Email from Barry

Hi Victor,

I must tell you how much fun I am having with my Dirty Boy, you know, the one with the BIG KNOB. My favorite approach with my Dirty Boy thus far is to turn it all the way up and then point the BIG KNOB down and plug in. Wow. The emanating screams, moans and ecstatic shrieks are commensurate with it’s Gargantuan girth. Innuendo aside, I discovered all those sounds I’ve attempted to get with all kinds of crazy gear over the years just started coming out and then some. The layers of overtones and harmonics seem endless. Yes, the Dirty Boy is a real thrill ride.

Attached is a photo of the big Boy sitting on two cabs I made. Both have vintage Jensen 15″ 100w Alnico Speakers, one voiced lower than the other. Big bold tone. Despite being hesitant to let my secret- weapon speakers become known I have attached the Jensen spec sheet showing all the speakers in the EM series. I’ve tried almost all of the series and have found three models that are superior, these two 15s and one 12″. The 10″ Vibrantos need to be ganged up to sound good and don’t fit my taste. I’ve tried to buy every decent looking example of these 15″ers to come across ebay and have enough stash to keep me happy for a minute, but they are very rare in my experience. The cab in the picture under the left side of the Dirty Boy is made from Avadore wood (yellow) and the baffle with the backwards Shazam is Okume Marine Plywood (bs1088 as certified by Lloyd’s of London…). This marine plywood is far superior to the Baltic Birch that almost everyone uses, just a joy to work with. The other cab under the D Boy’s right side is another Korina cab with some great flame. I bought a little stash of Limba wood that is wide, beautiful boards and I am using it exclusively for my speakers these days. Again, bs1088 Okume baffle. This cab also has Korina cleats throughout and aside from the baffle is 100% Korina. Even the feet are Korina “carpet skis”. Great sound. Both cabs are open-backed.

Also attached is a pic of our “conference room”. The best meetings generally occur late Saturday nights… All the natural wood cabs and heads in the pic I made. All of my work is done using Festool Domino mortice and tenon joinery for ultimate strength and tight fit. Usually I finish the cabs with gunstock oil and wax. Often I don’t mount handles on the cabs because the ones that look best (Matchless, Ampeg) stand too tall for most heads to straddle and the rest don’t look up to the standard of the wood.

Anyway, I’ll quit rambling now and go fire up the big feller, perhaps I have time for one good session before the wife finds me…

Cheers,
Barry

Email from Jeff Phillips

Dear Victor,

Let me take a second to say thank you. Thanks to you for building the new Dirty Boy. Now, I’m generally not a guy who takes time to post or write about something(anything really), mostly because I’d rather play than chat. But also because the one time I posted something nice about something on a high-end amp forum, I got accused of working for the company because it was my first post. Oh well. Now don’t get me wrong, I love to read posts and get info from forums as much as the next guy, but I generally like to be an innocent by-stander. So I thought I’d send this straight to you. Feel free to post anywhere you would like and when folks ask about the amp, feel free to send them my way to chat. As you will see, I’m having a blast with the amp and love to chat about it.

I own and have owned a LOT of high-end amps, and there are some great ones out there. Last month, I got my Dirty Boy. I’ve always been a big fan of the tones on the Blues Saraceno Hairpick record, and I thought this would be a cool addition to my collection (which includes Fender, Marshall, Bogner, and BadCat for reference). I didn’t really know what to expect from having a variac, bias, and feedback control at my disposal, but what the heck.

In case you’d like to cut to the chase and not listen to me blather on in detail, here’s the quick review: This amp is seriously unbelievable! If you need more, please read on…

Warning! If you think you will plug in and be “in the zone” in 30 seconds, you need to sloooow doooown. However, the time invested is well worth the wait-really. The amp has the ability to deliver so many tones that you could essentially play a new amp every time you plug in. Having the ability to use voltage, feedback, and biasing as tone controls opens up a whole universe of opportunity. Major fun. One of my friends who heard it, called it a “studio secret weapon” for its ability to change character and add mojo to tracks, either alone or mixed in with other amps in a dense landscape.

For an amp called Dirty Boy, this thing sure sounds great clean! In fact, one of the things I like most about it, is the amount of harmonic content the amp delivers no matter how clean or dirty you run it. Running the amp without the boost engaged yields beautiful vintage clean tones while the amps “guitar volume” knob is set at lower levels and the variac is set to higher percentages. The feedback and bias controls allow you to change the amp’s response, dialing more or less “sag” to the tone to suit personal tastes or instrument choices.

As you bring up the amp’s “guitar volume” knob, the power amp tubes start to really pump (the word loud is an understatement on this amp when its cranked). Depending on the guitar used, various loud “cleaner” overdrive tones can be gotten just by cranking it up and pulling back the variac “ala old VH”. Again, using the feedback and bias will allow you to tailor the response to “feel” great with any guitar. Bringing in the boost circuit changes your world again. Now you get all of the cool power amp distortion, but you can add hair to the front end. The opportunities are endless- Scary, punchy rock tones that can sing almost like you have a magnetic sustainer hooked up. With the boost engaged, the harmonic content goes through the roof. You get different types of harmonic generation coming from the boost circuit on the front end and power tubes on the back end. In a word- Awesome!

You can also get the amp to do some weird stuff too; if you choose. Using colder bias settings and working the variac will cause the amp to almost “gate” itself. This works really well if you play really hard with your pick hand, allowing you to “dig in” in a way you never have before. You can also use colder bias settings and the variac to extremes, robbing the power tubes of their life blood, causing the amp to almost suck the notes back in. Totally wild!

I played this amp for almost a month before I decided to plug in the pedalboard. It did not disappoint. All of the character, content, and versatility of the amp are retained when using pedals, only you can use your favorite standby. Doing this allows you to use familiar tones and tweak them to taste. For example, if you have a pedal that was inherently a bit mushy on your vintage standby, you could use the Dirty Boy’s endless variable controls to really tighten the amps actual response to fit your need.

In closing, Let me re-state and explain my earlier warning. This amp does things in such a different way than most other amps, that it takes a bit of time to grasp the possibilities. Once you take the time to learn it, you will smiling every time you plug in. I’m raving a positive review of one of the most insanely fun pieces of gear I’ve ever played. If you are looking for a unique tonal adventure, the Dirty Boy is the way to go!

Thanks again,
Jeff Phillips
jeffphillips77@gmail.com