Clark Amplification Low Country

I bought this used on Ebay. What an amp! The chassis is loaded with a slew of Jensen tone caps, NOS tubes (dual rectified 6L6s, 1 12AX7 and 3 12AY7s), with Weber P12Qs behind the grill. I don't know how old the amp is but it looks coded for 30th month of '05 if I'm reading the serial number correctly. This is a two channel amp, normal and bright. It puts out 45 watts with bass, treble, volume and presence pots.

The bright channel is, well, bright. It stays clean way past half way; good for darker humbucking guitars. The normal channel seems better suited for fattening up single-coil guitars. It's warmer, breaking up sooner than the bright channel. Either way it sounds like a tweed Fender Twin, by the way, and that suits me (blues, jazz, country, rock).
The amp is quiet. I don't think it will need anything for 20 years.

It's built extremely well with the best parts available.

Michael guaranteed this amp for 10 years. I've had positive dealings with him in the past and owned a few Beauforts too. Too bad he's $200 in shipping away in S. Carolina!

30 years playing guitar. Tweeds, browns, blackface amps, a Fender Reverb tank, a '57 Gibsonette, a '65 Gretsch 6161, Fender Strats and Teles, a 335, etc. This is probably the best gigging amp of the bunch although I do like my Princeton, Vibrolux, Deluxe, and Twin Reverbs too.

This is a new Fender style 5E8A ('57 Twin) amp. It has an immaculate tweed covering. It has the usual Fender normal and bright inputs. It has about a 40 Watt output, and is plenty loud for most applications. It is very carefully built with first-rate components, including Weber alnico speakers.

This amp has an old school American clean sound with a lot of headroom. It grinds well with an overdrive (I have a Clark Gainster and an original TS-808) at moderate volume levels, and it takes other pedals without any increase in bad noise. It is perfect for jazzy blues and classic rock music, and it responds well to both a Stratocaster and a Les Paul.

This is a well made amp in a fifty year old design that has survived Keith Richards, so I expect it to be reliable.

Very nice and caring people. Always a prompt response to emails and telephone calls.

I got on the Boogie bandwagon back in the '70's, and have been trying to get back to the old sounds for a long time. I've been through a lot of different sounds since then. This amp gets me pretty far down the road home. There are competitors to Clark for this amp, including Fender, but my amp tech strongly recommended Clark; I can now see why he was so adament.

My Amp was made in 2000. I gave this category a (perhaps surprisingly) high rating because the amp does exactly what it is designed to do. Although it is essentially a classically simple, no frills vintage Fender tweed twin (that Leo Fender would probably not just be proud of, but be envious of), it provides the platform for more versatility than one might at first think. It has the classic Fender tweed Twin Normal Channel inputs and Bright Channel inputs (not footswitchable), Separate Volume controls for each channel, Treble, Mid, Bass and Presence controls, Power and Standby switches. It is rated at 80 watts, utilizes components of even better quality than the original Fender amps it is based on (see the "About My Amplifiers" section at www.clarkamplification.com for in-depth details), and it has the recommended 2 Weber P12NT AlNiCo speakers. I also chose the optional add-on (mounted neatly inside the cabinet) reverb unit that sounds so lush, well-balanced and tweakable (it has Tone, Dwell and Mix controls). The amp is naturally very clean sounding and detailed, even at high volumes. However, the amp responds extremely well to all pedals I have put before it, and will produce a throaty, beautiful distortion sound with your favorite overdrive pedal. Also, the amp responds very well to tube substitution, such as swapping the 12AY7 preamp tube with a quality 12AX7 for more gain, or swapping the stock 5881 power tubes out with a nice set of 6L6GC's or even (I recommend consulting Michael Clark about this before trying it) EL34's. Mine is currently set up with Telefunken and Mullard 12AX7's and Mullard EL34's. This configuration produces a great clean sound at low to moderately high volumes, but then turns into a screaming Marshally sound when pushed, especially with a good overdrive pedal. No matter what tubes you choose for this amp, it sounds amazingly good. I use this amp wherever getting loud will not create a problem.

I use several stock guitars through this amp, but mostly I use a 1957 Fender Stratocaster, a 1970 rosewood board Strat, a 1973 maple board Tele, and a 1966 Gibson ES-175D. Everything sounds great through it. This amp suits all styles well, but I do caution that it is very loud. Although I play most styles of music, I choose this amp for classic rock and blues voicings. Jazz sounds great through it, too, though. Country is a given. I would only recommend this particular model to someone who plays large venues, or just wants a very loud amp, damn the neighbors. Adjectives that come to mind when describing the way this amp sounds are, CLEAN, bright, deep, bell-like, at times compressed, at times airy, magical, bitch'n, rich, detailed, powerful, big and LOUD. Distortion is mostly a function of what pedals you use and how you have it tubed.

I wouldn't hesitate to depend on this amp to be nothing short of a world-class road star made of the finest components and construction quality available in the industry today. For the several months I've had it, i've had no problems.

Michael, Teresa, Steve, Scott and Jonathan are awesome! I also own a Beaufort, and I have an order in for a Reverb/Tremelo unit. Dealing with Clark Amplification has been a treat. They are a small custom operation, so wait times are often long. But, with the heirloom quality of these amps, once you do get what you order, not only is it worth the wait, it will probably stay in your family for generations!

I've been playing guitar for 25 years. I also own a Clark Beaufort, a 1964 Fender Super Reverb, a Music Man 130 212HD, and a '50s Gibson Skylark GA-5 amp. If my Low Country was ever stolen, I'd either replace it with another Low Country or a Clark Tyger. What I love about this amp is the purity and distinction of its tone. If it has a negative, it would be that it really needs to be played loudly. But, that's why I am the lucky owner of a Beaufort, too. The Beaufort sounds amazing at lower volumes (or any volume in its 18 watt range). I compared this amp to the comparable Victoria tweed twin model. Although the Vicoria is a fine amplifier, I feel that the Clark is more refined, with more attention to the most nitty gritty of details. I'm able to express my playing style more completely with my Clark amps than any other amps I've ever owned. And that is what I love most about them. Clark amps changed my reference of what good tone is all about. They make me very happy.