TopHat Club Deluxe

This is a NOS top hat club deluxe, it is the 9.5 " depth model. Hi / Lo inputs, soft/hard rectifier switch, normal-brite-fat switching and cut control, 2 speaker outs, Jensen C12N speaker (not sure if this is original). 6V6 class A power with 12AX7's for preamp. Rated as an 8 because no reverb and effects loop.

This amp see's Tele's and Les Pauls on stage and everything else at home. I always use a powerbrake :) to get optimum power tube distortion -this amp Waailes. With a powerbrake you get a different view on overall performance, granted the sound of speakers jacked right to sh*t sounds different than regular house vol's but the powerbrake is night and day with this machine. Used with 410's, 412's and Bassman 212 oversized cab this amp shines thru the 410.For two months I worked my sound out at home then with the single coiles it took fricken flight man!! All the note definition of a 60's Deluxe with tighter bottom-end, the treble knob is useless-use the cut control for high end. I currently have the settings like this; master 3/4's cut 1/4 bass 3/4's mid 2/3's treble 0, vol 2/3, 3/4's. This is grind! I use the amp for rippin country guitar smack (don't laugh) but I get all the Jimmy Page tones I need. The amp is done for overdrive not distortion. For the sake of the treble knob I rate this a 9.

The jerk who sold me this amp couldn't pack fibreglass in a paper-cup, there were two broken chickenhead knobs via UPS when it arrived, Brian at TopHat was very helpful getting me replacements. Also the previous owner had switched the 12AX7's with ECC83's to get more gain (buy yourself a peavey transtube buddy ha)I haven't switched back because the amp sounds great as it is. I have no issues with the build quality. I give it a 10 because the wiring was neat and the cabinet feels really solid with a good and proper handle.

As above; The people at TopHat were supportive and prompt with any issues I had with the amp.

I have been playing for 15 years and have many guitars. This was my second class A amp, as with most class A it has a very sweet and fragile high-end. I compared it to my uncles' old deluxe (silver faced), Matchless Clubman, and two class A/B 6L6 amps (Koch Multitone)and(blackfaced bassman). Even at 22 watts you will benefit from a powerbrake, this is good value to anyone looking at Dr. Z, Matchless, Bruno or any of the hi-end class A Combo's available; rated as 9.

This one was built 9/11/00. It's a 20 watt tube amp one has these controls - volume, treble, mid, bass, cut, master, boost off/fat/bright, soft/normal rectifier sag, twin inputs, on/off and standby. 12" Weber ceramic Blue Dog. Twin 6V6 power, three 12AX7 preamp tubes, s/s rectifier, cathode biased. Ply cab and baffle, heavy tolex covering. It has all the features I require, plus a few extra that are very nice to have on hand, so for ME it deserves Top Hat Honors.

As fed by my assortment of single coil toned assembled Tele and Strat g'tars, the tone is just plain awesome ... 6V6 tone at it's best. Though it's got a fair share of clean headroom, it really shines when pushed and set for a nice ovedrive grind. There are MANY shades of overdrive the Club Deluxe can provide, from a subtle hint to full tilt boogie in-yer-face grit (NOT fuzz). The amp is extraordinarily quiet at all times.

All point to point hand wired (mostly "in the air" but there are a pair of eyelet strips, too), top shelf components, TopHat stands behind what they build no matter whether bought new OR used. Haven't had any problems, but if I did I have no doubt Brian and crew will fix me up real fast ... IF help was ever required.

Not needed ... yet (will it ever be needed?)

Playing g'tar since '55, first amp was a '63 Deluxe, gigged for over 10 years, still havin' fun with strings 'n' frets. I love my TopHat Club Deluxe. It's light, tight and has the tone to fight. It'll do for blues and jazz and gigging in small clubs. I bonded with this puppy from the get-go and I shudda gotten one years ago. I'd get another without hesitation or question as it works amazingly well for my purposes.

Simple, no nonsense amp. Hi/lo inputs, volume (pull boost), tone, and cut controls. Two 12AX7 preamp tubes, 2x6V6 power amp, GZ43 rectifier. One Celestion V30. Made in May of 1997.

I use P90 and humbucker Les Pauls, and a lace sensor Strat.

This amp sounds friggin awesome! Nice and articulate and crunchy. Add a wah and a clean boost pedal and it SCREAMS!

Very high build quality. Point-to-point construction. Old school craftmanship.

Bought it used. But Brian at TopHat stands behind his products, new or used. Period.

