![]() ![]() The good news is that the Club not only packs a wallop that you wouldn’t expect from this little beastie, it also has a damn nice tone. The bottom line here is that you will have to use a stomp distortion if you want grind. Because of this non-linearity, (and others in the Club and Lunchbox as well), I thought it would be a good idea to have some ability to adapt to a range of inputs.” This is a subtle characteristic that I, and others, have noticed about many of the really good-sounding vintage amps, where it traditionally arises from both supply voltage modulation at the driver tube(s) and saturation in the output transformer. For example, the exact gain of the circuit modulates slightly with output level. But, it isn't a linear transfer function like a ‘hi-fi’ solid-state amp, either. Kantor continued, “To dig one step deeper, it's true that the Club doesn't provide the kind of crunch distortion one hears when a signal exceeds a hard clipping threshold. It's designed almost like a pad on a studio mic preamp-not as an effect, but to allow the unit to work optimally under a wide range of conditions.” The idea was to use the Gain knob, which is within the analog preamp circuitry, to trim the amp to match a wide variety of input levels, (i.e. ZT president Ken Kantor replied, “We probably could have eliminated one of the controls without impacting the sound 99.9% of the time. There is no overdrive happening here, so I was confused as to why ZT bothered to have the two controls instead of just one. The Volume and Gain controls are a bit puzzling. There’s a decent, subtle digital reverb, the aforementioned treble and bass controls, an effects loop, and a stereo in for your iPod. The Club adds reverb, along with treble and bass controls.įeatures-wise, the Club is quite simple. ![]() The Club weighs in at only 22 lbs (dimensions are 14" x 15" x 9.25"), and has the same 200 watts as the Lunchbox. The new ZT Club amp is in the running for a small amp that can actually rock a club. ![]() Generally speaking, small amp buyers fall into three groups: bedroom rockers, acoustic folks, and jazzers. Now, the company has released The Club amp. ZT Amplification’s flagship Lunchbox is one of those surprising amps. I say used to because in recent years, solid-state tone has begun to surprise some people. To get the power and glory at a light weight usually means solid-state power, which used to mean questionable tone. It seems with each passing year that amps seem to be gaining weight-it certainly couldn’t be that an old fart like me is getting weaker-so the search for lighter, yet louder amps is never-ending. Click here to watch the full-size video review. ![]()
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