Small Guitar Amplifiers

[honeyboy]

Anyone had any contact/experience with the ZT Lunchbox amplifiers?

They are 200 watts in output but only measure 8" x 10" x 4" and are just 4kg in weight. (Sounds like my ideal amp specification )





I found a video of Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top using 7 of them in an 'Unplugged' concert. You can see (and hear them) arrayed around the drum riser in the following video (A great John Lee Hooker/Slim Harpo lick originally nicked by the Stones then further 're-purposed' by ZZ Top..)



Billy Gibons has a great tone, and the amps sound pretty good, but what you don't see is that he uses rack mounted Marshall valve pre-amps and programmable EQ's to reproduce his tone.. So effectively he must be using the ZT Lunchboxes simply as 'power amps'. However, for something so small, they still sound pretty good.. There has to be a catch??


Billy Gibbons Rack Pre-amps

[Deleted]

Damn you Honeyboy! want want want!

[honeyboy]

I'm definitely going to try one out, if I can find one within reasonable travelling distance.

Apparently they also do an acoustic lunchbox, which has guitar and microphone (XLR) inputs - called the ZT Lunchbox Acoustic.





It is quite a bit more expensive than the regular Lunchbox..(£100 more) but it has quite a lot more features including.

- 1/4” Instrument Input, 1/4” and XLR Mic Input w/ Phantom Power

- Variable Headphone/DI Output

- EFX Loop with Active Send for Multi-Amp setups

- Plate Style Reverb with independent channel controls

- Anti-Feedback Control and Anti-Clip Limiter

I was surprised to find that the 'ordinary' Lunchbox amps are only around the £240 mark even in the UK.

Acoustic Lunchbox Information at Premier Guitar

Found this video of Billy Gibbons playing slide on his impossibly rare Gibson Moderne prototype through his Lunchbox amplifiers.



Apparently, everyone insists he was NOT USING his Marshall Valve preamps for the recording of this video. Sounds slightly improbable to me...

[lewiscohen]

I'm not sure I see the point of 200 watts through a 6" speaker. If you need that power the chances are you'd also want more spread than a single speaker that size would provide. So you'll end up mic'ing up which means you don't need 200 watts. Or you use an extension cab which negates the size/weight advantage of a small unit.

Billy Gibbons loves a gimmick and I suspect that's dictating his using it in those videos as much as the sound he's getting.