Housed in a beautiful tweed-covered pine cabinet, the ValveTrain 416 is a pretty and portable 35lb amplifier perfectly suited to studio work, club gigs or just plain jamming with friends. Some of it's outstanding features include:
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16 watts, cathode biased, (2) 6v6 power tubes
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(2) 12AX7 tubes for preamp and phase inverter
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5U4 rectifier tube
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Aluminum chassis with chassis mounted ceramic tube sockets
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Custom wound US-made transformers
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Hi and Lo Inputs
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Normal and Bright Channels internally jumpered with individual Volume controls
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Tone Control and Master Volume control
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Boost switches for Normal and Bright channels
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US-made Eminence Wizard 12" speaker
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18"H, 22"W, 10"D
What's with this "jumper" stuff? Back in the old days many early amplifiers had Hi and Lo inputs and Normal and Bright Channels. Clever souls found out that if they put a jumper cable between the low inputs of each channel, they could plug the guitar into one channel but essentially run both. This allows blending the two channels for a wide variety of sounds. ValveTrain essentially wired in the jumper internally for you, but the effect is the same: Tremendous tonal flexibility by blending the two volume controls.
With three volume controls and two boost switches there are a lot options in how you can set up your sound. For cleaner sounds with good headroom and clarity, run the Master up above "7" and adjust the Normal and Bright Channels to taste. The sounds are clear and percussive, with good snap and a nice dose of Blackface glassiness. For a traditional Tweed "Brown" sound run the Master lower and turn the Normal and Bright volume controls anywhere from "4-10". There are many shades available here from compressed clean to slightly hairy, to full-on grind.
As mentioned earlier, each channel also has a boost switch which adds a moderate dose of additional gain. There is not a dramatic jump in volume, but more an increase in grit and harmonics. The boost switches are gain sensitive and will react more or less depending on Volume control settings. Plus you can add the boost to just one channel, both, or none.
While this is not a channel switching amp, the controls are so simple that a quick twist of a knob or two is all it takes to totally change the amp's character. It's a lot of fun just to twist the Master up to about "9" and just have at with the channel controls and guitar volume. With plenty of volume to hang with the band, but enough finess to create warm creamy tones at practice volumes, the Valvetrain 416 is a great choice for roots, blues, country and even jazz.
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