The folks at Fuchs Audio Technology know that most guitarists use pedalboards loaded with effects they’ve loved, swapped, upgraded, and considered for years. For them, Fuchs offers the tailor-made Clean Machine II, optimized for external stompboxes and gear.

An amp for players who need the cleanest tone possible, with high headroom, the 50-watt CMII head (also available as a combo and in 100-watt versions) is fitted with three 12AX7 tubes (covering the preamp, loop return and reverb, and driver), a 12AT7 (extra power-amp driver), and two 6L6s for output muscle. There’s a buffered effects loop offering series and parallel operation, and rear output jacks for connections to 4-, 8-, and 16-ohm cabinets.

The meat of the matter is the front panel, where you’ll find an array of controls covering three basic jobs – Volume, EQ, and Reverb. Since the CMII is all about giving your pedals the perfect bed to construct sound, it makes sense the EQ controls are varied and interesting; look for switches labeled Brite 1 and 2, Deep, and EQ 1 and 2, all providing plenty of variations to explore. There are also knobs for High, Mid, and Low, and importantly, they’re push/pull pots that move the center-point of each frequency for more EQ options. If you’re a tonehound and/or tweaker, you’ll be in heaven as you dial in precise sounds to match your guitar’s pickups and tonewood. The Accent knob lets you play with power-amp tone.

This is all before the weapons-grade digital reverb, which turns ’verb into something of an art form. Beyond standard, the four-knob array gives you Level plus Decay, Body, and Shimmer – some of the circuit’s long tails are dazzling. This provides tailor-made control of your reverb and, again, makes for a tweaker’s paradise.

Plugged in, the CMII delivered the goods through a 1×12 cab, giving warm, glassy tones aplenty that work very well for clean sounds, stompboxes, and as a platform for digital modeling for all manner of rock, jazz, country, pop, and acoustic-guitar styles. And its construction is superlative.

If you love tweakin’ tone, you’ll be amazed by bottomless depth of the Clean Machine II. It’s a serious tube machine.

This article originally appeared in VG’s August 2023 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.