Southbound Amps, Cypress model

[zguitar71]

I started building amps a couple of years ago and really enjoyed doing it. I started taking them to all my gigs and then sold all my other amps (aside from a ‘62 Concert). Then one day after a gig I was approached by a guitarist that wanted me to build him an amp. Hmmmm, so I do it or not? Well I did it. First I got business insurance and an LLC then I got to it. A few weeks later I sold him an amp and Southbound Amplification was born! The Cypress model is what he bought. It is based on a 6g3 only channel one is cleaner and two is dirtier. There is also a master volume,  a cut control, a negative feed back switch and a boost for channel two. 

The picture is the amp he bought. I have a Cypress amp that looks like this too, which  I gig with but I don’t have a cut control on my amp. I really don’t think it needs the cut control imo. I’m still experimenting with features and design for what I think is the perfect 6g3 type of amp. This amp has the ability to run either KT66 or 6v6 tubes for 30 or 20 watts. With KT66 tubes and a Alessandro neo GA-SC-X speaker the amp weighs in at 25 pounds which is still portable. I added test ports to rebias the tubes without having to pull the chassis. The switch in power tubes does require a rebias since it is a fixed bias amp and the transformer I’m using supplies a switchable voltage variation. The KT66 tubes sound really good in this design.  
 

I’m super excited about building amps and have other models I’m working on with more and less wattages. Who knows if I can make it a successful business, which for me would be just a small supplement to a retirement I hope to take in a couple of years.