Here's the second amp in my vintage Orange/Matamp collection. As discussed in my previous blog story, ALL my vintage amps, guitars, pedals etc are ALL available for hire as I hate the idea of this nice gear sitting around in cupboards going bad.
I keep changing my mind as to weather I like this one more than the Orange OR80 or not. Despite being very similar circuits the extra 2 EL34 output valves gives this a "bigger" tone that with some guitars gets a little too much at times.
The bigger transformers and extra valves makes this one run noticeably hotter which means caps and valves don't last as long, but it's a small price to pay for tone like this.
Again, this one is "mostly" original except for caps and valves which I consider consumables for any well used and good sounding amplifier. As you can see, Matamp have used PCB construction just like the Orange amps of the same period and these companies were the ones that convinced me that when PCB's are done properly, there is no negative effect on tone, despite what some people will tell you.
In fact, after working on and owning a large collection of vintage Orange/Matamp amps and designing and building my own amps both based on these and original designs, I totally believe that a well designed and constructed PCB is BETTER (yeah, I know, let the slinging start) than a point to point amp.
This amp has a very similar non symetrical driver stage to the Orange shown earlier and the tone is very similar despite having only a 4 position "FAC" knob marked here a "bass boost". These amps have very interactive treble and bass controls that combined with the bass boost and the "drive" knobs offer a huge range of tones for lots of different pickups.
Like all Matamps it has the hand written serial and model number and the serial number "612"is hand written in felt tip pen in 2 other places on and in the chassis.
I have been told that this series of GT Matamps were made from left over late 60's/early 70's "Orange" parts from after Matamp and Orange went separate ways but I have no way of confirming this. Despite being one of their ex dealers and biggest fans in Australia Matamp don't talk tome now after I made the Lemon.
I have other Matamps in my collection including two newer models and I rate them as highly as any of the vintage stuff I own. I still push customers towards Matamp if it seems they're after this tone despite not being able to sell them. I'll do stories on them eventually too.
