TopHat Vanderbilt 33

TOPHAT'S NEW " VANDERBILT 33" Available Now - Take A Look Inside & Out

Brian at TopHat has designed yet another benchmark amp. The Vanderbilt 33 is a bigger, thicker, chewier version of what the Supreme 16 is. Not better but different. This is the dream amp for those who love the rhythm sounds of Richards and Townshend and all in between, and who crave lead tones that are super fat and chewy where you can hang onto and squeeze every bit of juice out of each note. No need for reverb or any effect for that matter. The Vanderbilt 33 has less compression than the Supreme16. It's overall EQ, while putting more focus and meat in the low mids, also has a bigger tighter low end as well as a thicker rounder top end. It is exactly the difference you would expect to hear between EL84s and 6L6s in the output section. The extra meat and less compressed sound can easily give the illusion that there is as much or more gain on tap than it's predecessor, and for the greatest classic rock sounds, you would not want for more. It takes wonderfully to single coils as well as humbuckers and it embraces most every pedal that can be thrown at it. Our favorite is playing a Blackguard Tele straight in. It's everywhere from Richards and Townshend to West and Beck and beyond.

Playing the Vanderbilt is somewhat comparable to finger-painting where you have this thick beautiful mass of tone at your control that you can push and move around with your fingertips with it taking quite a while before it begins to thin out and fade away. Big thick gorgeous 6L6 tone for days.

The Amp produces 33 watts of big luscious chewy tone, utilizing 3-12AX7's, 1-EF86, 2-6L6's or 2-EL34's in cathode biased classA configuration, and a GZ34 rectifier tube. It has 2 channels, 1 AC15 preamp and 1 hot-rodded Super Deluxe type channel with full EQ. It has an aluminum chassis and it can also run a 12AY7 in the 1st gain stage of the full EQ channel to give more clean headroom. It has 2 each of 4 and 8 ohm taps and it works best with 2 Alnico Blues. The head cabinet has 2 and 3 tone vinyl covering with inlaid art-deco piping and inset back lit logo and the amp is 120 and 240 volt, switchable. The front panel controls, besides the power and standby switches, are: Channel 1 = Hi & Lo Inputs, Volume, Fat/Bright switch. Channel 2 = Hi & Lo Inputs, Bass, Middle, Treble, Master & Gain. The rear of the amp has a Fat/Off/Bright switch for Channel 2 and a universal cut knob. The build quality is of the absolute highest order, as you can see in the picture below.

The head is $2349 and the 2x12 cab w/ G12H Heritage and Alnico Blue is $999 and with 2 Alnico Blues (recommended) it's $1099. It is available in the Black and Crème or Burgundy and Crème combination. The cosmetics are the same as the Supreme 16 but the sound is deeper and thicker, with a bit less distortion but loads of sing and sustain. It delivers exactly what we would have hoped for from the 6L6 output section. The most beautiful vintage style 6L6 based, big n' thick voiced amp to come along!