BUILDER PROFILE > TOP HAT AMPS
ABOVE: Gerhard founded Top Hat in 1994, growing it from a side project to one of the top boutique
amp suppliers in the industry.
RIGHT: The “Super Fat” Club Deluxe is a tweaked version of the Super Deluxe modified with a
matching pair of EL34 power tubes. Photo courtesy of Fat Sound Guitars
I was building pedals, too, but ended up
settling on amps.
When was that and how did Top Hat
begin?
It was around ’ 94. I was operating some
other small businesses with a few partners
and had some extra time, so Top Hat
began as my own side business then. In
those days, the amps were all built to
order, but by ’ 96 we’d introduced our
standard model line with the Club Royale,
Emplexador, and King Royale.
Were there any particular clients who
influenced the development of your
line?
Not so much, since I already had my
favorite things as a player and musician.
I purposely chose to go the historic Vox
and Marshall route rather than the tweed
side of things for a couple of reasons. The
EL34 and EL84 British side of things was
more of what I grew up with, and the
whole world—including Fender—had
gotten back into tweed-inspired designs
by the mid ’90s, which meant the market
was already heavily overloaded. Also, I just
wasn’t satisfied that any of the speakers on
the market then could replicate the Jensen
alnicos of the ’50s. All things considered,
we decided to lean towards more typically
British tones, but we did add a some-
what Fender-based reverb amp called the
Ambassador later on, but that was black-
face based.
Speaking of speakers, which ones did
you find best replicated the British
thing?
Those were—and are—available. I tend to
stay with Celestions, although for a while
when we were building little 5-watt amps
we built our own 8" speakers. With an
overseas supplier, we were able to do better than anything else on the market, but
I keep coming back to the Celestions for
12" speakers—mostly the G12H standard
edition. And we were actually one of the
companies who got them to make the
proper 75 Hz-cone version that just came
out a few months ago. Before that, they
were making a bass-cone version, but me
and a lot of other builders were begging
them to make a proper guitar-cone version, which they finally did.
In particular, you seem to be a big
fan of the alnico Celestion Blues you
use in the Supreme 16. Are there any
particular aspects that have elevated
that speaker in recent years, and what
makes them such a good fit for the
Supreme 16?
It’s my personal contention that when
they started the Heritage series in
England, the Blue alnicos got infinitely better. There was a night and
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