I went to college after high school in a dual major of Anthropology and Music (percussion). My first semester was a disaster and after almost flunking out, Jackie Meyers my percussion professor suggested I do something music related. She basically thought I would never make a good percussionist. Pretty much bummed out I went back to the dorm were a friend down the hall with a killer stereo invited me in and we talked awhile and he said… Hey you can design stereo equipment it’s not rocket science, he handed me some DIY audio magazines.
I left that school and went to Ohio Northern University. My uncle was VP at Westinghouse and said they hired anyone out of that school. It was intense but there I learned how to design vacuum tubes then make vacuum tubes and make amplifiers from them and the same with transistors. We had our own labs and they were open 24 hours a day. I just went crazy building stuff all the time.
Fast forward I left the corporate world in 1995. Between graduating from College and then I did basically 2 jobs. Wavelength Audio was born in 1981, but some of my roommates say it started before then. In 1998 I joined NAMM and started working on guitar amps after a run in with a local guitar here Rob Fetters. Rob was co-lead guitar with Adrian Belew back then and has had a great solo and also lead in The Rasins and The Psycodots.
So what’s different with my designs? Well first off… I don’t copy any current or past designs, nope nothing like V, F and M. Noise why Noise… wouldn’t it be better to hear each note you play rather than modulating it over background noise? Second why duplicate V, F and M? For the push pull amplifiers the phase inverter is the limiting part of the design. I use a transformer to do this since it’s always right. Send in a positive signal and you get an exact copy the same volume with the negative side. This is called Magnetic Phase Coupling (MPC). All single ended amps are Class A. A2 is when you drive the grid forward which gives you about 20-25% more power output for the same tube. To do this you need to direct couple the driver tube to the input of the output tube. I do this crazy thing call Reactor Follower Coupling (RFC). Another name for a choke or inductor is a reactor, it made for a better name :) This takes the grid of the output tube positive which gets more power and more drive and better touch. It sounds freaken huge. The F guys at NAMM said I could patent that… well a little too busy and plus I would be telling the world my secrets.
Covid was pretty hard on me. I lost 3 transformer companies and was bored sick. I was working out one day when the gym closed on a spin bike we purchased and my MacBook Pro listening to YouTube videos. I searched for XTC my fav band (I built Andy Partridge an amp back in 2014 and we delivered it to Swindon, so much fun!). Anyway a That Pedal Show with Dave Gregory came up and I was like wow I like Dan & Mick. Then I watched the ToneBender show and while I said I would never make pedals. Well I had the time and so that started all the pedal stuff.
So if your looking for a design with less noise and more of what you are playing your in the right place.
Thanks,
Gordon
Yes I design and make everything myself!