Product: Holland Holland Baby Combo
Price Paid: US $600
Submitted
03/20/2001
at
04:43am
by
Rob DiStefano
Email: rfd at rfd<dot>cc
Features
:
10
Hand crafted for me in 1999, this custom Holland Baby features a birch ply and solid pine cab, covered in real aged yellow tweed cloth, with a vintage oxblood tweedy speaker cloth grill and a leather strap handle. Powered by a single 6L6 tube, a 12AX7 preamp tube and a 5V4C rectifier tube. Class A, single ended, 8 watts RMS (but NOT really!). 12" Eminence Legacy ceramic speaker. Controls: preamp gain, volume, tone, standby, on/off, pilot light, fuse holder. All point-to-point hand wired. MASSIVE power transformer! I call this "Very Versatile" since no amp can do it all and these are the precise features I *specifically* wanted during my design collaboration with Mike Holland.
Sound Quality
:
10
I gave my design specs to Mike and he converted the words into a sonic work of art. This amp can go from squeeky clean jazz and country to balls o' fire hellacious bluez and rock - when pushed by just a simple single coil pickup. There is a wonderful relationship between all three control pots (gain/vol/tone) that yields a very wide variety of tones (and overdrive) for quite a large and blooming FULL sound. This amp is capable of producing very Loud volumes - it's easily as loud as a 15 watt Pro Jr. or Blues Jr. It can completely overshadow and hide my '64 Princeton (12 watts) when both are dimed. As loud as the Holland can be driven, the tone just shines on through - nothing muddy, farty, mushy or bassy. This IS one of a very few Holy Grail tube amps I've had the pleasure to play with - and finally now own.
Reliability
:
10
Solid as a block of titanium. Totally gig-worthy to any venue on this earth, or hell below.
Customer Support
:
10
Totally guaranteed repairable for life. The Holland Amp company is always there IF you need'em (I doubt you ever will!).
Overall Rating
:
10
If you finally found your Holy Grail of tube amps, how would YOU rate it? Aha, I thought so - well same here! There's nothing to change or dislike as it was built to my requirements by a master amp craftsman. Take your amp wish list to Mike and get your Holy Grail amp built - it's that simple. 'Nuff said.
