By Shawn hammonD
PhotoS By ChriS kieS
NY Amp Show Video Demos
Click here to view video demos
of the amps, effects, and guitars
in this article.
Fair or not, New Jersey is the butt of 90 percent of the jokes made about the eastern US—from jabs at the oft-unintelligible accent we
associate with its residents to cracks about the stomach-turning inanity of
MTV’s Jersey Shore and its frighteningly clueless subjects, and references to
the Mob and the number of corpses floating in the Hudson River. Which
is probably why the organizers of the NY Amp Show fudge the facts a bit
and name it after the nearby city whose image has a lot more going for it.
Monikers aside, the Piscataway, New Jersey, gathering has something
pretty cool to offer guitar-gear junkies. Held June 4th and 5th in a bunch
of rooms on the first and second floors of the Embassy Suites hotel on
Centennial Avenue, the NY Amp Show brings together some of the most
notable boutique-amp builders in the business, in addition to several up-and-coming amp designers and even a few representatives from big-name
companies. You’ll even find a few effects outfits and guitar and bass luthiers
renting out rooms for the show in a smart attempt to offer attendees a
respite from all the blaring combos and half-stacks.
This year, traffic at the amp fest was more subdued than in past years,
but that didn’t make the wares any less compelling. Smaller, low-wattage
heads and combos that are easy to transport continued to be a popular
platform, but there were also plenty of more powerful heads and cabs of
varying configurations, in addition to the occasional 3x10 combo.
Here we highlight some of the most eye- and ear-grabbing products
from the only “situation” in Jersey that a gear aficionado should consider
wasting his or her time on. Oh, and be sure to check out our stash of video
demos from the show at premierguitar.com.
