Hughes & Kettner Attax 80 Head

This is one of those HK's with the blue fuzzy exterior, made somewhere in the 1990ies in Germany. I play mainly Metal Music, fast picking riffs in Black Metal Style. But this baby does satisfy my needs for clean tones and, when practising or jamming, everything between Hard Rock and Jazz. 2 Channels, Clean and Crunch/Lead (Yes it's a TWO channel head, the crunch section has an extra "lead" switch on it). It got FX-loop afaik, I never need it. Headphone jack is there, but don't need it also. I love the Clean and the Lead-sound, in my opinion the crunch ain't the best in the Hughes and kettner Solid State-range.

Another mistake many players of this amp make is, it has a 100 watts power amp, don't let yourself be mislead by the name. It has 100 Watts on 4 ohms output. The names are misleading on the Attax-series, e.g. there is an Attax 120-HD with 200 Watts output.

Anyway features are enough for me!

I use B.C.Rich guitars and custom-made LP models; they all have EMG's in them. Each of 'em works great with this amp. And that's my whole giggin' setup: good guitar w/ EMGs, good(!) cable, and that's it. Oh well, I run this to an old British-made Laney 4x12, good combination in my opinion. I love how the clean channel stays clean even with high volume levels and with EMG 81ers, it got loads of headroom; the amount of gain is enough as well on the lead channel. I never use external distortion-pedals. Never needed them.

This ain't a full-tube amp that would earn a 10, but for a solid state it would definitely have the 10!

This thing is solid as a rock, dropped it, gigged with it a hundred times w/o backup, very reliable!

I play for 12 years now as a semi-pro; both live and in the studio. This head was a cheap catch (150 Euros used) and it sounds great. Even our engineer told me it would outstand many full-tube amps... Compared to Marshall's Valvestate-series it is definitely the better amp. Used to play Laney Hybrids which had a bit more punch but lesser sound quality in my opinion... I would change this one only for a Hughes and Kettner All-tube head... The only negative aspect: the blue exterior seems to be magnetic to dirt...

Mine is an older attax 80 head with the fuzzy blue exterior.
It features:
-clean channel w/3band
-overdrive channel w/3band eq
-lead channel with slight presence boost
-decent reverb
-independent input and master volumes
-footswitch out(but good luck finding a h+k footswitch, luckily almost any 2 ch switch will do)
-2 outs, 4 ohms
-solid state

I've used this amp with a Hughes and Kettner 2x12 cab for almost 5 years and have never doubted it's ability to handle the gig. This includes smaller bars, right up to orchestra-style theatres.

This amp is very versitile and, depending on the guitarist, can produce a w i d e variety of tones and styles. I use it for mainly brit-pop/rock and have never been let down.

Through this amp I play mainly an american tele, but in the past have used a prs 25, and a gibson es335. I was able to adjust the amp to get very good sound from all of these guitars.

The overdrive and lead boost channels can get a bit noisy when pushed too far, but otherwise a very quiet amp.
I am continually imressed with the variety of sounds this amp can get, especially with its tube-like overdrive and its silky-smooth clean channel. I like the fact that you can set the input vol. high to get a very warm overdrive sound, while keeping the main vol. down at a comfortable level.
Through the years I have heard this amp go from a smooth plucking jazz sound to a warm blues tone, to a brutal metal distortion and back again.
I think this amp is okay at many different styles, but is best at a warm overdrive (exellent for solid-state anyway!)

Recently I've been playing through an Orange ac-30 combo and a Gibson super Goldtone 212 combo, and I'd have to say that experiencing amps like these has reduced my rating in this category to a 6, previously it would've been an 8 or 9

For some strange reason this amp has blown its fuses on me several on 4 seperate occasions. This is an easy fix, but frigging annoying if you're in the middle of a show. Besides this, I've put it through tons of abuse and it has always worked fine.

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I think that when a musician really starts to get serious, he or she will outgrow this amp and find something a bit more profesional. But I think from the garage stage to the mid-level clubbing stage this is one of the best solid-state amps you can possibly get.

This is the Attax 80 head. I think this amp is not THAT versatile. It has 80 watts 4 ohms. It has clean, crunch and lead channels. I never use the clean channel. Don't like the clean sound of any amps. I use it for practice and gigs. But the power is not THAT great.

I use an Ibanez RG550 guitar with seymour duncans. This amp is not for heavy metal but if you use an Ibanez compressor before the distorsion it will sound heavy as hell!.. It's not noisy at all in any settings or enviroments. I never use the clean channel but when i used it, it got distorted at high volumes.

This is the best thing of this amp!.. It's hard as a rock!.. it's well built! It has never broken down. Once it got a weird ground but it was fixed right away...