Matchless Lightning Reverb: LG-112 Combo

I’ve always been a sucker for a nice, lush, clean Class A tone. If you know the lineage of this company, there is nothing else like a Matchless amp. This little number packs a very loud 15 watts Class A into a single 12” combo…in plain terms it’s enough to go against a drummer in a Roots Rock, Country, Blues type of setting. This is by no means my usual choice in amp. My earliest experience with this amp was in a session. I was looking for a certain sparkle that I just wasn’t getting out of the Line 6 Pod that I had dialed up. After some deliberating over the various amps at the studio, I jumped on the Matchless Lightning. By plugging in an old Keeley modded SD1 Super Overdrive with a Roland Space Echo, I set the amp on a very mild break-up sound and I was able to just nail the “Radiohead-like” tone that the track was looking for. Very rarely do the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up for an amp that doesn’t roar like a harpy going to war. When we listened back to the track, the magic that poured out of the monitors made the engineer, producer and myself just grin in silence.

– Mike McAvan

Specifications

* 15 watts
* One channel
* Volume, Interactive Bass, Treble, Reverb and Master Volume controls
* 2 x EL84 power tubes
* 3 x 12AX7 preamp tubes
* 1 x 5AR4 Rectifier tube
* Dual inputs
* Celestion G12H 1 x12″ speaker
* Reverb
* 45lb