About Texas Tone®

Component Selection

You want your amp to not only sound great, but to last a lifetime. Texas Tone® Amps are built for tone, and built to last, using the high-quality components and military-grade built techniques. Components are selected for low noise, tight tolerance, high temperature, and long life. Because of this, we shy away from low cost, high noise, and any components known to be troublesome.
Your Tone Matters, and so does the longevity of your amp.

• Resistors: We use low-noise carbon film, metal film, metal oxide, and/or MIL-Spec resistors, depending upon their function in the circuit. They have tight tolerance, don't add noise to you amp, and hold their ratings over time and temperature better than commonly used carbon composition resistors, which are noisy, wide tolerance, and drift over time and when hot. Leo Fender used them, because that's what he could get in the 1950s and early 1960s. Resistor technology has improved since then. We also make generous use of 1- and 2-Watt resistors, rather than the common 1/2-Watt resistors in most amps, for longevity and less noise.
• Capacitors: We specify high-quality capacitors from F&T, JJ Electonic, Sprague, Vishay, and we shy away from generic or no-name capacitors. They're not worth the lower price due to their low quality.
• Tubes: All tubes installed in Texas Tone amps are tested and graded by Eurotubes for low noise and microphonics. 6V6 and 6L6 tubes installed in combo amps have double mica spacers for ruggedness, and we make use of silicone dampers to eliminate rattle and ringing. The first preamp tube in combo amps is shock mounted. We prefer JJ Electonic tubes, and these are standard equipment. New Sensor corporation also makes good Electo-Harmonix and new production Tung-Sol and Mullard tubes. The Texas Tone 12 makes use of New Old Stock (NOS) GE Electron Tubes for the low frequency oscillator (LFO) and phase splitter.
• Tube Sockets: We have found Belton to be the only tube socket worthy of a Texas Tone amp, and this is what we use.
• Controls: Texas Tone amps feature CTS potentionmeters. We use Alpha pots for the Hypnotic Slam Effect in the Texas Tone 12, due to a lack of availabilty of the required values in CTS.
• Transformers: Due to availability, and the fact that Magnetic Components/Classic Tone Transformers are no longer being made, Texas Tone amps feature USA-made Heyboer and/or Canada-made Hammond transformers.
• Speakers: Texas Tone Amps is an authorized OEM (original equimenet manufacturer) of Jensen speakers, and we feature a variety of Jensens as standard equipment. We also feature prmium USA-made speakers by ToneSpeak™, and have Eminence, Celestion, and Mojotone speakers available on some amplifiers.
• Options: Other products are available upon request. Inquire to the email address listed below.

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Our designer and builder

Meet Our Founder

As a gigging guitarist, I spent years chasing the perfect amp sound. No matter how many I played, and I went through a lot, none of them felt just right. They all had a good sound, but it wasn't my sound. That is, until I decided to build one myself.

After months of research, along with correspondence with a vintage amp restoration team, I created my first amp design. When I plugged in, something clicked. I loved the sound. My wife loved the sound. And when a professional guitarist took it out for a gig, he came back with the same reaction.

That moment marked the beginning of Texas Tone Amps

Blumentritt Amplification, now Texas Tone® came about because of that search for a guitar amp that captured the dynamic, touch-sensitivite tweed amp vibe without resorting to either finding a good '50s or '60s vintage amp or building a pre-packaged kit. Using first a mid-1970s Fender Princeton, and then a blonde USA made Crate Palomino V16 with The Basement Tapes, he got a great sound, but it wasn't that elusive creamy, compressed distortion, touch-sensitive tone, that those great historic amps were known for.

The other guitarist in The Basement Tapes had an Champ-style kit that someone had built and it didn't work, so that became the start. After looking at the schematic, the build instructions, and the amp itself, Bruce was able to determine several mechanical and electrical issues, repaired it, and now it sounds the way a silver-faced Champ should sound. The die was cast and the appetite was whet.

Drawing inspriation from that Champ and studying a resortation of a 1950s Gibson amp and various schematics and circuits, he drew up what was to become the original Texas Tone® 12, getting a bit of engineering assistance from Daniel Blumentritt, the electrical engineering math whiz. The Texas Tone® 12 has some of that tweed amp essence, although it's not a copy of any actual amp. The tremolo was the crowning achievement. After three attempts, we hit on just the right magic. It's been dubbed the "Hypnotic Slam Effect", "the sound of Austin, Texas", and "a dynamic, pulsating tremolo, unlike anything I've heard before".

We called that amp Texas Tone® for a couple of reasons. It has that Texas blues kind of tone that only seems to come from a good tweed style amp, and it has tremolo, an essential ingredient for certain blues, Gospel, twang, and swamp sounds.

The Texas Tone® tradition continues with a full line of dynamic and distinctly different tube guitar amplifiers. Get yours today.

Your Tone Matters!

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