Amelia – Jet City’s long-awaited guitar amp – is here at last!
A new twin-channel all-tube guitar head for those on a budget
The Jet City Amelia, as it is now called, has finally been announced – and this new amplifier looks to be everything I’d hoped for. A price has also – at last – been made public.
Tubes
The Amelia amp head can be run at 50W on a pair of EL34, or at 42W on a set of 6L6 power tubes. This gives you a choice of power section, with EL84 generally sounding a little tighter and the 6L6 a little looser, but with slightly more bottom end. Those are my own personal descriptions and you may not agree, but it is never an easy task predicting how valves will sound in an particular amp circuit.
The preamp valves are all 12AX7/ECC83. Two channels are on offer, each with its own independent three-band EQ section. I assume there are 4 preamp valves to cater for this setup, though I haven’t checked yet if they are all being used for that…
Twin Channels
Twin channels would indicate a very flexible gigging amp. There’s also a footswitch to choose between the two independent EQ sections and gain stages. This has two switches labelled Channel and Master 1/2. On the rear panel are the footswitch connectors for Master 1&2 and Channel 1&2, FX Loop and the speaker outputs on either 2 × 4, Ohm, 2 × 8 Ohm, 1 × 16 Ohm.
Jet City’s amplifiers have a bit of a cult following. Personally, I love them (I gigged with a 50W one for a few years and currently use a 20W head for small gigs now). They are cheap, well made and sound really good. Plus, they are easy to mod and upgrade. This makes them perfect for gigging players on a budget´, or those that like to experiment with amp circuits.
I’d expect this new Amelia model to be very popular. It is really cheap for what it offers, and it looks to be pretty flexible, too. 2016 has been a good year for Jet City, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the new Amelia turns out to be a winner.
RRP: €589
You can check them out over on the Jet City website, where the company has uploaded some audio demos.