Hughes & Kettner Attax 80

This is a versitile amp, for sure. 1x12 Combo, not too big, not too heavy, lots of volume. For most of the time that I've had it, I played in a big 9-piece horn band--lots of funk, some blues, and rock 'n' roll. I was the only guitarist, but there was a crapload of stuff happening on stage, and this amp was great at cutting through all that.

The clean channel is very bright and crisp, with its own gain, treble, mid and bass controls. I tended to use all four of those knobs at 12:00, and what I heard was my guitar. Which is what a person wants to hear, after all. Since the horn band I've moved on to more modern rock, and I bump the gain up to around 3:00, and it dirties it up a bit. For a solid state amp, the pushed tone is nice and smooth. It also has a high-gain channel, with an additional higher gain option, which has it's own three tone knobs. The crunch channel has a gain and a master volume (aside from the overall master volume), so there are a lot of options. I find the crunch channel more on the metalish side, so I don't use it often, but I've recorded some with it, and it does come in handy, and it can get REALLY heavy, if you like. Think Melvins.

Other good options: Headphone jack, effects loop (I don't use it, but it works ok), and a record out, which is fine. I mic it. It has an additional speaker jack, and when used with another cabinet it can fill out the sound nicely. But I've played this thing everywhere from small clubs to big ballrooms to conventions centers to a large outdoor ampitheatre, and I've never felt like I was lacking in stage volume. The reverb is subtle, I've heard better, but at a low level it's pretty nice and non-threatening.

So, like I said, it's not so small that you can't hear it on stage, and it's not so big that it's not a good recording amp. I have used it in a few studios, and the engineers are generally as pleased as myself with the results.

Nowadays I play a Fender strat with 2 Seymour Duncan split Humbuckers, and I think it tends to prefer the humbuckers slightly, but the single coils really cut through on the clean channel. I have a pedalboard that I put in front of it, with overdrive, rotovibe, delays, phasers, wah, (and it handles my BOSS octave pedal nicely!)

I've played lots of festivals, and over the years, SEVERAL soundguys have gone out of their way to tell me how much they liked working with the tone. I think an advantage of this amp and its solid state nature, is that you don't have to blow everybody off stage to get a nice tone out of it. This amp is very tameable, and that helps when you're going through the front of house. If the soundguys are happy, you can rest assured that they're putting you into the mix how they want it. Nobody wants to piss off the house mixer.

Is it noisy? It's not a boutique amp, so it has a little hiss when it's sitting there, but I've heard a lot noisier amps that were a lot more expensive.

If you must have tubes, this isn't your amp. I switched, though, from tubes to this. I had a big old thing, which the trumpet players would help me carry, and then I saw Jellybean Johnson (of The Time) playing funk in this club in Minneapolis, and he had this tiny little Yamaha combo amp up on stage, and it cut my head off, all the way accross the room. A lightbulb went on in my head. About a week later I found this H&K on sale, brand new, and it all fell into place. Eight or nine years later, she's still kicking.

I've used this on a gig without a backup over 200 times. The only thing I've ever done is get the speaker re-coned after about 5 years of pretty heavy use. I think it even has the same FUSE as when I bought it. It's a tank. Like a Panzerkamfwagon. German engineering at it's finest. I'm about to buy a little Mesa tube amp, to jazz things up a little bit, but I'm still bringing this thing along. I don't think it's ever going to die.

Never had to deal with them.

I've been playing guitar for fourteen years. Other amps I've had: Yamaha GK212, and a California Vox series 90 (kinda like R2D2). I've played Fender Twins of different ilks, Marshall combos, a Fender Blues Deluxe or DeVille...I get those all confused ;). I love this amp's reliabilty, clean clean clean sound, size, power/size ratio, and user-friendliness. The knobs do what they say--there isn't much mystery involved. How could it be improved? An addidional speaker is nice, but then it's not so small. It could run a tad quieter, but then it's not so inexpensive. I've grown to love this amplifier, and even though it's not the hep vintage amp with the million dollar name and the famous endorsements, it is feature-packed, well-designed, well-made, brick-solid and a solid value to boot!

This amp has really all a practiceamp needs. It's not too heavy and too big so you can carry it with one hand. It has an effect-loop at the back, you can connect it to a cabinet if you want to. When you do that, you will have 100 watts instead of the 80 watts. The amp will give his full power. On the back there are potis for two channels, clean and crunch/lead. Only the footswitch was a bit disappointing. It looks to cheap and broke after two years. Wow, I didn't expect it to last that long! All in all you get everything you need as a beginner or for the rehearsalroom.

