Matamp NEC Head

I ordered this amp in June 2005 and got it two months later. It is one of two in the US. The head looks like an old hiwatt except with no logo on it so it's mysterious cool as hell. I ordered it with a matching 4x12 with salt and pepper grill and it looks sexy.
The preamp is the same as a 70s hiwatt. It has four inputs, a master volume, bright volume and normal volume, bass mis treb pres. I also had them put in an FX loop. There are two speaker outputs for each ohmage, 4 8 and 16, so 6 speaker outs total.

I use a 30th anniversary les paul goldtop with lollar imperial humbuckers. It sounds great plugged straight in, especially with the master and brill volume each at about 3/4. I use a few different pedals on occasion. I use a shaftesbury duo fuzz and a colorsound supa tonebender to get steve hackett/genesis sounds. Other times I will just use a maxon d&s II and that sounds great for slightly overdriven classic british sounds, especially with the neck humbucker.

It's perfect for either running effects or just for getting loud punchy cleans. I also use telefunken preamp tubes which helps.

When I got it from Matamp there was a grounding issue. Cold solder. Got it fixed and no other problems. I go to Dan Torres for all work and he commented that it was a fanastically built amp. Will outlast me.

I called and spoke to Jeff Lewis for about a half hour about the grounding noise. Him and Dave told me where to look for the problem and guided me through the process. They were extremely helpful. Matamp is one of the best..there are not many other company's when you can call the builder to ask questions.

I have owned and sold a lot of gear and this one isn't going anywhere. It has some special value too because of how scarce they are. Matamp doesn't offer this model anymore and there are only 6 in existance. I did sed to have a 100 watt hiwatt combo which I sold. dumb move. that was the only amp I could compare this to. Right now I have a Roland JC120 which offers comparable cleans but doesn't sound as full and punchy as the NEC stack.

Single Channel, 120 watts - switchable to 60
brilliant and normal inputs with mixable option, Hiwatt-Clone.
Treble, Middle, Bass, Master, Gain Knobs. Very Basic.

Well i didnt buy this for the Gain, i just wanted a monstreous loud amp with super headroom, and thats what i got. At full blast on 120-watt-mode, well ive only had it up to Half on Volume, its so loud there is nothing that comes close. And you kick in a dirtpedal/fuzz and it can go double loud...you can feel the pants fall off.
I play with lots of FX and this amp is perfect for that. The distortion in the amp is a bit flabby and grainy on its own, no smoothness here. But thats not what i wanted so im happy. Its a very #D amp...reverb is not needed. I play various guitars such as Tele Deluxe, Jazzmasters, Strat, SG and it handles every one of them well.
If you want the baddest and loudest amp in the world...well here you go.

No problem so far. The amp is HUGE and with huge specs inside it, i cant imagine falling apart or blowing tubes too much.

Well, here is my only complaint. The costumer support could be better...much better. They answer emails so and so, and my amp was delayed a lot and lost on the way to me...i had to track it down myself in the end.

basic no nonsense LOUD amp. Perfect for FX-players who demand the biggest headroom you can imagine.