TopHat Club Deluxe II

very limited features but makes the best of what it has

I use a Fender Tele, an ES335, and a Gibson Melody Maker, through this amp and it sounds awesome--a bit like a Matchless mixed with a old Deluxe, so there is no question about the tone--very limited but useful. There is however some noise even when the amp is on standby. Maybe it's just this particular one but i'm not sure what it is.The music i play is rather dynamic and again this amp has enough dirt at high volumes to make it the amp for me,smooth overdrive although I do use a Ibanez tube-king for distortion when we play live.I gave it a nine only because of the noise.

Had it about a month and I would trust it anywhere.I opened it up and there was no mods.It has the old logo so I asume it has been played.

I wish it had channel switching, though I do just fine without. I've been playing guitar for about five years and I have always been partial to fender deluxe reverbs(with I still love)but this amp has it's own voice,and i'm sure is more reliable.Would definitly buy another.

The amp has one main feature--great tone. Basic setup is Volume with a Vox like Top Boost, Bass, Mid, Treble, and a Cut knob that rolls off some of the highs. I had the Cut converted to a master volume at no extra cost. Single channel, Class A, 2 6V6 power tube, 3 12AX7WXT+ preamp tubes, one Celestion Greenback and one Weber Bluedog. No reverb, no effects loop. Two inputs. Mine came in a pretty dark pine green Tolex finishing with oxblood cloth.
Compared to other more familiar amps, the design of the Club Deluxe is a combination of a Vox AC15TB preamp and a Fender Brown era power amp section. There is very little sonic versatility. You could never get a clean tone from the amp unless it was miced into a PA. The tones range from more than a little breakup to overdriven to saturtated overdrive.

This amp is an example of the cliche "Life is full of tradoffs." Words that describe the tones this amp produces would include: stunning, jaw-dropping, head-shaking (but nott head-banging). The problem is that you get outstanding performance but in a very narrow band of the tone continuum spectrum. I don't think you can dis' this amp for this reason in the same way you can't dis' a Black Face Twin Reverb for being clean or for a Rickenbacker 360 for being jangly--it is what it is.
I have two other amps, a 1x12" TopHat Club Royale (EL84 based) and a '65 Twin Reverb Reissue and use 3 different guitars--a Heritage H-550 with Filtertrons (just think Gretsch 6120), a Fender Tele Plus (with Seymour Duncan vintage Tele style pu's plus a middle pu like a strat), and a Hamer Studio Archtop with P-90's.
This is a darkly voiced amp. I don't know if I'd play a Les Paul with the stock 490 Alnico pups--they'd be too hot (for me) and I think you'd get a muddy tone. In fact, when I first got the amp, I had to fiddle with it for a while before I got into that comfort zone of loving everthing you dial in. What I did was swap out the stock Sovtek 12AX7WXT+ preamp tubes in the first two positions for some NOS GE JAN 5751's. These seem stout enough. At first I put a NOS Mullard 12AT7 in the first slot and a 5751 in the second, but the Mullard was microphonic. Switching these helped a lot, but didn't completely eliminate the problem. Finally, I just put 5751's in both and this seems to be right fit for me. 5751's have something like 70% of the gain of a standard 12AX7 (therefore even a lesser percentage of the Sovteks). An interesting side note for tube-o-philes is that unlike other 6V6 amps (e.g., Fender Deluxe Reverb RI, and the Clark and Hullet Tweed clones) these amps will not perform well with NOS 6V6's. The company founder and amp designer Brian Gerhard told me that they designed the amp specifically designed to work with the lower plate voltages of the newer 6V6's.
Of these guitars, the Heritage sounds the best through the Club Deluxe. I can overdrive the s**t out of this amp, retain some top end chime and edge, without having the bottom end get too farty or flabby (a notorious problem for 6V6 amps). The P-90's on the Hamer are just a tad too hot for my tastes, but neverthless sound great through this amp. I can play the neck pickup without any muddiness or clarity loss.
Again, it's a warmer, slightly darker distortion than you get from the Club Royale while retaining some of the upper-mid chime and definition.

Only had a short time. Never broken down. I'd gig with it without a backup.

The people at TopHat are the best I've ever dealt with when it comes to musical instrument manufacturers. Brian Gerhard is player's manufacturer. It's all about tone and value. Easy to get on the phone, extremely friendly and helpful, quick to return phone calls. Lifetime warranty. I have more confidence in TopHat than any other manufacturer.

TopHat comes as close as any manufacturer I've heard to perfecting the Class A, power tube distortion. Some may prefer Matchless, Budda, Dr. Z, etc. and I wouldn't have any argument. At this level of design and manufacturering execution, there is only differences of preference and style not quality. While not cheap, I don't think there is a better amp value out there today--the price performance is just unbeatable for my consumer dollar.
A little plug goes to the folks at J&S Music where I bought this amp. Great prices and good guys.