Trinity Amps 18 TMB-MV Head

The features have been well described in the previous reviews, there are some other things I think are worth pointing out. The amp uses a cathode bias, so no bias adjustments are necessary after a tube replacement. There is also a 4, 8, and 16 Ohm speaker selector with 2 speaker out jacks. For my amp, I had a parallel effects loop added as an option. One of the best things about the amp is its simplicity. It's really a great amp where you can just plug in and play. The features may seem limited, but this was one of the few amps that met all of my needs so for me the features are a 10.

I tend to play more traditional/classic rock. With this amp, I use a Gibson SG Standard and a Fender Highway 1 Telecaster. The TMB channel has 1 input, a treble, mid, and bass eq, a volume and a master volume knob. The volume and master volume knobs seem to interact with each other more than on other amps I have used. I guess it would be better to think of the volume knob as more of a preamp gain knob. The normal channel has a high and low input, a volume and a tone knob. The low input is a bit quieter and cleaner than the high input. The effects loop is set up to only work with the TMB channel.

There's a few things to point out about this amp. First of all, it is surprisingly loud - particularly with efficient speakers. Using an Emmience Governor, this amp was just as loud (if not louder) than a stock modern 40 watt Marshall combo. Another thing is that this amp doesn't really start to break up until the volume is at 5 or 6 on the normal channel (using the Tele, with the SG it would distort earlier). This can be pretty loud inside of a small house or apartment. The TMB channel can break up much earlier, depending on how you set the volume. These channels are voiced pretty differently.

Although there is no built in channel switching, you can use both inputs simultaneously so you could switch between channels using an A/B box. You can also jump the TMB and Normal channels. This provides a nice blend of both of the channels, a real full sound. Almost anyway you set it, it's very easy to get a wide variety of usable sounds.

This amp seems to respond well to effects, at least the ones I use. I asked for an effects loop because I normally use delay and find that it usually sounds much better through the loop. The effects loop on this amp is about as basic as possible, and while it definitely does what it should and is a great feature to have, I rarely use it. I actually have started using effects a lot less since I have owned this amp...

If there is anything negative to mention, it would be that the amp can be somewhat noisy when turned up very loud. Even without any guitar plugged in, I would get a hum from the amp when I would turn up the volume past 7 or 8. Keep in mind that 7 or 8 would really be excessively loud for most uses, it's just something I've noticed. The hum does not go away when a guitar is plugged in and the volume is down or when using a noise gate.

The amp is entirely hand wired and has no circuit boards, chips, etc. This is definitely a refreshing change than most current amplifiers. I have played the amp for several hours at a time and I have not noticed any issues. The amp inside and out seem extremely solid. I would be very surprised if I had any significant issues.

Here's where Trinity Amps really shines. Throughout the entire building process, I was in constant contact with the builder Stephen via email. He provided extremely detailed photos as well as any other updates throughout the whole process. A few months after purchasing the amp, he emailed me again just to follow up and see how I was enjoying the amp. Very cool.

I haven't even mentioned how much of a value the amp is. I was looking for specific features - low wattage, master volume, effects loop, Marshall-type sound, self biasing - this was one of the only amps that not only delivered, but was also much more affordable than similar boutique amps. Highly recommended.

This amp is described nicely in the other review by Tybone.
This is an old-school hand wired tube amp and you are really buying it for tone, although this amp is quite tweakable given its dual channel capability.

Nice green tolex job, knob selection, panel fit and finish. Not quite up to my '97 Matchless but a fraction of the price.

External impedence selector allows you to use almost any speaker cab.

Also this circuit will accept a variety of tubes or minor mods to change the tone. Included is a very cool document that outlines possible mods - the 18watt thing is practically a cult and this amp is a great player in that league.

I am looking forward to doing some of the tube substitutions in the manual, maybe to get a bit less gain and a little more headroom - its great to have that option.

I have a variety of guitars but primarily I use this with a Jet Earlewood (custom dual humbuckers - please read the reviews on this guitar to understand!) an '04 Fender Deluxe Strat and another TR Custom with a JB jr and cool rails. Although its rated at 18 watts - this is one loud beast - that 18 watt rating would be clean - which is not typically why you buy one of these.

I am using this throught a Matchless 212 cab which works very well with the avaiable wattage. Given most of my playing is low volume and recording I also use a WeberVST MASS attenuator (also a fabulous product that does exactly what it promises) most of the time.

The two channels have a very different character - the main channel has only volume and tone, and its very simple just to plug into this channel and get a very predictable crunchy rock tone with a minimum of fuss. Honestly, you could stop right there and be very happy with this, its nice and classic, and often exactly what you are looking for.

