New amp coming....

[duhvoodooman***]

Just bought a used Mojave Coyote head in "as new" condition from a guy in Ventura, CA through Craigslist. I've been fascinated by this little 12W amp since reading about its unique design in Dave Hunter's Guitar Amplifier Handbook, and then checking out the audio & video clips on the Mojave Ampworks product page. Just closed the deal Wednesday, so prolly won't receive it until late next week. Very excited about it--these puppies are hard to find! This is the amp that Eric Johnson called "the best sounding modern amp I have ever played."

The preamp design of the Coyote is quite unusual. As stated in the Hunter book:

"The 12AX7 tubes in the dual first gain stages have both of their triodes wired in parallel. Rather than increasing the gain, as with triodes in series, this wiring yields a higher frequency-to-noise ratio, setting the stage for a full-frequencied yet low-noise performance from the preamp."

The outputs of these two preamp tubes feed separate Treble and Bass volume controls, voiced as such through different coupling capacitors. You can then blend the two volume controls to give a brighter or fatter sounding output as desired. Very cool & unique design! V3 is another 12AX7, used as a long-tailed pair phase inverter. The amp also uses a PT, OT and choke from Mercury Magnetics--top quality iron! And a "Power Dampening" control allows you to adjust the output volume to reasonable levels while still maintaining high gain. I understand that it's not a master volume control, a built in attenuator, or a VVR circuit, but appparently works quite effectively, whatever it is.

A few pix from the Mojave site: