Henriksen JazzAmp 112 and a Tweetey (outboard tweeter)

[Tom Karol]

I just had to share this with you guys:

So, I'm down in the living room doing my heavily EQ'd jazz guitar simulution with the little passive-piezo-equipped travel guitar, and my son is upstairs. He's 21 and he's a drummer, but he knows my tone. I called up to him, "How's that sound for jazz tone?" He said, "Yeah, that sounds good." Then I said, "It's the travel guitar." His reply was, "Really?!" LOL!

[Tom Karol]

Revelation (Jeez, I feel like Michael Keaton in the movie, “Night Shift!”):

I have three different guitars that all get good ‘jazz tone’ on the Cube 60. But they all sort of sound the same. They sound like the Cube 60 doing jazz tone, which it does quite well.

On the JazzAmp, they all get good jazz tone too, but they all sound different – their individual characters seem to come through.

As I’ve mentioned previously, I’ve never been one to fiddle with the controls on the guitar – just turn them all the way up and leave them there and adjust/channel-switch the amp as necessary. But with the JazzAmp I find that I can set it for string-to-string balance for a given guitar and then get a lot of useful sonic variety by manipulating the volume and tone controls on the guitar.

(Cue “Twilight Zone” theme and fade to black.)

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

I'd like to hear this amp through an open-back cabinet with a 15" JBL!

I was just thinking: if Henriksens are "modern Polytones" where's the 15"? Seriously! There's a club of people who love the warm sound of the big boy speaker.

[randyc]

(little boy at back of classroom, waving arm frantically) "Me, me,. me !"

[derek]

Wow, great reviews. How did I miss this thread for 2 months?

[Tom Karol]

Ha - the thread that just won't die!

BDLH - that's a good point: Evans, for example, has the SE200 with a 15" speaker. The folks at Henriksen seem to be focused on a narrow feature set. There's no effects loop, no headphone jack, and originally they didn't even offer reverb. I don't know if they're being smart or just stubborn. But I sure love the amp!

About 30 years ago (Jeez!) I had a Music Man open-backed combo with a single 15" JBL. Sounded pretty good, but ... One day I plugged a solid top archtop with a floating pickup into the mic input of a high-end stereo receiver and connected it (in mono, of course) to the JBL and got incredibly clear and detailed jazz tone!

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

BDLH - that's a good point: Evans, for example, has the SE200 with a 15" speaker. The folks at Henriksen seem to be focused on a narrow feature set. There's no effects loop, no headphone jack, and originally they didn't even offer reverb. I don't know if they're being smart or just stubborn. But I sure love the amp!

I'd love to try an Evans SE200. That amp (SE=Steel Enclosure, steel as in pedal steel guitar) is a favourite with pedal steel guitarists, who really like 15"ers. Peavey has made several amps for pedal steel, all with 15" speakers.

As for the narrow feature set, some of those things are so easy to do. In a standard amp, it's easy to add the jacks for an effects loop, in between the preamp and power amp. I wonder why they were omitted. Same for a headphone jack.

[randyc]

As for the narrow feature set, some of those things are so easy to do. In a standard amp, it's easy to add the jacks for an effects loop, in between the preamp and power amp. I wonder why they were omitted. Same for a headphone jack.

I agree that it would be easy and the cost affect would be fairly small. But we don't know any specifics of the design (it is all but certain that buffering/protection of the low-level circuits in that area isn't included, maybe unintentionally).

A conservative design staff would probably make the point that not including those features (effects loop, headphones) improves overall reliability (i.e. prevents damage caused by poorly informed users applying high level signals to low level inputs and so forth) ... just a thought.

[NSJ]

I've heard as far as playing an archtop through it, it sounds great with laminates (eg the Sadowsky Jim Hall), but less so with carved archtops. has anyone checked this out?

I can verify this absolutely-I have a Henriksen Convertible, and it sounds just about heavenly/perfect/pick an applicable word with a laminate, particularly the Jim Hall.

Fully-carved solid tone woods? Yeah, not so much. Sounds a bit dead--those are the guitars I would use my Polytone for. Someone told me I should get a Tweety, but I haven't come across those. I do use a TwinTone Classic pre-amp with it, and it sort of gives it that "tube amp" presence.

[Tom Karol]

You can get a Tweetey direct from Henriksen. You can return it within 7 days if you don't like it. I won't be using mine all of the time, but I'm glad I got it.

[NSJ]

You can get a Tweetey direct from Henriksen. You can return it within 7 days if you don't like it. I won't be using mine all of the time, but I'm glad I got it.

So, does the Tweety make the fully carved tone wood archtop sound as good as the laminate?

[Tom Karol]

So, does the Tweetey make the fully carved tone wood archtop sound as good as the laminate?

Sorry, can't answer that one - don't have a fully carved tone wood archtop at present. But it does add 'sparkle' to the high notes.

[Tarek]

I am very impressed with the Henriksen amp reviews here. They are great and helpful. Thanks folks. I left a lengthy Henriksen amp review at https://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/guita...html#post55453 which analyzes the function of each of the EQ controls on the Henriksen JazzAmp. If you have time, please read it and hope you find it helpful.