Electrosonic Amplifiers Neptune Head

Made at the end of summer 2005, 25w class A, single channel, parallel single ended head with two 6L6 output tubes and 12AX7 preamp tube (both JJ). It also has 3 band EQ, a built-in attenuator and an impedance selector. Very compact construction. No effects loop or headphone jack, the only output is for the cab, but since i plan to chain time-based effects in the mixing console this is not a problem for me. Electrosonic makes you choose all the features you want for your needs and money and i couldn't give it less than a 10.

It has the smooth volume transition and amount of overdrive of a Vox ac30 with a tone resembling fender blackfaces. I wanted this amp to be able to suit a lot of styles from clean blues to extremely treated guitar sounds (when i feel dub). It offers personality and endless tweakability.
It is extremely reactive (like i never heard before) to your touch, especially at high gain settings. It is round and *fat* when you pick near the neck and sharp as a knife near the bridge. Did i say fat ? of course because it has a lot, lot, lot, lot of bass but never seeming too dull or dark.
Distortion is harmonic with a singing quality, the amount and brutality of distortion can depend by a lot of factors, i was impressed how powerful and grunge can this be only by changing string gauge from .010 to .012.
The amp itself is not noisy at all, even the normal single coil pickup noise is perfectly acceptable even at high volume settings, but it can suffer from electromagnetic interferences from external sources so one should select with care where to place it on stage/studio.
Volume is way enough for my needs, for now it has been used mainly in the studio or at home, and the attenuator was very useful to save my ears from being harmed, the attenuated sound can be perfect for recording, but you should avoid to use it at the max setting, in this conditions (very low volumes suitable for studying at 3:00 AM in an apartment, but too low even for recording) the amp sound can feel weak and the output a bit "unstable" like adding a strong gating effect to your guitar, i don't feel this to be an issue since i've been said it is perfectly normal with every attenuator. When the attenuator is turned slightly under the max setting it behaves wonderfully.
At clean settings it sounds a lot like Jeff Buckley's Fender Vibroverb ...without the vibro and the verb of course, it is not limited to that sound: by just turning the guitar volume knobs to 8 it can give wonderful jazz sounds making me feel like wes montgomery...without his talent and technique.

No problems until now.
It is a tube amp is made of pine, untolexed, oil finished... it can have some cosmetical issues by taking it on tour for a year without a flight case, but it has been hand made with care and with the best components, if it has survived the US and Italian postal service without breaking up in small parts.

Electrosonic customer support is as amazing as their amp's sound. Josh answer emails promptly, clear all your doubts, follow you during the choice of amp components to create exactly the sound you want.
They accepted to finish the cab that Bob Burt ( www.bobburtcabinets.com ) has made for me, (and they could answer not, since they make cabinets too) to match the finish of the head, they perfectly know what the word CUSTOM means. I am totally satisfied by Electrosonic.

If it were stolen or lost i would cry for 3 days. Extreme value for the price.

A 2005 Neptune Head with a light blue finish (you can see it on the electrosoinc website). It has an ef86 preamp section, an gz34 rectifier tube, and two 6l6 tubes. I also ordered it with a high output option that runs the power tubes hard. Also ordered a impedance selector. It has a volume and a tone knob and that's it (although you can order these amps with so many different options). It has very few features although it can have many if you choose to pay for them. I just wanted something simple.

I use this amp with a custom 1x15 open back cab loaded with a weber ceramic california speaker. I use a prs hollowbody with a spruce top, a gibson L-5, and a fender thinline 69 reissue telecaster. This amp sounds really thick and chunky wich I believe has something to do with the ef86 preamp tube (you can also order it with regular 12ax7 preamp tubes). It also has a decidedly midrange response. It's hard to describe but once you plug into it you'll notice it really has a very distinct tone to it. I can't really put my finger on it but I notice it every time I plug into the neptune...it just sounds different. I was looking for an amp with a lot of clarity and a clean response. This amp through the 1x15 cab has a tremdous amount of bass and it is very responsive to pick attack and volume control. It's got sort of a medium volume...somewhere around a fender deluxe range. I definately have trouble hearing it over loud drummers although I think you could get away playing it unmiked in a 10-50 person venue. Anything past that and you'd have to mic it. Certainly not as loud as a thd bivalve, which is a fairly similar design. Anyway, I really like the way this amp responds to pedals, as it has a lot of headroom. I use moogerfoogers, a line 6 delay, a wah wah, and an analogman sun face and they all work great through this amp. The sunface fuzz just sings through this amp. I guess this amp really has its own sound...it doesn't really sound like anything else that I've played and I like this. BTW, this amp, unlike the thd bivalve, is meant to run specific power tubes even though it's single ended class A. Apparently it's still biased for specific powere tubes and isn't really meant to be played with other tubes although you can order it with two dissimilar power tubes if you want. I wanted the sparkly clean of the 6l6 tube so I stayed with that.