Great crunch tones form this baby. A simple, effective Blues-Rock Tone Monster.

Manufactured in 2001 as best as I can tell. Single channel with few bells or whistles, meaning no loop, no switching, no headphone out. Very much a back to basics for me. I've used Mesa, Rivera, and Budda amps since the late '80s and wanted a small, simple amp to carry into gigs where set up time was a big factor. I also wanted to experiment with a simpler approach to my sound and to get back in touch with my own physical tools as a player. It's all tube and could not be simpler to use or to figure out. I'm a little torn, because it has none of the features I really rely upon, but it fit exactly where I needed it to in terms of what I want to accomplish. It's plenty loud for country club and small bar gigs. Extra speaker out jack, dual inputs, a rectifier sag switch on the back as well, and an eq toggle switch on top.

Use this with Reverend, Fender, and PRS guitars with a variety of pickups. Mostly single coil, though. Mostly playing variety music and covering a broad spectrum of styles. I use a few pedals with this, preferring to run the amp fairly clean and get distortion with pedals.
Very quiet, even with 5 or 6 pedals feeding into it. Distortion is a very spanky, non singing distortion when dimed; you can get convincing Angus Young tones, for instance, but singing leads will definitely require a pedal or two. The cleans and moderately dirty are very fat and warm, worth the cost of the amp in themselves. Not much volume or headroom, but enough to keep up with classic rock or blues settings. If you want this amp to play death metal, please contact a mental health professional. For the clean sounds, a 9. My big problem has been getting distortion boxes to sound acceptable through the amp. Not a distortion friendly box at all. After much experimentation, I have a Fulldrive 2 that works very well, and a Burn Unit for higher gain stuff. Everything else (except, oddly, a mid-80s small box Rat) sounded fizzy and extremely nasty.

Seems reliable, but it rides on a car seat next to me. Boutique gear, and more than likely built like a tank.

Brian very friendly, concerned, helpful. Offered to walk me through a mod to get more highs with distortion boxes running through this amp. Highs aren't a problem, and he even had a few suggestions on what stomps I could use to get a decent distortion.

A fine piece of workmanship, though I wish it would interface with distortion boxes better. It may be argued that I got the wrong amp for my purposes, but what I wanted was something simple with a great clean tone that I could build on. I think this amp lives up to that, and my search for the right boxes is part of the learning curve I set out to experience. Been playing since the '70s. I'd buy it again, but honestly might also just opt for a Hot Rod Deluxe or something and use the clean channel exclusively. These are marvelous amps though, no question.

This amp's features are pretty limited: one channel, no effects, no loops, but that doesn't mean bad. Its set of controls gives a broader range of tone adjustment than just about anything else I've played in over 30 years. I was so impressed I just had to have it. It's got two inputs- high and low gain; two volume controls- input and master; and five tone controls: treble, mid, bass, "cut", and a boost switch for bright, fat or no boost. There's also a switch under the chassis for changing the character of the rectifier. For my own purposes that'd be a 10, but in the interests of objectivity an 8 is probably fair.

I play predominantly several PRS's with their proprietary coil splitting humbuckers, as well as one that has three P-90-like soapbars that sounds like the fattest strat you ever thought of. Also, I use an LP Deluxe from the 70's and a Fender "JB" Tele made in Japan.
It suits my styles which run from clean to Billy Gibbons type of distortion.
There's precious little headroom here. At its nominal 20w output, it seems overrun by a Fender Deluxe RI at 22w in a direct A/B. I'd like more clean output, but maybe that could be had with a 4x12 cabinet instead of the 1x12 in this combo.
To my ears it sounds like this. Clean is a cross between Vox and Fender BF. Distorted is a cross between Vox and Marshall. Both lean more toward the Vox sound. Clean lacks some of the Fender's round low end but still gets that really pretty high end; distorted has more high-end "fizz" than Marshall but still slams the midrange that gives Marshall its character. It's not super high gain, but close.
As best as I can put into words, the controls work like this. The input and master volumes work about as you'd expect, although breakup starts a bit early, where the input volume is above about 1/4- maybe 3 on an old Fender- no matter where the master is set. The master brings in power tube tone, both clean and distorted. The treble control brings out really bright highs, but apparently by attenuating the lower midrange frequencies. This seems to reduce the overall volume of the sound as the treble control is advanced, but the volume comes back up as the treble is reduced: it sounds to me like a cut control for low midrange. The mid control boosts the same frequencies that old Marshalls bring out, but they seem a little brighter and less brittle; a higher range than the mid control on Fenders. The bass control brings out a broad range of low frequencies, though not quite as rich and deep as an old Fender. The cut control takes out the high frequencies; it's very effective at dealing with that "ice-pick-in-the-ear" sense that people condemn in Fenders, and it removes the "fizz" from the distortion. But for some reason on this amp, unlike Fenders, this also clears very well by just dropping the tone control at the guitar. The boost switch increases highs very much like a Fender bright switch, and boosts low mid-range when set to the fat position. And it has an off setting as well. Finally, the rectifier switch has a subtle but noticeable effect to produce a "bloom" or "sag" that some people desire.

