Matchless Superchief

- 120 watts
- Four EL34 power tubes
- Three 12AX7 preamp tubes
- Two 5AU4 rectifier tubes
- Hi/Lo power switch (tube or solid state rectifier switch)
- Gain switch
- Point to point wired

UTILIZATION

You don't have too many options here. Either you can use tube or solid state rectification and you can use the high gain or lower gain switch on the front of it. Master, gain, bass, mids, treble, and brilliance. Pretty standard stuff.

SOUNDS

If you have never played a Matchless, it really is something you should do. You'll either love or hate the sound. This particular Matchless is a bit different than the others. Imagine if you took a Marshall Plexi, a Hiwatt, a Vox, and a Matchless, threw them all in one gigantic blender, and made an amp out of it. That is this amp.

It tends to be very bright, as all Matchless can be. I believe this is due to the amps being designed for neck pickup playing. Great bridge pickup sounds can be had, you will just have to turn those treble and brilliance knobs way way down. It loves single coil guitars and likes humbuckers well enough.

Despite being 120 watts, it's not very loud, or does not have to be very loud. To get the full power out of it, you really need to have the master and gain knobs up pretty high, the gain switch on, and using the solid state rectifier mode.

As you turn up the amp the bass can get pretty flabby. You just need to compensate for that by turning the bass down. Finding an good overdrive pedal can be tricky. I suggest the Lovepedal Kalamazoo. Worked wonders with mine.

OVERALL OPINION

This is a unique amp and I've really never heard one quite like. I have owned two over the years and might end up owning another one some day. Matchless! Why can't I quit you?!?1 Probably the glowing logo.

Anyway, what ultimately prevents me from keeping the amp is the size and weight. It's comes in around 70 pounds... and that's for a head! The weight is all in the transformers.

They made less than 75 of these amps and they will not be made again, according to Phil Jamison at Matchless. It's a great amp for non-wimps. Unfortunately, as we age, our wimpiness increases right along with our grey hairs and lower back pain.