The Ian Anderson Standard has landed

enharmonic wrote:

Harry Joyce was the man who brought mil-spec wiring to the amp world. In the 1970's he worked for Dan Reeves at Hiwatt. He hand wired the Hiwatts that found their way into the hands of the players of the day...most notably Pete Townsend and Dave Gilmour.

Harry went into business making his own line of amps in the late 1990's. Everything about his amps were designed and built to his spec, and offer a number of improvements over the original Hiwatt design. The most popular HJ player is Rich Robinson of the Black Crowes. If you have seen the Crowes live since the late 90's, you have hard this amp. If you have heard Jimmy Page & The Black Crowes, you have definitely heard this amp

Harry passed away in early 2002. Before he died, he and his partner had agreed on the final version of the circuit, yet another improvement to some of the components. Harry's wife has since licensed the use of his name to Matamp. They make a HJ amp that is HJ in name only. After a few years of legal wrangling, his partner George Scholz is producing limited runs of the actual HJ circuit, which uses the transformers that are wound to Harry's spec's by former employees of the original Partridge company.

This amp doesn't sound exactly like a Hiwatt. It has that fidelity and attack, but it is a bloder amp in the midrange...has a lot more harmonic content. The first version of the circuit is more in line with a very dialed in Hiwatt. I have owned both, and prefer the last version of the circuit...as it would have been the production version had Harry lived to see to it.

Mine also has the Rich robinson mod, which internally jumpers the channels, eliminating the need to use a jumper cable in 2 of the 4 inputs.

I can put you in contact with George and his Business manager, Charles Bertonazzi if you are interested in acquiring one of these amps. They are hand built to order, and if I understand correctly, will only be made available for a limited time.