The amp is new, and I've only played it enough to have a really clear idea of its tones. As long as I can afford it, I don't think I'd gig anywhere without a backup. I don't know any pros who do.

I've had no experience with customer support. No need so far.

I've been playing over 30 years and in that time I've run just about everything out there with tubes in it. The best solid state I ever heard was GK 2-12 that I sold because the distortion just didn't quite make it. My ears can tell enough from the modelling amps that that they're just not gonna cut it. I'm a purist. Realistically, I could get along without this thing and probably wouldn't replace it. That said, I haven't yet recorded with it, and my ears tell me it would be killer behind a mic or in the studio- we'll see...

This Club Deluxe 1x12 combo was manufactured in July '99. The 5 controls are volume (with pull boost), bass, mid, treble, and cut. It has a tube rectifier. Newer models have a solid state rectifier (with a soft/normal switch), master volume, and a FAT-OFF-BRIGHT switch. The tube configuration is 3 x 12AX7, 2 x 6V6, and a GZ34 rectifier (though a 5Y3 can be used also, as stated on the tube chart (and confirmed with Brian at TopHat). The 5Y3 will give more sag, and will lower the wattage from 18 to about 14 watts.

I've owned this amp for over a year now. I'm still enjoying the amp as much as I did the first day I played it. I ordered the amp with a TopHat/WeberVST C12TH (TopHat version of the C12B - Blue Dog), and though this amp has a pair of 6V6 power tubes it's very VOXey sounding due to this speaker. I'd say there is little Fender in the sound. It's mostly VOX with some Marshall, and it becomes more Marshally with the volume over 2/3rds of the way up. The mid control also helps dial between Fender, Vox, and Marshall sounds. I'm glad I waited to review this amp, because I just recently gave the pull-boost volume knob a 2nd chance, and I'm now keeping the boost on most of the time! I find that it gives a fatter and more balanced sound after re-adjusting the cut control to allow more highs through. With the boost off, the amp is actually in the "Bright" mode of the newer TopHat's. In the bright mode, the sounder has more crispness, with more clarity and detail due to a slightly thinner sound. I love this mode too for chimey jangley rhythms. For those worried about the newer models having a solid state rectifier I'd like to say that my friend just bought a Club Royale with a solid state rectifier, and he says that even in the normal mode (instead of the soft mode which mimics a 5Y3) the amp feels more like a tube rectified amp than his '64 Fender Deluxe does with a tube rectifier! I usually play a Hamer Special FM with Seth Lover pickups through this amp, though I sometimes pull out my strat and set the amp's volume to 3/4's or full up.... producing such a nice overdriven, tight, compressed, warm, and sweet singing sound.

Brian at TopHat has been helpful at answering any questions I've had about his amps. He's been very generous with his time, and I've enjoyed listening to his wisdom. You'll have better luck calling TopHat than emailing them with questions.

Last year I was debating between this Club Deluxe, or a Dr.Z Carmen Ghia. I later was able to try out some Dr.Z's at a music store and I was glad I choose the TopHat. For my tastes, the Carmen Ghia was too tough and raw sounding. Think old AC/DC. It didn't seem to have the complexity and chime of the TopHat. I was impressed with the MAZ 18Jr. It had a great tight compressed sustaining bluesy sound with a strat, and the master volume was very useable (could still get a good sound at a lower volume). It had a very punchy and in-your-face sound through the pair of Celestion Vintage 10's.

All-tube (including rectifier!) class A 20 watt amp. 3 12AX7's in pre-amp, 5AR4 rectifier, 2 6V6GT output tubes.
Controls: 2 inputs (low and high); volume with pull-boost (boosts all frequencies); bass, mid, & treble controls at pre-amp; "Cut" tone control that rolls off the frequency response at the amp stage (past the pre-amp). This Cut knob is a great feature. I play single-coil guitars, and with the Club Deluxe, I can EQ up a pretty bright sound, and then roll it off with the Cut knob, filtering out the buzzing noises that come from my guitar.
Build & Parts Quality: solid pine cabinet, shock-mounted ceramic tube sockets, 100% point-to-point hand-wired chassis (14 or 16 gauge steel), Teflon insulated wiring, and a 12" Celestion Greenback speaker--YES!, CTS pots, etc., etc.