First the cleanchannel:
It's a bit too harsh I think. To get a warm and christall sound it has a little too much treble. But after a time you can find a way to warm sound up.
The distortion is better than I ever thought. When I bought myself a solidstate Marshall top with 100 watts and played it through a 4/12 Hughes%Kettner cab I realized for the first time, how much power this amp has! The distortion sounds great! But when you crank up the volume, the typical problem of a non-valve-amp appears: the sound looses pressure, compression and gets a little less tight. But on that point, the amp has already a volume that can blow you away. It depends on the roomsize I think.
Between clean and distortion you can get a quite good crunch sound. Of course it depends also on your guitar.
I play an Ibanez Talman from the early nighties I think, with three singlecoils. I detuned it 7! halftones, what this guitar isn't really constructed for. We play stonerrock, punkrock and hardrock. But using the right effectpedals I can get every sound I want. I just use the Hughes&Kettner Warp-Factor-pedal. Great sound, although I'm just playing the more powerfull half-stack now. I just looks better...
For the price you pay for a used Attax 80 (should be about 200,-??? or 220;-$) you get a pretty good and loud amp, with a modern sound and a pretty brutal distortion.

The knobs on the front make sounds. But that can be handled with spray or something. The footswitch is as crappy as it can be. Buy a new one. But the amp is still in a good condition (after more than ten years and some kicks it sometimes gets when I'm in the mood...)

I never had to deal with them. But shouldn't be so bad. Hughes&Kettner has a lot of sellers in Europe and Germany.

All in all this is a really good practiceamp. A friend of mine even used it on stage for a small gig and everything went fine. So if you don't have enough money for something new or a used tubeamp, this combo will make it just good. If you prefer hardrock or heavy music, the distortion could already have enough gain for you stile. If you need an amp with a good clean sound, maybe that a Roland Jazzcube or an old Fender solidstate would fit better to your style. I played that one for more than ten years, but now that i play in a band for the first time, it just lokks to small;) Though it could make the sound we like. And for homeuse it seems to be a bit too much I think, But i wait till my nephew starts playing guitar. Till that day i'll keep it, because it works good as a backup for smaller gigs. But if you're looking for the good old tube sound, you may be a bit disappointes. It sounds too modern for that.

I bought my amp in 94. It has two channels (3 if you count the extra drive channel) with independent and very interactive EQ's. FX loop, and a outstanding sounding Diriect Line out similiar to the H&K Red Box. Equipped with a 12 inch Cellestion Silver 80 Watt Speaker! Beautiful sounding spring reverb tank. A very loud 80 Watts rms with plenty of power. It will actually go to 100 watts if you plug it into an additional cab.

Every feature you could need is here. Obviously H&K and a working gigging muscian in mind when they built this amp.

I have played out extensivly with it for the past 12 years and done everything from oldies, classic rock, 80's and Blues. I play Fenders and Gibsons, Hollowbodies and Solids, slide guitar and even harmonica through it. Great Little Walter tone through the clean channel with a Green Bullet mic, roll the treble and mids off and crank the bass!

I've run a pedal board through the front of this amp and even through the FX loop at gigs. I've even used the Direct out to a board in the studio. It always sounds great. The only thing this amp doesnt do is a pure clean. The clean channel is warm with the slighest of compression at high volumes. It sounds more like a tube amp instad of solid state at very high levels. Also the EQ's interact off of each other making the amp very flexible. It's nail BB King, CCR, and even U2's Edge. Very Versitle.

The overdrive channel sounds like a solid state Marshal. I perfer to use it for Allman Brothers, ZZ Top, and George Throughgood stuff. Then again I've also had to do Pat Benatar, Jimi, Lynard, ACDC, and Blondie at one show. At my last show the singer and guitar slinger I was playing with was using a Matchless. It conked out the day before the show so he used my H&K and sounded great outstanding. I got stuck with my Fender Princeton.

It's never been serviced or cleaned in the past 12 years (except by spilling beer on it) and I've never had a problem with it. I have knocked it off other amps, left it in an open truck bed over night, and played 100's of gigs with it. I never use a back up. It's built like a Boss Pedal.

You'll never need this with this amp.

After 12 years the only thing more versitile and reliable than my Attack 80, would be two Attack 80's.

