What’s With The Low Prices?
Heatseeker hs-18: tube guitar amp, hand built, awesome tone, gig-worthy and versatile too ... for $950.00. How???
There exists a market perception that if an amp is to be called "boutique" - meaning it is hand made by a small manufacturer - the price has to reflect the aura of hand built production and "the best" components. That means a player must decide to part with a lot of cash to enter the sacred world of boutique tone.
Mack Music Systems Limited was created to dispel that perception!
Just because our Heatseeker's price is less than virtually any "boutique" guitar amp doesn't mean it's a pretender. It's the real thing. Purposely designed to deliver incredible value.
Value ... tone that inspires any player at any skill level ... the dynamics, playing feel and response of all-tube circuitry ... crystal clean chime and cluck to girthy overdrive to burning distortion all at a twist of your guitar's volume knob ... for less money than you would ever expect to pay for a hand made amp!
That's value!
Value is the concept upon which our company is built. Mack Music Systems Limited - how it's structured and how it operates - has been crafted from the ground up to achieve one objective: deliver inspiring, hand built, high quality tube guitar tone at a truly affordable price.
What does that mean? How do we sell kick ass, hand made tube guitar amps well below boutique prices? Here's how ...
- Circuit design makes more of an impact on tone than the use of high-end components. In our opinion, spending a bunch of money on specialty transformers, capacitors and the like doesn’t improve the tone enough (if at all) to justify the added cost. We use readily available, reliable electronic parts that cost far less than their high-end brethren do and they produce great tube tone. Heatseeker owners confirm that.
- Leave the signal path as uncluttered as possible. Circuitry such as multiple tone controls and a master volume can negatively affect an amp’s tone. We believe that minimizing the components in the signal path lets the amp speak with its true voice. We think you'll soon see a trend toward ‘tone lift’ switches that completely remove the tone controls from the circuit. Why? Because players are realizing that an amp sounds better without gain sucking tone controls. Yes, it gives up tone sculpting options. However, the difference in raw tone coming from an amp with a single, simple tone control like the Heatseeker's or without a tone stack altogether is quite amazing. Fewer components = terrific tone at a great price!
- We like power tube distortion! Preamp distortion has its place, but we prefer power tube distortion. Generating an amp’s distortion tone in the preamp with a bunch of gain stages produces a less pleasing, ‘buzzy’ sound as compared to girthy power amp distortion. In our opinion, an amp is better off having just enough total preamp gain to slam the power section into its sweet spot. Simplified preamp + power tube distortion = terrific tone at a great price!
Construction techniques. Every main assembly or fabricated component in a Heatseeker has been designed using Computer Aided Design (CAD) software. What does that have to do with value? Lots!
The most important reasons we use design software are precision and the use of templates. Precise design facilitates efficient production of standard components. Using precisely plotted production templates means we can reduce build labor to a minimum. Once again, that all means an affordable price.
Component standardization. To the extent possible, our future products will use standard components. That doesn’t mean our amps will all sound the same. It means that things such as cabinets, fasteners, handles, and as many electronic components as possible will be common among our products. The more we standardize, the more parts we can buy in larger quantities, which minimizes costs ... and prices!
Product line. At the moment we have only two products: the Heatseeker hs-18 all tube guitar amp head and the accompanying 1X12 CB speaker cabinet. We'll be adding more soon.
So, what’s the big deal? Well, over time you will see that our product line will expand in moderation. There won’t be too many amps.
Keeping a lid on the number of amps in our future product stable may not seem very smart. Some amp manufacturers freely follow their design muse, which often results in a wide range of products that have little in common. They may all sound terrific, but too many models can result in production inefficiencies. That means higher costs and higher prices.
The Heatseeker's platform will spawn future products. At the moment we have plans for two more amps and are considering a third. Each designed to provide a unique sound experience while keeping manufacturing efficiency and standardization in mind. Utilizing many of the Heatseeker's design elements and components in those future products will minimize cost and help us maintain low prices. Makes sense to us.
BUY TONE NOT GLITZ!
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