SOLD 65 Amps Lil Elvis

muddery · February 2014

This is an early serial Lil Elvis and comes with foot switch and flight case.

3 x 12AX7, 2x EL84. Output is 12 watts clean to 17 watts dimed.

Master Voltage- not Master Volume. Lowers preamp and power tubes output together and retains the feel of the amp down to around 4 watts.

'Bump' isn't a channel but a midrange boost providing a fatter sound with natural and harmonic distortion.

'Smooth' switch is very subtle and removes some crossover distortion on higher gain settings.

Tube-Biased tremolo, with flashing LED to indicate speed.

Thanks!

muddery · February 2014

A story of the history behind this amp:

Dan Boul owner of 65 Amps went through 225 Vox amps when collaborating with owner of Vox Museum and author of the 'Vox Amplifiers' book Jim Elyea. One of these amps was a then unknown prototype (complete with nailed in chassis) made by Vox pioneer Dick Denny for himself.

The amp didn't have much of a clean tone but had fantastic distortion. The circuit was different to what Vox had ever released commercially and the transformer was nothing VOX had ever used in any of their amps.

After some detective work, the transformer was discovered to be made by a small Hi-Fi company in the UK called Sowter and was a 'Butt Stacked' type. An old- fashioned way of making them and a crucial part of making the amp distort in the way it did.

The transformer was analysed by Mercury Magnetics in Chatsworth, CA and then cloned to replicate a similar, if not better, performance. 65 Amps then went through their own process of tidying up and modernising the circuit, giving a much better clean voice, extra reliability and adding tube biased tremolo.

When Jim released the book, Derek Underdown (head engineer of Vox from 1954) came over to celebrate the launch and met with Dan. Derek remembered the prototype instantly and provided invaluable advice to finish what would later be called the 'Lil Elvis'

One of mystery elements Derek provided was a 'trick' he learned maintaining signals during aerial bombings in WWII as an RAF radar station tech. Derek said he couldn't exactly understand how or why it worked so well, but it just made things sound a lot bigger!

Hence the name 'Lil Elvis'. Inspired by the 'Tiny Elvis' SNL sketch- no matter how small he gets Elvis still packs a mean punch!

relic245 · February 2014

Ohh, had the pleasure of playing one of these about 3 years ago, simply one of the best amps I've ever heard. To my ears it blew the Drz's and bogners I played the same day out of the water. If only......

octatonic · February 2014

30 miles of where?

muddery · February 2014

octatonic said:

30 miles of where?

PM'd.

octatonic · February 2014

I was just pointing out that you said delivery within a radius of 30miles but no-one would know where from.

muddery · February 2014

octatonic said:

I was just pointing out that you said delivery within a radius of 30miles but no-one would know where from.

I'd prefer to discuss delivery on PM... I've altered that part now anyway! Cheers!

Blacksheep · February 2014

I'm interested. Wanna PM me details of where you are etc?

muddery · February 2014

PM'd! Cheers!

muddery · February 2014

Now sold!

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SOLD 65 Amps Lil Elvis

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