Carol-Ann Amps Dead?

[rsm]

Whats funny and the reason I ended up here today was because some amp builder on a FB thread got pretty salty with me and he accused me of being one of those 'rigtalkers'. I don't even know what that means. I actually really wasn't ever on here much because at the time this place was more kind of the LA metal scene thing and that wasn't really my customer base. I just happened to have Tone Merchants as a Dealer and I met Brad there was I visiting and he set up an account.
Anyway........I will not mention any names but I came on here to see who the hell this guy from FB was and wasn't dissapointed. He's pretty infamous on here to say the least. As I was searching I came across this thread and couldn't unsee it. I had to follow up if there was any possibility someone didn't get a refund that had paid me.

we do our collective best to purge the idiots in a fair and balanced way. some never get the hint.

now I'm wondering who this FB yammering RT member is,...just for fun. ...

back on topic,...

@Carol-AnnAmps welcome back, enjoy your visit, stop by when you can; always heard great things about your amps, and your story about getting them into Fractal years ago.

 

[Carol-AnnAmps]

Yep that's as close as youre gonna get nowadays - I haven't tried one out yet, and don't know anyone who has one unfortunately

Dr Z makes excellent shit though so I would be willing to bet it does plenty of justice to alan's design

So it sounds like one of my amps, but actually feels better (to me at least). Its slightly more forgiving. Now I know that's subjective, but that little bit of extra compression made it feel fun to me. When I first played the first proto, it inspired me to pull out the Brian May licks for some reason. None of my amps had ever really done that before. You can literally hear the different Z and CA inspiration in it. Mike had some cracking output transformers already that met my original requirement and they were incredible. He puts a lot of effort in his transformers. Its a bit of an odd ball because its a 6L6 cathode biased for a rock amp. Its only an odd ball because people tend to put things in to buckets of expectations based on what they assume something will sound like versus what the design is actually doing. If you listen to it, you would swear its a fixed biased EL34 design.

 

[DanTravis62]

So it sounds like one of my amps, but actually feels better (to me at least). Its slightly more forgiving. Now I know that's subjective, but that little bit of extra compression made it feel fun to me. When I first played the first proto, it inspired me to pull out the Brian May licks for some reason. None of my amps had ever done that before. You can literally hear the Z and CA inspiration in it. Mike had some cracking output transformers already that met my original requirement. Its a bid of an odd ball because its 6L6 cathode biased in a rock amp. Its only an odd ball because people tend to put things in to buckets of expectations based on what they assume something will sound like versus what the design is actually doing.

That's really interesting, it being a 6L6 and cathode biased

I'm generally a high gain/metal player, but I love the classic AC30 influenced sound as well (i've owned a bunch of matchless, top hat, dr z) and have given others like Chris/Smash the Z fever because of the Maz, which is one of my favorite amps ever

I need to find one of these to try out as it seems right up my alley

 

[Carol-AnnAmps]

Haha I found the clip. So don't laugh. I had not played the guitar for over a year after the business tanked and I was rather overweight too. But my wife just recorded this for fun with a cell phone. This is the the very first day the first proto arrived.

 

[DanTravis62]

Haha I found the clip. So don't laugh. I had not played the guitar for over a year after the business tanked and I was rather overweight too. But my wife just recorded this for fun with a cell phone. This is the the very first day the first proto arrived.

Dude that's awesome you still have the clip! Sounds great, super clear with lots of sustain but no fizz

 

[S̷͖͑m̵͎͂á̵̺s̸͚̈́h̴̬̑]

When I asked for the story of you working with dr z, i had no idea that you would respond; or if you did, how much you would actually share. But this has been awesome. And great clip, also

 

[Carol-AnnAmps]

When I asked for the story of you working with dr z, i had no idea that you would respond; or if you did, how much you would actually share. But this has been awesome. And great clip, also

Did you never see the interview Sweetwater did of the two of us. We go in to quite a bit of detail of the amp and you can see what the interactions are like.

 

[NeubyWanKaneuby]

Dr. Z CAZ-45 45-watt Tube Head | Sweetwater https://share.google/asQunG2osEVSQs3Kj

I had one for a minute, but GC did such a horrible job packing it, that I returned it. I'm waiting to jump on another that hopefully will arrive in proper packaging.

 

[glpg80]

I don’t know anything about the amps but the Carol Ann Amps name has always been seen as a boutique killer amp maker in my eyes right up there with 3rd Power, Dr. Z, and even Trainwrecks.

It’s hard as hell to run a business, family, work a full time job, and still work to help others get the tone that’s in their head. Engineering is one thing but the business side is no joke on the financial side as well as the suppliers, manufacturers, taxes, filing dates, certificates, etc. I think any business owner commends your transparency in wanting to make things right even years later because it’s the right thing to do. It sounds like you have a very supportive family and friend network to lean on as well which is important in not letting the responsibilities and public feedback absolutely drown you in spiraling mental and physical decline. At the end of the day a lot of people don’t realize there’s still a human being behind the name that put their life behind the product and time they’ll never get back.

Glad to see you’ve made your way over here. RT still has a healthy demand for high gain designs but a significant amount of us respect the boutique amps for the feel and extra details that must go into designing them to stay relevant. It takes talent on the player and the designer both at that level.