Stephenson Amplification 16 Watt Head:

Features:

• Octal tube pre-amp: one 6SL7 and one 6SN7
• Single knob volume control
• Two knob tone control
  • Bass
  • Treble
• Front panel gain select switch (rotary switch with lo and hi settings):
  • Lo setting voiced to complement the Stage Hog amplifier.
  • Hi setting voiced to rock-out when the volume is cranked (for those who don’t own a Stage Hog).
• Push/pull power amp consisting of a pair of 6V6’s or a pair of 6L6’s (no re-biasing required when changing between these tube types):
  • 16watts clean - 32 watts peak power with 6V6’s
  • 18 watts clean - 34 watts peak power with 6L6’s
• 4 – 8 – 16 ohm speaker output
• Custom transformers-120/240 mains select

 

Background:

The Stephenson 16 watt amplifier is primarily designed to be a complimentary amplifier for the Stage Hog.

The Stage Hog already works great with many amplifiers, so the 16 watt is simply Mark's idea of the ultimate monitor amplifier for the Stage Hog. What’s an ultimate Stage Hog monitor amplifier?

The answer is, in our opinion, an amplifier that meets these basic requirements:

1. Beautiful clean sound
2. Simple design with single channel
3. Light weight, portable, with enough power to keep up to a drummer

1. The Stage Hog is capable of producing an array of distortion tones so the primary goal here was to focus on beautiful, pure, clean tones.  In Mark's experience the best clean tones come from an octal tube pre-amp. Octal tubes are known for their fat, 3D, clear and pure tone. Tubes such as the 6SL7 and 6SN7 were responsible for some of the best sounding hi-fi pre-amps of the 50’s, set up properly these tubes can also produce stellar sounds in a guitar amplifier. 6S_7 tubes are easy to find with a great selection of new production and NOS types readily available.

2. An amplifier that focuses on the best clean sound possible should be very simple and have minimal components in the signal path. The Stage Hog already has two levels of distortion channels available at the touch of a button, so this amp only needs to have a single channel.
I’m of the belief that a great clean amp should also be able to create great distortion when cranked up, so I felt it necessary to make sure this amp is versatile enough to really 'sing' when pushed hard.
Basically, a stellar clean sound but still has enough flexibility to satisfy a wide array of styles.

3. It seems that many folks don’t really need any more wattage than you get from a pair of 6V6’s. This puts the amplifier into the 10 to 20 watt range, which really helps keep the weight down without the need for large/heavy transformers. Portability is important here, there are lots of great sounding powerful/heavy amplifiers available, were looking for something easy to transport with enough power to get the job done.

After building some one-off custom amps and a whole lot of experimentation, Mark came up with the Stephenson 16 watt.

16 Watt Head Front View

16 watt Prototype Top Panel:

• Input
• Volume
• Treble
• Bass
• Gain  Select. (This rotary switch selects between a lo and hi  gain setting. The lo setting keeps the amplifier nice and clean allowing the Stage Hog to produce the distortion tones.  The hi setting lets the amp grind into rock and roll territory all on it’s own.)
• Idle. Stand-by switch.
• Power. On-Off switch

16 Watt Head Top Panel View

16 watt Prototype Rear View:

Tubes: 6SL7 – 6SN7 – 6V6 – 6V6

16 Watt Head Rear View

Contact Info :

STEPHENSON AMPLIFICATION

Mark Stephenson
PO Box 176
Parksville, BC
CANADA
V9P 2G4

Tel: 250-954-2292
Monday to Friday 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM Pacific

stephenson@telus.net