So far so good although I would have preferred a detachable power cord opposed to the attached power cord that it came with but oh well. I'm sure you could custom order this however. I haven't really had the amp long enough to say how reliable it is but it seems quite solidly built although I did order it with a high output power option which apparently puts a lot of stress on the power tubes and makes them not last as long as they normally would. We'll see if this turns out to be true.

Excellent cust. support. Josh helped me decide what options to get for what kind of sound I was going for and answered all of my emails very promptly. They even finished the amp a month ahead of schedule and sent me pictures of it in various stages of construction. Really great customer support only gotten from a small boutique company.

Well nothing gets a ten in my book unless its the best amp ever. And this amp is pretty close although it has such a distinct sound that you probably wouldn't want to use it for everything. I think considering the fact that it's completely handbuilt and you can pretty much customize it to your heart's desire it is a tremendous value...maybe the best value out there. the only other amp company that lets you customize their amps as much as electrosonic does is vintone circuits but vintone is almost 1,000 dollars more than electrosoinc so I'd have to say that its really a great deal. Anyone looking for a unique tone would really benefit from checking out electrosoinc amps.

the amp was made in spring 2005.
its a really simple head single channel with volume and tone
with an EF86 for the preamp.
it has the impedeance mod, the big tube upgrade and its running the popular 6L6/EL34 tandem. some 6L6 sparkle with some EL34 grind.
its setup with a rectifier socket but right now it has the webber copper cap rectifier in there.
i thought it might get a little too spongy with the tube rectifier in there but just in case i want more sag the option exists.
i was worried that the amp wouldn't shimmer enough with the
Ef86 so josh put in a bright switch that changes the cathode
bypass cap value.
i was wrong in my worries about the shimmer it sounds really big and open but josh did a great job voicing it for the bright side.
just the right amt of bottom taken out.
its a very cool sound

this incarnation of the neptune sounds kinda hiwattish when its dimed out.
its got a nice break up but there is still a clarity.
the big full open EF86 pentode cranking into the 6L6/EL34 in class A cathode biased.
you get a nice amt of squeeze but it doesn't buckle.
it still feels stiff (in a good way)and tight.
you can hear every string and you can play dense voicings even #5 chords and it doesn't mush out .
it stays articulate even while it compresses.
i really love it.
once again its a simple amp so it kinda just does its thing but
it does it really well.
i'd say it ranges from clean to live at leeds.

this amp is built really well.
when it arrived the first thing i did was crack it open to check it out.
very nice craftmanship, very clean.
too bad about the fed ex delivery though but thats another story.
i've never been less worried about reliability.
its a very simple straight forward amp built like a brick shithouse.

josh was awesome to deal with.
very accomodating and we bounced ideas around easily to come up with this version of the neptune.
i look forward to doing it again.

overall rating would be a ten.
it was really an easy transaction in every way and josh backed it up by delivering a really great amp.
i really like the simplicity of the amp and thats kinda what i was looking for.

This is a 2005 custom built Neptune head. Electrosonic let's you pick the features and components of your amp, so for that how can you not give it a ten. I chose a 25 watt "mixed mode" output with one el34 tube and one 6L6 tube. It has an ef 86 preamp tube, one volume, one tone, and a built in attenuator. That's it. I chose a black durabak finish which is kind of rough looking, but appropriately durable.

I'm currently running this head through a vox 2x10 cabinet into both effects boxes and straight into the amp. My guitar is a PRS soapbar standard. The amp sounds warm and clear on clean settings. It is like playing your guitar acoustically only with wonderful volume and dynamics. Cranked this amp gets a decent crunch that responds to how hard you hit the strings, you can back off the volume to get various shades of crunch all the way to clean. The amp has a solid state rectifier so the response of the attack is very tight, I like that. WIth distortion boxes: I use a george lynch time machine boost and I get everything from clean boost to full on crunchy mayhem. The dynamics are always present and so is the wonderful tone. Blues, rock and jazz all perform well with this amp.

I've had the amp for a couple of months now. It seems solid. I don't anticipate any manufacturer defects.

All of my communications went through Josh. He was fantastic. Very helpful and very quick to respond to any questions or concerns even after receiving the amplifier. Highly reccommended.

I've been playing guitar for 10 years. I've been looking for the right tube amp for quite some time now. I was looking for something that would minimize coloring of the instrument, simple controls and the capability to play at low volumes or in a club setting. This amp comes through in every way and not suprisingly since you get to pick what is ultimately produced. A word about the attenuator - it is fantastic - some adjustments may be needed to your stompboxes for low level playing, but otherwise it is the amp at more manageable volume levels. Electrosonic amplifiers let's you build the amplifier of your dreams. Sweet.