| Andy Marshall is one of the most innovative people
in the business. He started THD Electronics in the mid '80s and every
since has been coming up with fresh & ingenious ways for guitar players
to ... well ... achieve tone nirvana! Everything from his Hot Plate
power attenuator (the only one I've ever played that REALLY works) to his
Yellow Jacket tube converters to his hand made amplifiers and cabinets
are unique, well thought out, bullet proof and just dripping
with tone!!!
Below I've included an excerpt from Andy's website
describing his Flexi-50 head, but really, you HAVE to plug
into this thing to get the story. When I say the different tones
you can achieve with this amp are limitless, it just sounds like
more of my hype, but really, when you start plugging in the
many different preamp and power amp tubes into this unit you realize that
it's true. This is one VERSATILE unit!!!
"The Flexi-50 is a precision hand-built 50-watt
Class-AB amplifier with foot-switchable overdrive/boost, foot-switchable
master volume control and the ability to use almost any preamp and power
tubes in any combination, including 6L6, EL34, 6V6, 6CA7, 8417, 6550, KT66,
KT77, KT88, KT90, KT100, EL84 (with Yellow Jacket adapter), 6K6, 6F6, 12AX7,
12AY7, 12AU7, 12AT7, 12AZ7, 12DW7, 12BH7, ECC83, ECC82, ECC81 and many
more, giving the user a huge pallet of available sounds simply by changing
tubes. The amplifier has a fat, clear, full clean sound reminiscent of
late 1950s to early 1960s American combos, and overdrive to rival the best
British heads. Even at the highest overdrive settings, the amp still demonstrates
dramatic touch sensitivity, cleaning up very well when the volume on the
guitar is reduced. Additional features include external bias test points
and individual bias controls, permitting the user to quickly and accurately
set the output tube bias with any digital voltmeter. The dual bias controls
permit the user to correctly bias even mismatched tubes, eliminating the
need for matched power tubes.
What does all of this mean for you, the player?
It could very well mean that the search for your sound is finally over.
While the THD UniValve and BiValve-30 amplifiers offer the same flexibility
and choice of tubes, they do so in a Class-A circuit. While Class-A amplifiers
do have a strong following due to their smooth, even character, there are
many players who need, or even crave the immediacy, clarity and "punch"
of a grid-biased Class-AB amplifier.
How is the Flexi-50 different? First off , it
is a single-channel amplifier, but one that can be switched and blended
among a number of different sounding and different feeling voices. The
changes can come from a number of methods including foot-switching a preset
boost level with its own, dedicated tone control that allows you to make
your boosted sound darker than the clean sound, brighter, or anywhere in
between.
The unique combination of our touch-sensitive
input circuit and the wonderfully active and reactive tone control section
(that we slaved a year to perfect) make for a front-end that really responds
to subtle and not-so-subtle changes in the signal being fed into the amplifier
either by the guitar or any effect that may be between the guitar and the
amplifier. Back off on the volume control and the amp gets much cleaner
without losing the fatness of the full-volume sound. How do we do this?
You buy the sushi and well, get as technical as you want, but what
really matters is that it works, not so much how it works." |