Got no idea when it was build. (bought it second hand)
What, for me, qualifies a good amp is: your own playing technique comming trough, reliabillity, sounding different with every different guitar and still be usefull with all.
Love the spring reverb (all amps should have spring reverb)
Use it at home, for recording and on stage and it does all that great.
Not very much knobs but that what I'm looking for an amp.

I use three different guitars.
A '82 maple necked fender usa strat loaded with seymour duncan alnico II in bridge and neck, and a fender custom '69 in the middle position.
Great clean sound with this guitar, stays clean for a very long time.

Second guitar is a samick (maple neck) tele with a texas special in the bridge, a texas special alike strat pickup in the middle position and a seymour duncan vintage P90 in the neck position.
real blues with the P90, really full tele sound in the bridge and very usable in between settings. Although the guitar has 500k volume the amp gives it a very warm sound.

Third is a home build swamp ash stratbody with a walnut top.
The neck is a gibson scale made of mahogany with a rosewood fretboard.
Equiped with two alnico II humbuckers from seymour it sounds really warm, full, vintage and defined.

The distortion channel is very usable 'cause it not just sounds like an espresso-machine and is realy warm.
The amp is good with the on board speaker but when you connect it to a 2x12 or a 4x12 cabinet (I use a crate vintage club 2x12) you won't beleave your ears.
The guitars I use are realy different and the amp works very well with all. So is it versatile? Can a fish swim?
I like to combine all sorts of music like dire straits, coldplay, pink floid, robbie williams and this amp does the trick for me.
Friends have used it for metal and heavy rock. They too where very happy with the sound.

Build like it was build to resist world war 3.
A backup? what's a backup?
Just kidding, but I don't use a backup for this one 'cause I don't feel I need to.

Haven't had to deal with them yet.
Can't give an opinion then, can I?

If you want the amp that is closest to tubes without actually using tubes.
This darling does it all the way.
Been playing for 10 years now, have owned and tried quite a few tube-amps and really, my attax 80 will never go 'cause everytime I need a reliable warm sounding amp through which I can really hear my own playing style comming through, this one gives me what I want!
Where it stolen I'd think it was a thief with very good taste and buy another one as soon as possible although I don't know what the newer ones are like.

I bought this amp after trying just about everything in the 50 to 100 watt range. I have played for 12 years and have played Line 6 amps for the past 2 years. I wanted something simpler with not so much tweaking. This amp has a clean channel with 4 band EQ. The lead (dirty) channel also has a 4 band EQ. There is also a seperate lead master volume, reverb and master volume. Also has a lead mode switch which gives you 2 types of distortion. It has an effects loop, headphone jack, external out (which when used increses the amp wattage from 80 to 100 watts) and footswitch jack. The covering is the fuzzy blue fabric which isn't so bad.

I play mainly 80's metal, (ratt, judas priest, dokken, dio). I play two 80's model USA BC Richs, Gunslinger and ST-3, a few 80's Kramers and Charvels. I had been playing Line 6 amps, but never could really get that 80's metal sound. So, over the course of 7 months, I tried, bought and sold a number of amps looking for a great sound. I found an older Hughes and Kettner amp, but had never tried this company because they are usually very expensive. I played through it anyway and that was it!! I was hooked. I found a H & K dealer and tried more of these. I found one decently priced on ebay and jumped on it. This amp flat out rocks!! All of my guitars have EMG 81s or Seymour Duncans which helps, but the amp itself sounds great. The clean channel is crystal clear and sounds great. It has a clean volume in the EQ which when turned up past 7, gives you a great dirty blues, Fender Tweed sound. Lead 1 is more of the 80's metal sound more like early Metallica. Lead 2 is more of the high gain, Mesa Boogie, Godmack, Korn sound. The more you turn this amp up, the better it sounds. It doesn't start getting thin and tinny sounding like other amps. At about 4 or 5, it stays thick and rips ass!!! I have owned the amp for several months and have been very pleased with it. It came with a 12 inch Rockdriver speaker made by Celestion. I took it out and replaced it with an older Celestion Vintage 30. This was only because of personal preference. The Rockdriver sounds great!! I have just always played Vintage 30's. The amp is quiet and doesn't give off any buzzing or hum even at higher volume. I tried the new Marshall, Crate, Line 6, Fender, and Peavey(haha) amps looking for this sound. None of them had it. I am suprised at how bad the quality and sound have gone downhill in the last few years with some of these companies. You will NOT be disappointed with this amp. Sounds great for any style.

