Delisle Island Carney/Drifter Amp-in-Case Combo Price: $4,000 (list) Contact: www.island-instruments.com A half-century ago, before Marshalls were stacked and ’Bursts dangled menacingly below hips, the marketing of guitars and amps targeted the teenage garage-band musician. Strapped for cash but looking to rock out, American youth turned to their parents’ Sears catalogs for the latest offerings. On…

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EHX Tortion JFET Overdrive Price: $198.67 (list)/$179 (street) Contact: www.ehx.com Having teenage metal-shredders at home makes one appreciate that a little overdrive can go a long, long way. Note to sons – not all songs benefit from being played “at 11.” In the real world, bandmates expect you to sit back in the mix from…

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Hull Amplifiers’ Model H5 Price: $3,199 (list) Contact: www.hullamps.blogspot.com A beat-up ol’ blackface amp can be a thing of beauty, like an old muscle car showing its miles in patches of gray Bondo. But there’s something to be said for an amplifier that’s truly as beautiful to look at as it is to play, with…

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Durham Electronics’ ReddVerb Price: $180 each (list) Info: www.gizmoaudio.com Most guitar players’ first pedal was a distortion/OD, often acquired after enduring the taunts from friends and/or bandmates who whisper about how their tone was “thin” and “weak.” The experience takes them down the road to experimentation; the weeks and years that follow becoming a haze…

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Jon Kammerer Guitars’ Pegasus Price: $2,300 (list) Contact: www.jonkammerercustoms.com Anyone who has ever plugged an acoustic guitar into an amp or PA is well-acquainted with the bone-crushing howl of hollowbody feedback. It’s not a happy sound. And in a live setting, it can be almost impossible to dial in enough volume to sit in the…

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ToneVille Amplifiers Broadway Price: $2,295 Contact: www.tonevilleamps.com What is it that drives boutique amp builders to expend gallons of skull sweat striving for a more-perfect union between the pluck of steel strings over wire-wound magnets and obsolete 1950s audio technology? If you have to ask (or if you can’t appreciate the differences between an overdriven…

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M&V Guitars and Pickups Atlas P Bass-Style Pickups Price: $75 Info: www.mvguitars.com. Let’s face it –  when it comes to boutique pickup options, bass players have gotten the short end of the stick. And as for the venerable Fender Precision Bass, well there’s only so many ways you can put a new harness on the…

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Dutch Kazoo Analog Fuzz Pedal Price: $225 retail Info: www.dutchkazoo.com It’s not easy for a new boutique overdrive or distortion pedal to stand out in today’s thick fog of clipped signals, high gains, and crunchy fuzz. After all, properly tweaked, they all can be made to sound about the same, right? This may not be…

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Lollar’s Gold-Foil Pickup Price: $180 (list, each) Info: www.lollarguitars.com Gold-foil pickups are exotic beasts – just like many of the 1960s Japanese-made Teisco guitars that sport up to four of them crammed between neck and bridge. These pickups may look like the grille of a ’59 Eldorado, but Teisco aficionados will tell anyone that original…

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