TopHat T18-TB

Can't femember full so I won't try. No trem. No verb.

Full Dark Fendery sound. Vox / Selmer / Super Lead dynamics. It had the glassyest tone I ever heard. The Loudest 18 watts you will ever hear. Then never hear again. This is a great sounding amp.

We used it for all the basic trax. I ran wide open every other night for 3 months. Point to point and very few parts.

I met the guys from top hat and they know whats up. Like most good older amps as long as you keep the transformer in one peice your cool.

This is a great blues amp. No frills though. Sure these will be the collector peices of the next decade!

This amp is a two-channel, half-power version of Top Hat's King Royale T-35TB (I don't believe it's part of the current product line as of 11/97). See amp descriptions under heading of Top Hat for complete list of features for this amp since it is basically the same as the T-35TB only with two EL84s instead of four. Where the "big brother" has its pull-boost on the volume knob, this model has it on the treble knob. The boost feature can be activated by a footswitch which I have personally never tried, but the jack is there on the back panel for access to this feature. Not having been exposed to an original Vox amp or its tone prior to hearing this amp, I was a veritable "virgin" when it came to Vox-type tone, but this amp is definitely a thing of pure aural beauty. The "cut" knob is a real tone-manipulator that can "massage" your treble sounds further than the standard treble control and acts as a "reverse" kind of rolloff effect - very useful. The defeatable master volume control is a push-pull type of configuration with the defeated position pushed in. Each channel has two inputs: one high and one low with definite differences between the two focusing mainly on general volume. Channel one is a "meat-and-potatoes" affair with one volume and one tone control but having a direct relationship with the "cut" and "master" control that are laid-out on the channel two side (meaning they work with both channels). Regarding the master volume, this thing allows a reasonable amount of preamp distortion at lower volumes but Brian Gerhard, Top Hat's founder and tone guru recommended to me not to use the master below 11:00 for reasons unexplained. I have gotten great sounds from this amp at low volumes using the master but the truly sweet and raging tones come when the amp is driven hard into power tube distortion. Though I have not performed with it, this amp is loud as hell.

I am currently using the amp with a crappy little Fender Squire Strat guitar that was made in China that I bought for my 12-year-old daughter and a 60's vintage Gibson ES125TCD with two P90s. With both guitars I am truly smokin' with this amp. I originally purchased the T18-TB as a combo unit with two 12s. Gerhard talked me into a G12M and G12H configuration in the cab which was something that Matchless was doing as a kind of tone-combination thing and it was fine but the combo configuration was a real "rattler". I was unable to play with any kind of volume without annoying vibrations within the chassis coming through as a kind of additional "rhythm section". Lots of aggravating buzzes and vibrations. This was disconcerting at best. The tone was very cool but the "extra" sounds were not. So I returned the amp and had Brian do a head and 2x12 cab arrangement for an additional expense. This took care of the problem. I also had the G12M replaced with another Greenback and that's what I'm currently enjoying. And enjoying is the word!! This amp, though small in wattage is the killer tone monster. I can dial in anything from cool, clean tones to ripping snarly leads akin to early 70's Billy Gibbons or Humble Pie riffs. The true character of the tone of this amp is found when maxxed out and screaming into a solo ejaculation of blistering single-line notes. It breaks up nice but I don't know how it performs in a performance situation. I have a feeling that there is little clean headroom with the low wattage and this may be a hinderance for some who need to play loud and clean.

No experience with gigging. No problems with this amp yet in home practice situations.

No problems with the company. At the time, only two techs were in-house - Gerhard, the owner and one other friendly and accessible technician. I had a one-to-one relationship with Top Hat's "top brass" (this was late '95/early'96) and the outfit was really a ground-floor operation. I had to wait for an inordinate period of time for my reconfiguration from combo to piggy-back since the company that produced the cabinets was supposedly down with a huge order from a large company and it took about six weeks for my amp to "metamorphose". Nonetheless, having personal phone contact and direct one-to-one, person-to-person, face-to-face interaction with the creator of my "tone-generator" was a comfort in a real sense.

I've been an amateur player for thirty years and have played through a few different rigs that has included a black-faced Fender Twin Reverb that I stupidly had "Boogie-modified" in the early 80's (it was a great mod even though I now hate that I had that thing butchered the way I did), an Orange 120 watt head that I played through two basket-weave cabs and worked like the dickens with an Altair power attenuator (what a grinding, hairy tone that had!!!!!!) I, in my dotage have come to enjoy the simple "grindage" of natural overdrive and this amp really does get that feel; from mild rhythm to rippingly smooth, warm lead tones with a biting edge depending on your picking attack. I would like to give it a go with a humbucker axe just for laughs - I'm sure it would sound awesome - especially with an enclosed box of speakers for that "punchy" tone.