I haven't experienced any problems with it. It looks to be made in the early to mid 90's and seems to have held up well.

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This is a great amp and I hate that I have played this long without trying Hughes & Kettner amps. I have played solid state amps now for the past few years and this is one of the best I've heard. I played tubes for years. Don't be fooled by these "tube heads" out here. Some solid states kick a tube amps ass and this is one of them. My experience with tubes, you have to crank it for a great sound. Also, you pay out the ass every little while to replace tubes. I get great sounding distortion even at low volume with this amp. If you want great sound but don't want to fork over lots of money, this amp is one of the best to consider.

dont know much about this amp, i brought it secondhand to replace, the 80watt Marshall i had. no idea when it was made, 2channels clean and overdrive, 3band eq on both, channel switching, a gain switch on the overdrive, effects loop, line out. It also has reverb which is quite good for wot it is, better than my old marshall, but i hate reverb so its always set to 0. I mainly use this amp in my bedroom but it is powerfull enough to cope with a live band. I mainly play rock and metal and its good for those styles. The amp is very durable theres a soild metal grill covering the single 12inch speaker and everything is housed in hard ply which is about a half inch thick, the amp is covered with a fuzzy blue material, this sucks a bit cuz when i brought it secondhand the person who owned it before never cleaned it so it took me about 2hours to get all the filth and cat hair out of it.

i use this amp with a slammer explorer guitar, which is always set to the bridge humbucker. both the clean and overdrive channels handle this well, the clean channel doesnt distort at high volumes as long as i knock back the volume on my guitar. According to the little plate on the grill, the amp is meant to sound vintage, thats pretty much wot u get with the overdrive, its nothing special, i dont use it, i use a dod distortion pedal with everything set to full and then level it out with the clean channels eq so it doesnt sound to mushy.

Im uncertain about the reliability of this amp, because i brought it secondhand and when i brought it the pots on the overdrive channel were really dirty so i had to clean them up but i still dont trust it which is another reason why i dont use that channel. I think i can depend on the clean channel enough to use it at a gig without backup i dont reckon its gonna die on me very soon.

Never dealt with the company so i cant really comment.

Ive been playing for about 4years, i own a slammer explorer a stagg jackson copy a boss bf3 flanger a dod phaser and a dod flashback fuzz (lame name i know but it works really well). If it were stolen i wudnt get another because 1. they dont make them anymore 2. i would rather havea stack. This amp is good for wot i play, i prefer it to my marshall (it had a really honky mid range) but i dont think it would suit everyone, basically i only use it to project the sound of my distortion pedal which i use as a preamp.

der H&K Attax 80 Combo ist ein transistorverstarker. Er bringt 80W an 8ohm und 100W an 4ohm raus. die beiden channels (clean/lead) haben jewils ihren eigenen 3 band equi. der lead channel ist noch einmal in zwei stufen unterteilt, wobei die zweite im gegensatz zur kahlen ersten etwas mehr druck macht. ich habe eigentlich nur die zweite benutzt. dann gibt es noch einen angenehmen reverb, der sich automatisch auf clean oder lead einstellt. der amp besitzt einen kopfhorerausgang, einen line out, einen effektweg und die moglichkeit insgesamt zwei 8ohm bzw. eine 4ohm box anzuklemmen. die original eingebaute box ist eine 12' celestion rockdriver mit maximal 100W an 8ohm. das schonste feature dieses verstarkers ist jedoch sein design. ich habe die alte version mit dem blau beflockten gehause und einem stabilen front-metallgitter mit dem schonen Hughes & Kettner Schriftzug drauf. fur einen amp seiner klasse bietet er genug!

ich habe den attax80 durch eine peavey v-type gespielt.
als ich ihn noch zuhause spielte, war ich zuerst sehr vom sound beeindruckt. das lag jedoch daran, dass ich nie mehr als ein viertel lautstarke eingestellt hatte. als ich ihn dan voller stolz in den probenraum brachte, merkte ich aber, dass er bei den dort ublichen gerauschpegeln nicht mehr mitkam. zwar hort man ihn - unzwar laut und deutlich - aber der sound ist ein vollig anderer, dreht man die lautstarke uber 60 prozent. es gibt keinen bass mehr, der wunderschone zerrsound kratzt und schmiert nur noch und die definition geht absolut verloren.
spielst du den amp auf halber lautstarke kannst du alles damit machen. jeder musikstil (au?er techno) ist denkbar. machst du ihn lauter - und laut wird er! - kliungt er eben halt nach transistor im grenzbereich.