I wanted to find an amp that does jazz and blues well, and this is it! If you're looking for a low-powered tube amp, it's gonna have EL84's in it -- except this one! Now, there's nothing wrong with EL84s, but it does mean that all the other amps, regardless of brand and build quality, have some similarities in sonic signature. The Top Hat Club Deluxe gives you a chance to have 20 tube watts and break away from the crowd. It's fatter, warmer, more American in sound.
This thing brings touch response and transparency to a whole new level. It makes the low-cost single-speaker 15 to 20-watt tube amps sound like toys. But I won'd say it sounds exactly vintage. Although the output stage is modeled after a Fender brown-era Deluxe, the Club Deluxe does not sound like that Fender. I attribute this to two things: it has a Vox-like pre-amp, and the parts quality is more high-end. The high-end aspect makes this thing faster and clearer than a vintage amp. Actually, it probably sounds a bit more like a twin-twelve blackface Bassman than a Deluxe. But that's fine with me. I love the sound of a twin-12 Bassman, but don't need the size and volume. Playing finger-style jazz with this amp is a total treat. Many amps have you screaming "I wish I could play this with picks", either because it's too thuddy or there's two much finger surface noise. Not the Top Hat. The center of the string's tone just jumps out of the amp. And when you do use a pick, it's extremely dynamic. This amp is a marvelous match with my G&L ASATs, but it may be even better with the G&L Legacy. I have one that always sounded nice, but not particularly dynamic -- that is, until I plugged it into this. Then the Legacy felt as if it were alive, living and breathing.
Here's how good I think this amp is. If you're in the market, and only have $450 or $500 to spend, you need to try this anyway. The $300 more it takes to get this will seem paltry compared to what it gives back.
When I first fired it up when I got it home, it sounded a tad sterile. Then I swapped in some military surplus American pre-amp tubes, and the amp took on more personality. Tonite I'm going to swap in some late-'50's American output tubes (possibly rebadged RCA's), and I expect the amp will outdo itself.
Noisy? No. In fact, it's one of the quietest tube guitar amps I've heard (or not heard). And with the Cut knob, you can make it absolutely quiet, though perhaps a little closed in.
Last night I dimed the amp. It can emulate different types of amps depending on where you put the midrange control. Cutting the midrange makes it more Fendery. Straight up it sounds rather Voxy, and if you dime the midrange, you can get a pretty good vintage Marshall sound, 6V6's and all. It can get ratty or smooth overdrive, depending on where you set the tone control on your guitar, and it's easy to overdrive if you plug into the high level input and pull out the boost knob. Lots of versatility for 5 knobs, for sure!

This amp isn't built like they used to build them in the 50's and 60's -- it's built better! Better wiring, better speaker, better Tolex, better knobs, switches, closer tolerance for capacitors and other components, etc.
I can't imagine this amp going down. The only possibility I can entertain is that I guess it's fairly easy to blow single Celestion Greenbacks (they have only a 25 W rating). If that were to happen, I would probably replace it with a Vintage 30, which handles 60 W. But I don't usually play that loud, so I don't anticipate blowing the Greenback. It is the best-sounding Guitar speaker I've heard.

Haven't dealt with them, but other things I've seen indicate that the co-founders are accessible and enthusiastic about talking about their products.

I've played a year. In that time I've had a Gorilla 25, a Crate Vintage Club 20, a Fender Blues Jr., a Trace Elliot Velocette (tried it out vs. this), and have daily access to my daughter's Ampeg Jet II R (reverb). I have a solid body G&L ASAT and an ASAT Thinline (see my rave review on that one). The Top Hat dusts all the other amps I've had, and every amp I could afford in every category important to me -- build quality, transparency of tone, focus of tone, quietness, expressiveness, low-level touch sensitivity, sound of its overdriven tubes (It's designed to overdrive the output stage like the old amps), configurability for different sounding distortions, etc., etc. I can't imagine what I would buy instead of this if it were lost or stolen. Maybe a brownface Deluxe or a mid-60's Supro, but I would be giving up its incredible speed and transparency of tone. Of new amps at its price, I think it has no peer.