The MV channel is very high gain. Depending on the guitar you need to work with the settings on that channel to find a sweet spot. And sweet it can be. This amp can make that classic rock crunch or that metal chugga-chugga to your heart's content. Of course at a much lower volume than one of those big boy Marshalls. It is amazing how much the character of this amp can change given differences in volume settings between the master and pre volumes. With the Jet (which has very high gain Duncan blackbacks) I am running the pre at about 9-o'clock and the MV typically at 10-12. (I don't pay a lot of attention to what number that points to) As tybone said there's not a lot of headroom on this amp. It takes some chops to keep it clean with a light touch and then get it dirty on the right parts of your solos. Given some skill you can evoke the gods of rock to emerge from your speaker(s). This is the tone of your dreams. Punch, crackle, chugga, sizzle, sing and scream - its in there with the right chops applied on a nice guitar and the right settings. Yeah, I'm there baby right in the middle of the golden age!

Using a drop D tuning and bridge humbucker flat out this little pup can evoke the best death metal chugga. Or with a strat and milder amp settings you can do the SRV / Cream / Hendrix thing very well. And you can find some new tones of your own - the MV channel is not a one trick pony. I'm dying to try this out with a baritone just for grins.

Interestingly I have found some very cool tone variations by switching the impedence load on the Weber (obviously while the amp is on standby - and keeping the resistance always higher than the amp setting as to not blow anything!) Setting the MASS on 8ohms and the amp on 4ohms makes it brighter and changes the texture of the crunch. Make notes or you'll never get back - there are too many permutations.

With the Weber MASS this is a fabulous recording tool and has caused me to avoid my Pod-XT for the digital pretender it is. I bought this because I couldn't find what I was looking for in the Pod, and now I know why. Admittedly, its a good digital pretender, but when you A-B the tracks - its spectacular just how good the 18watt Trinity is.

And no, this is not a good loud clean amp. Its not meant to be, there are simply not enough watts. But - there is a beauty to having an amp that is ALMOST clean but breaks up nicely in the right registers and right places at the right time. This amp does that very well.

This is not a great amp with single coil pickups and hi gain - hum/buzz as you might expect. However my Deluxe Strat with the SCN eliminiates that problem well (in fact better than the Duncan Blackback humbuckers in when switched to coil split positions). Of course when recording I run the tracks through a gate - live its much less an issue .. I will probably try some pre-amp tube substitutions for maybe less gain, less hum, and perhaps more headroom. There is certainly way more than

Have not had it long enough for anything to break. It seems pretty solid. I did break one of the EL-84 tube hold downs installing the tubes (DOH - my bad) - easily replaced - however they are not quite as springy as they look.

I wouldn't bring any amp to a gig without a backup. They all break eventually. This is a pretty mature circuit design and runs pretty cool as well. I'd expect it to be very reliable for what I expect from it. Tube amps are not the best for reliability because tubes are obviously fragile. Handwired with nice solder joints and good components I would expect this to be as good as any other tube amp out there - which in my opinion can only get to a 7. You want the best reliability you might want to consider something solid state.

Also, tubes can get expensive and you almost have to mail order them these days.

Very easy to deal with and trustworthy. I had to prepay everything but everything was built and shipped exactly as promised. Also you are getting a real deal here if you shop around for an 18 watt.

Not to convenient to ship back and forth to Canada - hence the low rating. They deserve a 10 in attitude department however.

Have you priced these things? You could pay $3k+ for Marshalls 18 watt reissue. This is a bargain. I'm very happy with it and I would buy another one. Lots of other 18 watt amps out there that are more expensive - however I have not tried a side by side comparison. Also think Stephen at Trinity has built some stuff into this amp that is quite unique - he's got a pretty impressive bit of experience on these things.

A combo is a better idea if you don't already have a speaker cab - however this does give you some flexibility with a head.

If I could only have one amp (bummer) I'm not sure this would be the one - I'd probably want something that could do the clean thing a bit better. But that said - this is my favorite of all the amps I do have as it generates the tone I most often want. Of course for as reasonbly priced as this amp is its hardly an issue - and with any tube amp you should really have a backup anyway.

Feel free to e-mail me if you have any questions - although I don't check that e-mail (hey its my spambox) too often so be patient.

This amp is a 2005 Trinity Amps 18 Watt head. For those who don't already know this amp is made in the style of classic Marshalls. The amp has two channels. The TMB channel emulates a plexi front end and has treble, middle and base controls along with volume and a master volume. The Normal channel has just one tone and one volume with no master volume and is based on the 18 Watt Marshall. The head was hand made for me in purple levant tolex with gold piping. I play mostly rock and blues styles and this amp is perfect for that. I was looking for an amp that gave me that old Plexi type grind and this amp sure delivers and then some. The channels can not be bridged on this model. If you want to bridge channels get the Tremolo version. The power section is cathode biased and uses no negative feedback. This makes the amp very full and rich sounding.