ich besorgte mir dann 2 100W boxen (H&K AC112), die den lauten sound erheblich verbesserten, das hei?t es gab mehr bass und somit einen angenehmen druck.

der amp alleine klingt wirklich gut, satt und bass und crowbar. die equis haben gro?en einflu?, ob clean oder lead, aber nun halt nur bei schlafzimmerpegel.
lautstarke ist mir eben wichtig.

mit meinen ac112's gabe es hier 8 punkte

in 4 jahren absolut keine probleme

keine ahnung, hatte ja keine probleme

alles in allem hab ich ihn wirklich lieb. er war mir ein treuer und vor allem gut aussehender begleiter. klemm einfach zwei gute boxen drann und er reicht fur den probenraum. aber wenn man bei hohen lautstarken sozusagen blo? eine soundmoglichkeit pro kanal hat, dann mu? es halt zufallig der sound sein, den man mag. bei mir war das der fall. jedenfalls halt er wacker durch was immer du mit ihm machst. kein potikratzen, kein endstufenabkacken bei 4 stunden auf 100%, ein knallharter metal-brullwurfel, aber auch ein sanft reverbender clean-schmuser. ich werde ihn immer als zuhauseubenamp behalten.

fur den proberaum hab' ich jetzt 'nen attax200...

I bought this amp in the first quarter of 1994 and it has proven a very versatile amp. At one point I ended up purchasing the midi-module (I think I paid $130 for it), I wished that it had been built in-it is still well-worth it. It has 2 channels (3 if you include the lead channel as 2 distinct channels): (clean | crunch[lead mod 1 | 2]). This is an excellent amp.

I've used the amp with an Ibanez 540(Saber) circa 91', and a number of classical guitars, most often, a Takamine HE91. It has great bottom and high end, very tight. Bass notes come out clean, pick attacks|finger strokes are sharp and clear. I didn't care for the lower-mid-range, but that is more my subjective opinion than anything else (if you find that you don't care for it either, try this simple fix: pre-eq the incoming signal, completely hacking out the 3K range, and use a sonic maximizer). The amp is very quiet. The bottom-end slightly distorts at high volumes. If you are looking for a small, affordable, excellent sounding amp for a number of styles, this amp will be worth more to you than any marshall or peavey model.

I dropped it down a flight of 13 concrete steps and the only damage was 2 broken knobs. This amp is built like a tank, and the brains of the amp are very well organized. Tubes do get eaten up rather quickly though, I noticed early on that I needed to change them every 3 months or so if I didn't want to the 'color' of the sound to fade.

I've never had a problem with the amp, which is why after 8 years, I still use it regularly.

I've been playing for 12 years, less frequently over the last 2, and taugh for 2 years. I currently use a separate preamp (an older ADA-its a nostalgic thang) and feed it through the clean channel for lead playing. The H&K rounds out the sound very nicely. This amp is excellent. I would definitely purchase another (probably a larger, newer model though).

The Attax 80 has many features. To different gain channels (one more american the other more british) and a nice clean channel. if you turn up the clean volume it starts with little gain. The sound settings are very versatile and with the FX Loop and other features you have a nice amp.

Yamaha Pacifica 621 with one neck humbucker and a Seymour Duncan single coil and Humbucker. The sound variety is great and it's the best transistor sound you'll here ever. Another nice thing is, the louder you turn the volume up the better it sounds.

Never had anything in four years... Any questions :-)

I had two questions about the Attax 80 and wrote en email to Hughes & Kettner and had a fast and good response.

Just as said before. The best transistor amp, you can own. Reliable, good sound, good sound variety and enough features.

This amp has been a really nice amp. I play rap metal, rage/incubus etc, some of which can be really demading on the amps i use, the H&K copes fine with anything throw at it!! Ive had my amp since 97. All the features are mentioned in the above reviews, but im not too keen on the reverb it sounds really cheap. but overall id say buy one!! no in fact, buy mine if you want!! it is the fueey blue 94 model, im in england by the way at billkeown@hotmail.com

Massive variety, although i mainly use the high gain ones, the clean really is clean,

My speaker blew at a gig in december after running it at full volume on stage through 5 bands and a 5 hour period!!!, it now houses a 120 watt celestion, which is fine. part from that....ace, prolly just a dodgey speaker!!

Epiphone LP, Various pedal. Work great with this amp