TopHat T-35E Embassy Head

2 channel, 4 input. Each channel has a high and low gain in. "Tone" and volume control on I. Treble, mid, bass, cut and volume on II. Master volume, standby switch, on/ off switch, and pilot light round out the front panel controls. Wait! there is more. 6 more female phone jacks on the rear panel for 2 speaker outs, with 3 position impedance selector, line out with level adjust, effects send and receive, and foot switch. The short version of the story so far is that the amp is very full featured, and has an input, output and loop for any and all applications.
The amp is an all tube design with 4 12ax7's in the low level section, 4 6V6GT's in the power section, and a GZ34 rectifier for the power supply. The power section is rumored to be Class A operation. It sure sounds like it.
I am trying to be as harsh in my judgement of its features as possible. If it is going to be fairly compared with other amps out there, for this kind of tone and sound quality, you would be looking at vintage equipment. As such, it has much more interface capability (line out and effects loop, master volume) than you would expect. I think a 9 is deserved.

This amp is usually driving 2 twelve inch, old green vox speakers in a closed back Bandmaster cabinet. This combination of amp and speakers is very good. The old Vox speakers are babied, and the amp is seldom turned up past the point where the speakers are just starting to break up and compress. The amp feels like it has big power reserves past this point. I honestly don't know what the outside power limits sound like, because I have not turned it up that loud.
The amp is used with Z coil G&L ASAT, Danelectro 6 string bass and 12 string, and J45 Gibson acoustic with Lace Sensor. I additionally run a Zoom reverb pedal in the loop, and Snarling Dogs Blue Doo or H&K Tubeman on the input.
The ASAT and Danelectro 12 string just kill on this amp. Z coils are fat smooth wide range pickups. They bridge a Tele to Les Paul/ 335 sound easily. They sound so hi-fi and smooth on this amp in the clean ranges and generate a huge creamy wall of distortion when it is gained up. Single coils are glassy and brilliant, and even with treble boost, are not too harsh. Bass is fat and creamy. Lipstick tube pickups sound more detailed and deep than any other amp I have played them through. The pick and string dynamics are so good that I can hear the difference in grades of emery boards I have sanded my nails with. I hate amps that loose the articulation when the distortion is up. The Tophat lets me hears individual strings in the power chords.
The 12 string chime is amazing on this amp. The amp is great for making an acoustic sound unamped in the clean settings, or like a fat electric when it has some gain dialed in.
One good news/bad news story is that there is extreme range to the tone controls. They are smooth, but it takes some twiddling of the 4 knobs to get a particular guitar dialed in, and then to get it sounding like the style you want to play. Each control will go from way too little to way to much, at the stops. In the mid range settings, there is just so much to play with. The tone controls are probably the best part of this amp, and contribute greatly to its versatility.
The #1 channel is not a throwaway. It has a certain power and authority to it, especially the high gain input. The one knob tone control gives the player fast access to a plug in, ball park the volume and tone and play situation. The master volume controls this channel too. There is a good deal of crunch that can be had by overdriving this channel. I have sometimes found what I wanted to hear on I when II was just too fussy with all the damn knobs!
Styles? Jazz and country are a no brainer on this amp. Folky strumming on acoustic or electric guitars are also so easy to make sound great. Any rhythm style playing is going to work well. It has a great blusey wail. Sustain forever. Very controlable breakup. All of this at any volume level! It grinds, it crunches, it screams.
It is aggresive lead playing where this amp is going to have a certain character which might not make it a first choice. If the job requires all out balls to the wall gain, I dont think this is going to cut it, without an additional outboard psycho gain device. It is obviously lacking the high gain, specially voiced channel which would put it in the "Metal Zone". Obviously some sort of Marshall, 5150, Hiwatt, Orange, etc, is going to be a better choice, if you want to blow the walls down without a pedal. Maybe it has the brown sound in there some where. I havent found it, on the other hand, I was not looking! I am being as critical as possible. I would have to say up to hard rock/ modern rock big distortion styles, this amp is brilliant. Metal rhythm guitar could be OK, but for the ultimate hammer of lead guitar doom, look elswhere.

Tidy construction. Reputed to be hand made. Great feel to the controls. Bottom line for me, never leave home with a tube amp without spares. I bought this amp in a music store, used. It sounded ok in the store. It sounded ok at home, but I discovered rag tag assortment of pre amp tubes. I had it retubed by a knowledgeable technician who found two pre-amp tubes to be barely registering on the meter. My assumption is that the person who traded it in put his garbage tubes in it. Thanks, jerkoff. Anyway, I had a chance to try it with vintage Telefunkins, Mullards, and a range of new Eastern European tubes. I found a new matching set that worked as well as the exotic vintage tubes. As it sits, all of the circuitry, except the tubes I would trust in the harshest of conditions.

Dont know.

I am comparing this amp to two others I own. One is a early Sixties, Brown face Fender Deluxe. These amps are generally regarded to be one of the "Temples of Tone" that many players lust after. It is different than the Tophat, and NOT better in any way. For starters, there is no way to make the Fender distort like the Tophat, without external devices. Also, the controls are so limited. The old Fender will have that heavenly tone in one narrow range of the tone control, in a very narrow volume range. It is way to polite and not distinctive at low levels, and way too harsh turned up.
I also have an early 60's Gibson Hawk. I use this for the reverb and tremelo. The overall tone is so lush and big. The Gibson is a great tone and effects monster, and does its magic at any volume level. One problem is a very narrow tone control range. It has a very drastic hi-cut that is not very usable. It does not do the dirty at all. And it does not have the hi-fi clean that the Tophat does so well.
All these amps have one thing in common. That is 6V6 power tubes. The Tophat power amp sounds so much different than the others. It does the clean thing better, and it also gets much dirtier than the other amps. This might be due to the fact that the power section is driving the speakers with very little coloration. What I am hearing as the amazing tonal range of the Tophat could be mostly the pre amp section. Whatever it is, it works for me. It really makes me wonder about the distinct sound characteristics that certain power tubes are supposed to have. If that was the case, you would think that 3 amps using the same tubes would have something in common. Not so.
I am going to have to fall back on over 30 years of playing experience, and say that there is probably only 2, maybe 3 amps I have ever heard or played in that time that better or equal the Tophat, and rate it acordingly.
The amp deserves a nine, rather than a ten for one reason in this section. The price of "boutique" amps is out of reach of so many players. This category is supposed to be about overall value. I think there are factory made amps at less than half of the $2000+ that this amp would cost new that will deliver 9/10s or more of the musical quality of the Tophat. I was lucky to find something like this used, and was able to pay a bit more for something hand crafted and very musical. If lost or stolen I would really try to get another one of these babies. I could do with a little less power perhaps, but there is no going back for me when it comes to the incredible music in this amp.