Super 40

This Super 40 head was built for Mark Foley of MF Guitar Products who’s pickups have been adopted by Matt Scofield, SVL Guitars, Scott Mckeon and Doyle Bramhall II amongst many. It is a recreation of a single channel from a very special 1965 Blackface Super Reverb which was left with me to analyse in detail as the owner wanted a second, Silverface Super Reverb, to sound just like it. So I set about devising a method to analyse the two amps, see what the differences were and then clone the BF using the SF as the donor. This involved building some equipment to the amps could be instantaneously switched to the same speaker for proper A/B testing, and the purchase of some software to analyse harmonic distortion as a function of both frequency and level. Long story short the analysis revealed the main differences to be in the power supply and mains transformer, and these affecting the feel and dynamic transition from clean to distortion in the power amp and phase splitter. I established what the electronic differences were, made some changes and the customer was very happy with the results.

When Mark contacted me wanting a single channel amp that sounded like a Blackface Super reverb but with a loop so he could use his digital reverb pedal I had all the information to build it. The Super 40 is a single channel recreation of that same Blackface Super reverb but with no tremolo or spring reverb. Circuitry has been added to simulate the effect these features had on the response and feel of the amp. A pedal level FX loop along with a 9V DC outlet allows hassle free connection of an external reverb unit.