This amp has no reverb, no fx loop but does have the option for a line out (which I like). I can use this as part of a wet dry setup. The amp is plenty loud. Plenty. I use the amp in the studio and for gigs with a fairly efficient 2x12 cab with one Celestion blue and one G12H30. The amp came with Shuguang Chinese 12ax7's and Russian EL84M's. Over all, if you are familiar with a MV and non MV marshalls you will feel very comfortable with the set-up. The fit and finish of the cab and chassis was top notch. I own amps that cost 4 times as much as this one that don't look this good inside or out. You can see more details at their website www.trinityamps.com . Here is a picture of my actual amp before delivery.

http://www.18watt.com/files/bethune_tmb_01_19_2.jpg

I play a range of guitars. Mostly Fender and Gibson models with a couple of Tokais thown in there for good measure. The guitars come with a range of pickups, Various fender single coils, P-90's, '57 Classics and Duncan's. With these guitars I can pretty much drive any amp any which way I like. This amp does really well with different guitars but it LOVES humbuckers. In the normal channel is like that classic Marshall grind a'la AC/DC. With a strat you get very good chime and a smooth round tone. Very fluid. The normal channel is fairly clean till around 4 or 5 and then it starts to open up very nicely. I haven't had it off of 10 since I got it. This is one of those amps you can control from your guitar using tone and volume controls to not only vary gain but feel as well. This was way more responsive than I was expecting from a channel with 2 controls.

The TMB channel is a slightly different animal. Much more aggressive. It delivers a nice high gain Plexi tone with lots of sustain. Here is a link to a sound clip done with my SG into the TMB channel.
www.18watt.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=download&id=1073
Between this channel and the normal channel there is a very accessible range of Marshall tones in a hand built affordable package. I asked for Heybor transformers in my amp and Steve at Trinity said it would be no problem. The Trinity 18 delivers just what I was looking for which was classic Marshall crunch and lead tones. The TMB channel has the ability to be right on the edge (which I like). This results in lots of harmonics and musical feedback heard in the above clip. The range of the tone controls is quite useful too. No flubby bass or ice pick highs. I have been experimenting with very low treble settings lately. It works great with this channel. Mids at 10 Bass at 5 and the treble down low. With a Les Paul there is nothing like it. The midrange voice of this amp is remarkable. And it is one LOUD 18 WATTS. The amp sounds crunchy as hell with the Blue/G12H30 2x12. It is somewhat smoother and punchier with a V30 in a closed back cab. I also tried it with 2 different Marshall 1960 slant cabs. Sounded good each time. This amp is pretty sensitive to the way you hit the strings. Certain picking styles can yield a most interesting note bloom. The envelope seems to change all by itself after you pick the note.

There is little or no clean head room on this amp. You can get cleanish tones from the amp but once the tone and volume gets up there the amp gets hairy very quickly. Using the low input on the Normal Channel helps a bit. But, if you are looking for ripping tone at a lower power I can easily recommend the Trinity 18. There are plenty of clips of Trinity's products located on their web-site. Any way you slice it, we are talking about the classic Marshall grind and gain.

Trinity's work is meticulous. And the construction of cab and chassis is first rate with finger jointed cab and quality components inside a gold anodized chassis. To give it that classic Marshall look, Trinity uses thick Garolite, "Red Swirl" perf board, authentically reproduced with Marshall hole grid pattern. Looks good, sounds good and I have no fear of this one going south on me any time soon. This thing is clean and mean inside and out.

I have bought one other amp from Trinity. It was the Trinity 15, a Matchless lightning derived design and another fine piece of work. Steve at Trinity has always been very helpful. He hand builds the cabs and chassis does the tolex and everything. A true turnkey operation. i.e. He custom built the entire amp by hand. He was very helpful detailing options I had and discussing them with me. The manual and that came with the amp were nice touches. The manual was VERY detailed with all kinds of layout and wiring diagrams and stuff. Very cool. There is a section for tone tweaks and mods too. Fantastic.

I have been playing since 1967. I currently own Fender Blackface and Tweed style amps, a Univalve, Trinity 15 and a Two Rock Opal. If this amp were lost or stolen I would order another one right away. Probably red with white piping this time. These have some of the best cabs and workmanship I have ever seen in a guitar amp. Solid and pretty. Looks good and sounds good.

Trinity custom builds, one amp at a time giving each one, at least mine, all possible care, attention and mojo at each stage of the process. Steve was working on a 2x12 Combo when I ordered mine so I had to wait a little while. But I got regular updates about my baby and the initial delivery date was only a week or so off.