Matchless Amps

[jswiss]

These amps seem amazing, does anyone have an opinion? anyone have any experience or like specific models?
Also, does anyone think theyre worth 3-4x the price tag of other decent tube amps?

[Warren Pederson]

Robert Cray sure makes em sound good.

[Big_Bend]

I briefly owned a Matchless Lightning 2x12 combo amp with Reverb.

Meh.

Do not like EL84 tube amps, give me a 6L6 amp anyday.

[uriah1]

A buddy of mine had one, said great amp, but, his model did not take pedals well.

[twangjeff]

Their amps are basically hot rodded AC-30s. They are sort of a one trick pony, BUT they do that trick very well! If you are interested in that type of sound I would also check out Dr. Z, their amps are built very well and much more reasonably priced.

Matchless amps go under several names for what it is worth. Mark Sampson was the original guy behind Matchless, after a while he got out of the business and started Bad Cat amps, after a short while their sold the company and started Starr amplifiers. Since then, a group has bought the old Matchless company and is building amps again, although they have no affiliation with Sampson. I tell you all this so that you can keep your eyes open, if you find a good deal on a Bad Cat for instance, you would be getting essentially the same amp as a Matchless.

It all depends on if that Class A type of tone is something that you like or not. Personally, I am a Fender amp guy, but I can definitely respect the build quality and craftsmanship that goes into Matchless amps.

As a side note... These are amps that you should really play before you buy, especially if you have never played a class A powered amp before. The way that they break up and compress is VERY different than a class AB amp and it may take a while to get used to if you have never played with amps that operate that way before.

Hope that helps.

[BobbyZ]

I almost bought an old Matchless Chieften a few years ago. The way it was sitting mixed in with a bunch of POS amps I thought."thay don't know what thay have here"
Well thay knew exactly what thay had ! It was built when Mark Sampons was still with Matchless and thay wanted $3500 for it.
I was hoping to grab it for like $350.

[KC]

I have a Bad Cat Black Cat 30, essentially the same as the Matchless DC-30 -- both of them Sampson updates on the AC-30, 4 el84s, one bass / treble channel based on the 12ax7, one clicker channel based on the EF86, master vol, cut control. I got mine used a few years back, for a decent price, and never regretted it. It's a very sweet-sounding amp that will still cut through any mix, even with quite a bit of breakup, especially on the EF86 channel. Loud and present enough for any gig. Very well put together -- you won't wonder where the money went when you pick it up.

Downsides: expensive, heavy, sounds better with the master defeated (like every other amp I've played) and is pretty freakin loud by then. Half-power switch changes the tone, more than the volume. Stupid cat eyes that light up. And half of all EF86 tubes are microphonic junk. (I've got a JJ EF806 in there now that's working fine, though, fingers crossed.)

Overall, though, this is a sound that really works for me and I've gigged it enough so that the cost-per-use is down to a pretty reasonable level. So yeah, totally worth it.

[ToneShark]

I've had a few Bad Cats, played a few Matchlesses but never liked any of them enough to buy them. They're nice, but heavy. Most (not all) are cut from the Vox cloth, but they do a lot more than that.

As for whether they're worth "3-4x the price tag of other decent tube amps," well, that's sort of an odd statement. If you buy one of these brand new, you'll surely pay way more than the amp is worth. If you buy one used, you'll pay exactly what the amp is worth (give or take), and if that price is still 3-4x the price tag of other decent tube amps, then I would really challenge your definition of "decent" with regard to amps.

Ultimately, the only good advice I can give you (and the only good advice anyone else here can give you) is to try one. Or try ten, if you can. Only YOU can determine if it's worth the asking price to buy one. I highly recommend trying to go used... play new ones if that's what it takes to test one, but for god's sake, buy used. The resale isn't really that great on most boutique amps, so if you're starting in the $3-4k range, you're going to take a pretty big hit if the amp ends up not working out for you. And realistically, that can happen...

[Wally]

They aren't Class A....they are cathode-biased---at least the Vox 'clones' are. Teh Lightning is the best 2 x EL-84 amp I have ever played through...whips anything else, imho.
The original Matchless amps are the only amps I have seen that are laid out as well are the old HiWatts...and the old Sano's from NEw Jersey now that I think about it. Every bend is a right angle, every crossing is at a right angle. Every solder joint was dabbed with a blue mark to denote inspection.
(Note: I have never gotten to see inside one of the high dollar Allesandros.)
What's it worth? Whatever the ear of the beholder says it is worth. By the way, if you have one of the earlier ones, don't spend big bucks on retubing the power tube section. I once put in some of the higher dollar Sovteks, and the amp sounded poorly. I got through to Mark Sampson who told me that the amp wanted to see the cheaper Sovtek becasue that was the tube that he designed the amp around. I put some of the cheaper tubes in, and the amp sounded like it was supposed to....big and wonderful. This was in pre-JJ days--for me-- in the mid-90's. I don't know what other tubes will make the amp go to work, but the cheaper Sovtek works in the DC-30, ime.

