Bellingham, MA, United States
About this listing
There’s no shortage of jokes about British electronics—usually involving Lucas wiring, sports cars, and rainy weather. But when it came to early effects pedals and high-powered amps, the Brits were there from the start. Brands like Hiwatt and Marshall were building massive 100-watt heads that became staples for hard-rock bands playing bigger and bigger venues. Still, a Hiwatt doesn’t sound like a Marshall. And if you’re curious about exploring the sound of David Gilmour, keep reading.The Crazy Tube Circuits Hi Power is a dual pedal that combines a silicon transistor Colorsound Power Boost with two flavors of EL34-powered Hiwatt tone. In short, this British Racing Green box covers a lot of very cool ground.On the Colorsound side, Crazy Tube Circuits uses the same BC184 transistors as the original, while adding a Master Volume control and a 9V Overdrive/18V Boost toggle. The simple 2-band EQ offers plenty of range, and the treble control can really wake up humbuckers. As the name suggests, this side is mainly about boost, with distortion or fuzz showing up fairly late in the volume sweep. That said, the 9V ODR mode has noticeably less headroom and breaks up sooner than the 18V PWR setting. Cranked all the way up, either mode can get fuzzy, but we especially liked the lightly gritty, mild breakup available at lower settings. It’s the kind of sound you could leave on all the time. More importantly, it excels at helping the guitar cut through a mix, which speaks directly to its original purpose as a boost pedal. We are big fans.The Hiwatt side is designed to capture the tone and feel of two classic amps: the 2xEL34 50-watt Hiwatt 504 head and the 4xEL34 100-watt 103 head. It includes a full EQ section with bass, middle, treble, presence, and a toggle that simulates normal, bright, and jumpered inputs. We don’t have firsthand experience with vintage Hiwatts, but we’ve spent plenty of time with EL34-powered heads, and the Hi Power gets the feel right. It has that upper-mid presence and clarity that makes EL34 amps sound muscular, punchy, and forward. Like the Colorsound side, the EQ is flexible, and the lively response pairs especially well with humbuckers. Once you push the volume past about two o’clock, you start to hear some breakup, and that’s where the difference between the two amp modes becomes clear. The 504 setting feels a little softer and more compressed, while the 103 has more headroom and a stiffer response. We preferred the slightly smoother feel of the 504, since the 103 edged a bit too close to fizzy for our taste. Even so, “compressed” is relative here—the Hi Power still delivers that classic EL34 oomph that helps leads pop without piling on gain. Like so many great guitar tones from the ’70s, it’s more about volume and presence than outright distortion.For overdrive and distortion sounds, we liked using the Hi Power as a big, husky EL34 foundation and letting the Colorsound side supply the crunch. That approach feels very true to how many of the best overdriven guitar tones of the ’70s were built.
The popular Crazy Tube Circuits Unobtanium combined two of the most coveted guitar circuits ever made, while the Hi Power takes a less obvious path. Even so, the results are every bit as impressive.
In the words of Crazy Tube Circuits....
HI POWER is our next endeavour in pedal + amp-in-a-box overdrives inspired by the sonic combination of two British tone machines that helped shape the sound of Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here Album.
On the right side of the pedal, you will find a recreation of the Colorsound Power Boost featuring the true-to-the-original spec BC184 transistors running on 18V DC (via an internal voltage booster circuit) and the ultra-flexible 2-band Baxandall EQ circuit. We’ve added extra features, like a bypassable master volume control, a reverse-log gain control to ensure better sweep and transition from clean to mean (compared to the original’s linear taper) and a toggle switch the engage the latter higher gain / lower headroom version of the original boost circuit called Overdriver.
On the left side of the HI POWER you will find an all-analog circuit set out to emulate the sound and feel of a Hiwatt amp. Following the path of the famed British tube amplifier our circuit offers authentic amp tone and feel. From the big bold high-headroom clean sounds to the face-melting crunchy tones.
True to the last detail we have included the full EQ section along with a presence control located at the negative feedback of the power amp simulation circuit. A headroom toggle switch selects between the high headroom 100w power section provided by a quartet of EL34s or the lower headroom and compression provided by a 50W power section with a pair of EL34s when hit hard. Similar in operation to the original amp design the master volume control was designed to produce more gain at higher settings.
We’ve taken our design a step further by adding a switch to select between input channels. You can select between the full frequency response of the normal channel of the amplifier, the increased presence and tight low end of the bright channel input or the enhanced frequency response and added gain of those inputs linked together.
Like our other dual overdrive/amp-in-a-box designs we have also included a passive effects loop to give you the option to connect your beloved pedals between your booster/overdrive and amp in a box or use the two sections as separate and independent effects when using an external bypass switcher/looper.
HI POWER also features a power-up bypass/engage pre-set function for the onboard footswitches. That way you can select which state your pedal will go to when you plug the power supply. This function comes in especially handy to people that use remote pedal switchers / loopers as they only set the power-up state of the pedal once and then operate from the controller.
PriceC$478.18
+ C$43.60 Shipping
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