Trace Elliot Super Tramp Hybrid 100W, Made in England, June 1997.

The Tramp Tube range achieves the ‘feel’ of a valve amplifier in three important ways: Firstly, the main preamplifier overdrive gain is derived by using both halves of an ECC83 (12AX7) twin triode valve in a cascaded gain configuration (just like a high gain valve amp).FETs have been used for the other gain stages in the main preamp section. An FET is a semiconductor device that inherently has many of the non-linear dynamic properties of a valve; it has a high input impedance and a soft asymmetrical overdrive characteristic that naturally adds a lot of even order harmonics and ‘warmth’ to the sound. Thirdly, the 100% discrete power output stage has been designed to ‘couple loosely’ into the loudspeaker (akin to a valve output stage), giving a low ‘damping factor’, lots of warm bass resonance and ‘musical’ power amp overdrive.

The tone networks in the Tramp Tube are all of the traditional passive kind - this type of interactive EQ was chosen as the best and most natural sounding for an electric guitar. It has been designed to ‘colour’ the inherent character and tone of the guitar and amplifier, rather than radically or artificially change the fundamental sound. Main features and functions Your amplifier has three basic ‘channels’ or available sounds (clean, vintage gain and high gain), each of which can be played at two independent master volume levels, giving six overall foot switchable sound options.

Reverb is provided courtesy of an in-built three spring reverb tray.  A series effects loop is provided, which operates between the ‘channel’ and ‘master’ sections of the preamplifier.

• 100W RMS (80W through onboard speaker only)
• Celestion V12-60 'Silver Series' 12" driver
• 12AX7/ECC83 preamp valve
• Independent 3 band EQ per channel
• Footswitchable boost function (footswitch not included)
• Celestion 'Silver Series' 12" driver
• Spring reverb
• Effects loop