[Texas Jake]

There's a lot of great information here. Most of it is pretty much spot on with my experience. I bought my SC30 in '94 before the prices went through the roof. My Matchless has paid for itself many times over and is still going strong. They're very well built amps.

Couple notes on set-up on the x30 series amps. If it has a master volume (as mine does; it was an option back then), don't use it. Nothing more needs to be said there.

These are the loudest 30 watt amps I've ever heard and they do take pedals very well. For my country gigs, I generally run the first channel (12ax7 based) at 30 watts and use a comp pedal and a TS9 for boost. Clean, twang, and drive for days. Really nice.

However, if you're more into amp tones, channel 2 (EF86 based) really kills. You need to get the amp working before it comes to life and that's generally too loud for most stage and studio use (even at 15 watts). I use a THD 8ohm Hot Plate with mine. Run the volume somewhere around 2 O'clock, tone about 4 clicks from the left, and cut to taste. Use the Hot Plate to adjust overall level. The best way I can describe the tone is inspiring. You cannot do this with the Master Volume. That will simply suck all the goodness out and leave you wanting.

One last thing, I don't know if the new ones do this or not but the old x30 amps gave you the choice of running 2 x 5V4 rectifier tubes or 1 x 5AR4. I've always run the 5V4's since that's what mine came with but the 5AR4's reportedly have a more aggressive sound.

I don't know much about the new owners of Matchless but I recently traded email with current COO Phil Jamison and he indicated he was with Matchless back when my amp was built. I haven't had to contact them for support very often but when I've needed it, the support has been very good.

EDIT: The only amp I'd consider selling my Matchless for is a Z Wreck. Though I think the Matchless does the clean thing a bit better, the overdriven sound of the Z Wreck is pretty astonishing.

[FenderLover]

I like my Cheiftain (EL34's). It's signed by Phil Jamison inside. I've read that while Sampson was a big drive for Matchless in the early days, it was Jamison who was primarily involved with production. Please correct me if I got that wrong... Therefore I wouldn't read too much into the fact that it's not 'Sampson era' unless you're looking to collect for that reason. Mine was built in '04 and the production workmanship is still impecable.

While Matchless used the 'undesireable' Master volume connection that most people loathe, I like mine. The trick with that type of Master is to use it only to take the top end off (just like using an attenuator). If you're looking for bedroom volume the Master sounds bad, and you are using the wrong amp for the job.

At volume it does clean-to-mean very nicely for me. The bass stays together nicely. I'm running Svetlana's outputs and Bugle Boy pre's.

[tweeddeluxe]

Does anyone use Google?

[ToneShark]

Originally Posted by tweeddeluxe

Does anyone use Google?

http://bit.ly/MSyrlw

[Wally]

Originally Posted by tweeddeluxe

Does anyone use Google?

I am sure that a few folks do at times use search engines. What's the point of your question, which is at best way off topic?

[backline]

Originally Posted by jswiss

These amps seem amazing, does anyone have an opinion? anyone have any experience or like specific models?
Also, does anyone think theyre worth 3-4x the price tag of other decent tube amps?

Are they really 3-4X the price of:
Roccaforte
Top Hat
Two Rock
Fuchs
Tone King
Dr Z
Glassworks
Carol Ann
etc. etc.

[macdog]

What's cool is that a guitar amplifier is named after an old British motorcycle and that the model names are usually based on old motorcycle model names, e.g Lightning.

Just my irrelevant 2 cents...

[Wayne Alexander]

I now have an SC-30, it's my favorite amp at the moment. It's certainly influenced by an AC30 but sounds pretty different from that. Much more filtering so it's tighter in the low end, somehow it has even more headroom than an AC30 (maybe it's the huge transformers?) and is just insanely loud. It will also make a wider range of sounds than an AC30. If you want to play it in a gig, you need an attenuator, the THD Hotplate works great with mine. It's got a good master volume but at gig volume you have to set it at quite a bit below 1 on a scale of 10. It sounds better cranked up more with the volume cut down by an attenuator.

[Vox66]

My Clubman 35 never did it for me. My '63 AC-30 does it for me in spades. I do like those Badcat Club amps, they sound do darn good.

[Burnt Gerbil]

Originally Posted by tweeddeluxe

Does anyone use Google?

Yes. At which point they find a 6 year old thread and register an account to respond to it. Then we yell at them for resurrecting a zombie thread and they never come back.

On topic, I have played a few. They're entirely out of my price range, so I've never been able to even consider buying one, but I really like them. The Chieftain is on the short list of my dream amps for when that rich uncle of mine in Budapest that used to email me finally comes through. I really need to meet that guy some day.