HAMSTEAD ARTIST 60+RT HEAD

£1,999

Alittle too often, excellence in guitar tone comes in the form of a modern refinement of a design from the 1950s or 60s. It’s a true pleasure, then, to encounter a really original design that excites and satisfies as much as any benchmark classic that our ears are already attuned to. Such is the Artist 60+RT from Hamstead (see review, p18). Maybe it was the aerospace-grade build quality or perhaps it was the particularly thought-out feature set, such as tremolo you can switch to run before or after the amp’s long-pan spring reverb to offer two distinct sonic flavours. The amp abounds in touches like that, such as EQ controls for the reverb voicing and optical switches on the footswitch for noiseless, clunkfree operation. Importantly, the top-to-toe thinking that’s gone into this head celebrates the idea that it is possible to improve on valve amp design, not merely fettle and fetishise classics of the past. Sonically, the amp doesn’t disappoint – coming across, at times, as a slightly creamier take on the various hard-edged amps out there derived from Dumble Overdrive Specials. But lazy analogies of that kind are inappropriate because the truth is it stands proudly on its own rubber feet – a distinctive voice from an independent British maker. For more on the brand’s philosophy, check out Workshop on p120. //www.hamsteadsoundworks.com