Reviews

Posted Dec 10, 2009 1:45pm

Congratulations are in order for Texas based Kendrick Amplifiers on winning the coveted Editor’s Pick award from Guitar Player magazine for their K-15 unit (pictured). Company president Gerald Weber told us that he is ‘super stoked’ to win the award and that got us thinking that we ought to find out more about this hand-built, tube-driven piece of tone heaven…

To begin with, consider the cabinet; made from 170 year old antique pine, it’s not only super-resonant, but light too, meaning that the K-15 is portable and extremely gig friendly. Then there’s the custom-built 15 inch speaker which features a small voice coil to keep those all important guitar frequencies firmly in check.

Everything inside the K-15 is tube, tube, tube – even the three spring reverb unit – using four 12AX7s, two military spec E34Ls (promising Major Tone for General Performance – Ed) and a GZ34/5AR4 rectifier. In fact, Kendrick promise us that you won’t find a transistor inside the circuit at all – it’s valves all the way.

Even the ‘K’ on the front of the cab is there for a reason; apparently high frequencies come from the centre of a speaker, whereas the mids and lows come from the sides and so having what is effectively a baffle over the centre of the speaker means that the sound output is more balanced, wherever you are in the room.

As you can imagine, an amp that has been custom designed and hand-built isn’t going to be cheap, but you may be surprised to hear that the introductory retail is only $2,995, plus $55 shipping and insurance (in the USA). Order now and you’ll receive a special price of $2,495. They take eight weeks to build and so you’ve got time to raise the cash!

http://kendrick-amplifiers.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=KOS&Product_Code=KEN01-K-15&Category_Code=01