tube amplifiers

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Wampler

Brian Wampler founded Wampler Pedals, Inc. in 2007 as a guitar effects pedal company. Wampler started out by modding existing pedals before making his own designs. Wampler was active in the online DIY pedal-building community and self-published a series of books on guitar pedal design that helped launch the careers of other boutique guitar pedal builders. The very earliest Wampler pedals were made in Brian's garage, before production was moved to a factory in Kentucky and circa 2019 Wampler effects were made and distributed by Boutique Amps Distribution in California.

Source: Wampler pedals website (17 October 2019)

Fryette

Steven Fryette founded VHT Amplification in Studio City, Los Angeles, California in 1989. Steven Fryette had started out in 1976 as a technician at Valley Arts in California doing repairs and custom work. The company name was changed from VHT to  Steven Fryette Design, Inc in 2009 and began using the Fryette Amplifcation brand name for its products. The VHT brand name is still in use by a different company. Fryette Amplification manufacture hand built electric guitar amplifiers, speaker cabinets, power amplifiers, sound effects pedals and pedalboard accessories.

Source: Fryette Amplification website (8 October 2019)

Blackstar

Blackstar had its origins in 2004 when four friends & bandmates decided to form a company to create new and innovative guitar amplifiers and pedals. Having spent two and a half years doing intensive technical research in a garden shed in Northampton England, the first Blackstar products were ready and in March 2007, Blackstar was officially launched at the Frankfurt Musik Messe. Since then they have moved from the garden shed to our own premises, which has a purpose built lab and studio.

Source: Blackstar Amplification website (7 October 2019)

Roadrunner

Laurent Hassoun founded Roadrunner Guitars in 1994 in Nancy, France. Laurent develops and makes custom guitars (solid body, archtop, lapsteels, ukeleles), basses, resophonics, effects, amps, mikes and custom parts, Musicians such as Money Mark, Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth), Billy Childish and the French Wampas Groups, Sanseverino and Silmarils joined Bo Diddley and Gibbons in using Roadrunner products. Around 2003, Laurent began to make his own parts for his guitars. All Roadrunner Guitars' products and parts are hand-made.

Source: Roadrunner Guitars website (7 October 2019)

Bird

Bird Amplifiers were made from the late 1950s until the mid 1960s by Sydney S. Bird and Sons of Poole, Dorset. Sydney Bird's company started out in the 1930s in Enfield making toys and electronics. They relocated to a larger factory Poole in 1953 and diversified into other products including electronic organs and in the late 1950s they added guitar amplifiers to their product line. The company stopped making amplifiers by 1966 in the face of strong competition from other British amplifier companies of the era.

This brand is not related to "Bird Brothers" amplifiers - these amplifiers were distributed in the 1970s and 1980s by brothers Peter and Arthur Bird who operated some music shops around Manchester, UK.

Source: Tim Fletcher and Steve Russell (4 June 2019)

Hamstead

Hamstead Soundworks was founded by Peter Hamstead an electronics engineer with a design and development background in avionics and radar. Peter Hamstead got started in music electronics when Jim Bird asked him to replicate an old guitar amplifier. In trying to replicate it, Peter saw how he could improve it. This led to a line of Hamstead tube amplifiers and effects pedals.

Source: Hamstead Soundworks website (4 June 2019)

Plush

Plush tube amps and cabinets were made by the  Plush Electronics Division which started out in New York around 1968/1969 and was head quartered in 30 Irving Street. A key cosmetic feature was their plush tuck-and-roll upholstery but the amplifier circuits were based on Fender designs.The early 1970s Plush went out of business and stopped trading. Two ex Plush employees Mark Neuman and Dave Garrett went on to run Earth Sound Research around 1972 - and some of the early Earth amplifiers were replicas of Plush models.

Source: Plush amps catalogs 1969 - 1971

Source: Untold history of Earth Sound Research (2 May 2019)

Quilter

The Quilter Sound Company was founded in 1968 by Patrick Howe Quilter. Patrick Quilter was an engineering student with an interest in electronics and music, who built his first amp in 1967 for a friend. In the early 1970s the company operated out of a store in Costa Mesa, California and the amplifiers were built and sold on the same site.

Over the years, the Quilter Sound Company became more focused on developing professional power amplifiers and the guitar amp side of the business became less important. In the 1990s Quilter developed network audio systems to control and monitor amplifier systems remotely and also moved into loudspeaker research and development. The company was renamed QSC, LLC in 2015.

Patrick Quilter retired from QSC in 2011, but then founded Quilter Labs to develop portable, solid-state, high-power guitar amplifiers.

Paris

Paris Amplifiers were made in Kansas. They were distributed by LW Hagelin Co. of Minneapolis in the mid 1960s. Hagelin also handled Magnatone amplifiers and guitars in the Central Plains states.

Source: Paris Amplifiers catalog 1966

Source: Billboard Magazine. 20 May 1967.

PANaramic

PANaramic electric guitars were built by Crucianelli in Italy for Pancordion Inc. a musical instrument distributor in New York City. The identical models can be found elsewhere under different brand names (e.g. Vox, Elite, Tonemaster). There were also PANaramic acoustic guitars - its unclear whether these were also all made by Crucianelli. Other Pancordion affiliated companies distributed PANaramic instruments and amplifiers, including Ernest Deffner of New York.

Source: PANaramic catalogs 1963 - 1965

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