Hendyamps Abelard Head 001 Handwired Class A Tube Guitar Amp
In excellent shape, fully functional. Beautiful sounding guitar amp head.
The Abelard was designed to specifically accomplish three things:
1. Retain two independent, fully functioning channels that maximize versatility
2. Have an incredible amount of gain available with the ability to manipulate the tone of the distortion
3. Put both of these channels into an 18 watt power amp with no negative feedback loop.
In order to accomplish all of this, Hendyamps spent a good deal of time in research and development, culminating in one of the finest sounding 18 watt amps on the market today.
Channel 1
The first channel is a single 12ax7 gain stage into a basic tonestack that allows you to boost the treble or bass. From there, the guitar signal runs straight into the phase inverter and on into the power amp. The beauty of this channel is that it is as straight a path into the speakers as possible, providing plenty of distortion when pushed (think classic Marshall rock) while cleaning up well, and sounding like the guitar is literally coming out of the speakers - completely three dimensional and utterly responsive to the touch.
Channel 2
The second channel is a completely different animal - it is three 12ax7 gain stages of pure gain and distortion! The signal from the guitar begins its journey running through one gain stage and goes straight into a Fender style tonestack (With Bass, Mid, and High controls) and a gain knob. From there is goes through two more gain stages and is followed by a second gain knob. The first gain knob controls the gain from the first part of the preamp, while the second gain knob controls the gain from the latter part of the preamp and the phase inverter - two different types of distortion. Now the most interesting part of this channel (along with the two different gain controls) is the fact that the tonestack allows you to shape the tone and character of the distortion after the first gain stage. As you turn up or down the Bass knob, you get more or less bass overdrive - same for the mids and highs (similar to the Trainwreck amps, though still quite different). You can literally shape your tone however you want!
This channel indeed has a crazy amount of gain available, and in fact, when it was being designed, the amp was purposely sent into out of control oscillation in order to barely bring it back under control! The magic of this channel has much to do with the fact that when cranked, it is always on the verge of insanity, just barely contained.
Power Amp
The Abelard’s power section is comprised of two EL84’s for 18 watts, and includes no negative feedback loop. Without this loop, the amp just roars when pushed, literally coming out of the speakers at the player.
