Clara Amps Custom Champ

This build was a completely custom amp that I ordered from keith, the idea was a small combo amp for playing at home that had a very nice clean sound so that it would perform well with pedals. We went with an upgraded champ type circuit, tube rectifier(i dont know exactly how much mojo this adds to a single ended amp but hey glowing glass is cool to look at) the ot is 15W or 20W if i recal correctly, it can run ether 6v6 or 6L6 tubes, about 2 watts with the V's and about 4-6 watts with the L's the whole circuit is as simple as possible no tone controls just one good sound. we used a greenback for the speaker and as a result the cab had to be bigger so a tweed deluxe style cab was used, its covered in white tolex and looks kinda flashy, kinda cute.
The amp has 2 features feature one is that it has a volume knob you turn that thing clockwise and it makes the amplifier make your guitar louder, you could even say that it "amplifies" it, clever dont you think?. the other feature is that it has a negative feed back control so you can stiffen it up a little bit if you want to,i did ask Keith to put that in but i usualy keep it at zero 99% of the time.
Now the best feature of all is the price where i could buy the same amp from gibson for the same price but i got to custom order everything on this amp from the circuit to the voicing to the finish on the cab.

The clean is very nice, i like a darker tone and this amp does just that, a nice smoky kinda clean with humbuckers, havent tryed singles with it yet, but im guessing that the brightnes of the single coils and the darkness of this amp would complement each other very well. For distortion I use a H.A.O rust driver, that gets me into a very nice distotrion sound at bedroom volumes. so thats my set up so far, i use a cheap dean vandetta throught this amp and it sounds pretty good to me, probably would sound even better if i try some different pickups in it.
I swapped out the greenback because it was causing anoying resonance with distortion pedals because it wasnt broken in yet and 6 watts wasnt going to break it in any time soon. So i replaced it with a realy old alnico from an 18watt that keith also worked on.
The only problem im having with the sound is that when i turn up the volume the natural overdrive of the amplifier is kinda muddy but then again its not realy meant to be overdriven that way.

I havent had any problem yet, i would probably bring another tube with me if i was giging with this. the cool thing about it is retubing it is so cheap just 3 tubes

Keith is very good to anwser your email if you have questions. I always have lots of questions and usualy you get a response the same day you send the mail.

I like this amp its realy cool now im not as spell bound by it as a certain 18watt thats also had some work done at clara amps, but i dont hesitatle to bring it anywhere to jam, its so easy to carry and so simple not to mention nice to look at