin beside for an only slightly different reverb setup. I had to modify the amp, since it had no mid, and no oomph (punch) unless I dimed the amps volume. The reverb was just okay (mainly caused by bad wire), compared to and old Fender amp I already had. It had a pretty good clean sound, I???ve heard better. I'm a clean player in the style of Robert Cray and know what a good clean sound is supposed to be, and this was not it, the true test is always with a band. The sound was pretty, but did not cut through the mix at all. With my Eternity overdrive pedal, the lack of mids was startling obvious, the highs were not great either. Not 3-d at al, no harmonics. It was just not that musical. I used Mullard 12AT7???s & Sovtek-LPS 12AX7???s and JJ???s 6L6???s. I ran it into a 2x12 pine cab with Webber blue dog speakers. It should be a killer combination. I changed all the capacitors, installed a bright switch, replaced all the bad wire, put in metal film resisters in the power supply and on the grids (to keep the AC stable, carbon comp there is a BIG no no) & changed the transformers to Mercury Magnetics and now the amp is unbelievable. After my mod???s I???d give the rating of 9(not 10, because nothing is ever perfect), with out the mod???s (as stock) I???d give it a solid 6. I???ve heard cheap Fender Hot-rod Deville???s that sounded better.

Besides for it was broken when I got it, after I fixed it, it has never failed me since. I think it's fairly reliable, but being a real touring musician I know that it takes a lot of abuse on the road and would still recommend a backup amp.
I give them a 9 rating because even though it's pretty good craftsmanship, it's just not good enough compared to other boutique amp builders out there.

I did not find them helpful at all; they basically just took my money and goodbye. The fact that you can???t speak to Tony Bruno himself is ridicules. He refused to build a bright switch into the amp even though it???s only $5 in parts and 15min. worth of labor & it does not alter the sound when not in use. When I got it, it was broken and it was something simple like a cold soldering on the input jack that made it not work (no sound when plugged in). Tony insisted that I ship it all the way across the US back to New York to fix it. I was not going to do that, only to wait another 2 weeks for my new amp & have UPS drop it on the way back to me only to have to ship it back to Bruno, etc. So I had to void the warranty and take it to my personal amp tech, and I???m glad I did. There I discovered that even though Bruno claims to use only hand selected custom parts in all his amps he had used on my amp stock Fender Twin Reverb reissue transformers (it was stamped Fender on the bottom), and the cheapest capacitors available, he also used some bad wire for my reverb that when changed was like night & day. If I opened a reissue Fender amp I would find basically almost the same quality parts. The only good thing was that it was Hand wired and fairly well build. It was however a bit of a mess to look at inside.
I give them a 5 rating because of even though they offered to take care of me and fix the amp, I smelled something funny. And discovering all those bad parts inside made me fell a little ripped off.

For that much money and all that hype, this amp should in so many ways be so much better in every way possible.
I was not pleased.