Product: Winfield Thomas Amps High Power Elizabeth Head
Price Paid: N/A
Submitted
09/15/2005
at
04:34pm
by
teleblooz
Email: teleblooz<at>hotmail dot com
Features
:
No Opinion
Probably 5 years old or so.....bought used, so I'm not sure. Butt simple blackface design. 5 tubes total. 2 NOS GE 6L6's, one NOS RCA 12AT7, 1 NOS 12AX7 RCA and a NOS GE GZ34 producing around 45 watts. The amp came with JJ pre and power tubes and a Sino rectifier. I've had the NOS tubes ( other that the rectifier )lying around for 25 years or so, so it was a nice fit. Sounded great with the JJ's and kicked it up a notch or two with the NOS tubes.
Right to left on the control panel goes: High and low input, bright switch, volume treble, mid, bass.....all knobs are cool looking vintage cream chicken heads.
The back of the amp has two speaker outs and a rotary chicken head for 2-4-8-16 ohm operation.
Other Elizabeths will take 6V6's or 6L6's. According to Winnie, this one was designed for 6L6's only. Fine by me. The awesome tone and clean headroom leaves me wanting nothing more.
Not many bells and whistles compared to todays kitchen sink amps, but excellent tone and build quality is what this amp is all about. Tone is the feature I wanted and what I got when I bought this amp.
The insides are beautifully hand wired.
Sound Quality
:
No Opinion
Suffice to say this amp gets a regular dose of classic humbucker and single coil equipped guitars ran through it. This amp excels in the blues/jazz arena but would also make a fine country or rock & roll amp.
Various speaker cabs ( and speaker types ) imply various sonic imprints. All are good, just diffferent. This amps seems to like higher wattage speakers though.
The controls do an excellent job and there is not a bad setting on this amp.
The clean headroom is lush and fat until higher up the dial when the natural beauty of overdriven power tubes starts coming into play.
This amplifier is pedal friendly and loves a good low gain overdrive goosing the front end.
What sets this amp apart is how the lovely tone of each instrument comes through. Each pickup setting is different and distinct.
This is an absolutley addicting amplifier to play through.
Reliability
:
No Opinion
Bullet proof! No problems so far and I do not forsee any.
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
Seems to be a great guy who cares very much about his amplifiers and those who buy them.
Overall Rating
:
10
In my opinion, Winfield Thomas amps are an incredible value for an american made, hand built, hand wired tube amp. Mr Thomas makes several styles of amplifiers. I've spoken with other players who have his Marshall/Vox style amps and they are just as ferverent in their tonal appreciation.
