Matchless Chieftain 410

My Matchless was made in 1998, as I'm a Stratocaster player this amp is perfect, no channel switching or effects loop on it but I would never use them anyway. It has plenty of power for a small club, in fact the more you turn it up the more mojo tone available. I tend to love treble and this amp delivers with it's brightness knob.

I use 2 custom made Warmoth strats, one hollow bodied swamp ash and one a one piece quilted maple. I use and love Harmonic design pickups including the P-90 styled bridge pickup in the maple strat, it rocks mightely. The Matchless sounds best with that nice fat warm strat tone, it does'nt do over the top distortion too well. Best to use a pedal to drive it, I use a Landgraff dynamic overdrive for that purpose and I'm most satisfied playing Zep, Crowes, Mule, Aerosmith, Little Feat stomp but also cleaner tones for Soul & Christian tunes.

I feel pretty comfortable with it's reliability, the amp did break down only because of worn power tubes and rectifier tube, once again my friend John Landgraff got it back up and running.

Well I know they have an internet site, never wrote them, I guess those guys are busy with Bad Cat amps now. Hard to give an opinion on customer support

I started out at age 8 playing mostly acoustic, I've been on electric for something like 20 years, been in several bands. My pedals include besides the Landgraff overdrive a RC White Booster, Script MXR Phase 90, push button Boss Chorus. Bottom line, I LOVE my Matchless, sounds awesome, very very musical, love the sound of the 4 specially designed Celestion speakers, the reverb sounds great, even love the way the MATCHLESS logo lights up. Looks very nice (green and cream with gold piping, brown/gold grill). It does weight a TON but have and recomend a small dolly to wheel it on. I've owned in the past Victoria, Dr. Z, Marshall, Fender amps, and although the Victoria was similar I must give the nod to the Matchless over anything I've come across, again for the perfect Strat amp this one RULES.

This is a 96' 4x10 Chieftain. I give it a "10" in this catagory because it is not overloaded with features I wont use. However the features on the amp work awesome. Its a single channel class A amp with reverb. I play full time and have had the amp out on three gigs. I'm still amazed each time I turn it on!

My main guitars are ASATs. Two thinlines and one Special Deluxe, and all three with the P90 style soap bar pickups. This thing has tone to die for. I play a lot of country so I like to keep the amp within its clean headroom zone, and this amp has plenty. I run the master cranked and the preamp at about 4 or so and it's plenty loud. Those 410's move a lot of air. Never sounds harsh. Just real oraganic (practically orGASmic!). I run a custom pedalboard with the following (from amp towards guitar):Boss TU-2 tuner>Boss Delay>Boss Chorus>Boss Tremelo>Keeley modded TS-9>Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive>Boss DS-1>Boss NS-1 noise supressor (dont really need as it's a quite set up)>Bad Horsie Wah>guitar. As you can see, I use my pedals to achieve various degrees of overdrive. The Sparkle Drive actually gives it that famous Matchless semi-breakup that everyone loves, but allows me the option of having the amp clean as well. This amp takes pedals great! Im not into effects loops so I run it all out front and like I said, it's dead quite and sounds sweet. Besides country, I can (and do) play any type of music with my setup. I have opened up the amp for natural distortion and it is a beautiful thing as well. If I could get away with one tone, that would work great. Especially for blues and indie rock. This thing eats Fenders and shits Vox's! I have many nice amps (Rivera Quiana 55 212, 76 Roccaforte modded Marshall JMP on a Marshall 412 with greenbacks, Traynor YCV80, Fender 410 tweed Hot Rod Deville, and more), and this is the creme of the crop. If you can......get one!

P.S. Indoor-Storm has two for $3m499 ea and I got mine (mint) for $1,950! hehehe

Built like a horse. So far soooooo good! This amp was service by Mark Sampson recently and given a clean bill of health.

I've only heard great things but haven't had to find out so I'll stay neutral.

I think I've summed it up. I had always heard about these but never thought something could be "so" different or "that" good. Well, now I know, it is! As a full time player, I'm blessed to have a wife who threatend to kick my ass if I didn't buy it. Even she recognized this as a once in a life time opportunity. I've never dropped that kind of cash on a amp, but it was too good to pass up. Im a happy camper!

Basic features volume, treble, bass, middle, brilliance, master volume, reverb, effects loop, single input, one channel, four special design 10" Celestion speakers.

I like the fact that it has a limited amount of features. Some amps have so many features that it is hard to decide which tone to dial in. Like the classic amps which we all admire you can easily dial in your tone with the Chieftain. This amp is rated at 40 watts and came with a duet of Sovtek EL34's in nice shock-mounted sockets. It is covered in stunning white tolex.

I gave this amp a 9 for features because it has everything that I was looking for in an amp. I already own a Boogie Mark IV so I wasn't looking for a multi-channel amp which has every feature that you can think of. I just wanted a simple amp with basic features and beautiful tone.

It failed to get a 10 only because it could be a little (very little)more user friendly. The input is positioned so that if you use an angled plug it will not hang down vertical. Instead the cord will hang down at about a 45 degree angle. I would like to add casters but the reverb tank is stapled to the bottom of the cabinet instead of being mounted screws therefore making it more difficult for lazy asses like me to deal with(picky, picky).

I use a Strat with Joe Barden pick-ups, A PRS Custom, and a Les Paul Classic. I play Blues, Rock, R&B, and Funk. I wanted an amp that could produce a rich fat tone with crunchy overdrive at lower volumes. I am partial to the Fender Super Reverb sound but my '65 Super was just to loud for the clubs that I play. So I went with the Chieftain and swapped out the EL34's for 6L6's so I could get closer to the Fender sound.

I love the tone of this amp, it just reeks of blues. It produces a deep rich tone which is both fat and crunchy with plenty of natural compression. It can be a clean sounding amp, however, it won't do metal without an outboard effect.

The best thing about my Chieftain is that I can get my tone at a lower stage volume. The speakers sound great and the overdrive is perfect for what I play. However, is must admit I do not like its fully overdriven sound at bedroom volumes. With the volume cranked and the master turned down the tone is buzzy. My Boogie can sing at this volume but the Chieftain needs to be pushed harder in order for it to blossem.

My TS9 and a Stamps Drive-O-Matic will take my Chieftain to another level of sustain and overdrive. With these two boxes I can create any type of distortion, sustain and overdrive including heavy metal.

The Chieftain's reverb has taken a lot of flack from other reviewers but I feel that the reverb is great. It produces deep rich surf tones but it does lack the drip drip drip of Fender reverbs.

I have never had a problem with this amp. I do not need any back up when gigging except for power tubes, this amp eats them up like candy. Chieftains are definitely built too last. I have never seen an amp that is as solid, well made and designed for ruggad use as the Chieftain. Yes this amp is heavy, but so what, it hasn't been a problem for me.

Does not exist. When Matchless was in business they (Rick) treated me great. However I have heard horror stories regarding Matchless' customer service.

This is a fabulous amp! I have been playing for over twenty years and have played through all of the popular amps, in fact I am a confirmed amp-o-holic. The Chieftain is one of the best amps that I have played. Usually other British and British based amps are too bright for my taste. I have yet to play through a newer Marshall that has the warmth and debth that I crave. The Chieftain however is warm, rich and consistantly delivers great tone.