We knew it was inevitable. When Austen offered to take a few days and build us our own Space Heater, we did what we needed to: sold a couple things to make it happen. He has sat on the red couch a few times here with us launching him with the amps, and he knows what our playing is all about. We think he definitely kept all of this in mind while creating it.
Once the amp arrived, we admired it for a few minutes and talked about the tube setup, a pair of 6AQ5, also known as 6005GT, for the power section, a pair of 6X5 rectifiers, and a pair of 12AX7s, one of which is the phase inverter. You can find these power tubes at great deals, meaning 20 bucks or so, NOS from stellar brands. We have a stash of various 12AX7s, so we could spend days with it soon enough. He walked us through the tone stack, which is a single knob with five notches/settings from bass heavy to treble. A single volume knob, a power switch, an input, and then an 8-ohm speaker output, a 16-ohm speaker output, and a line out. We did let him know the power cord he grabbed for us, the color of an electric banana, was something we'd be changing out.
With all that in place, we took off a couple blocks down the road to a cool outdoor bar/café, where they have great burgers.
Once back home, with the rest of the day and evening to get to it, I grabbed the Northern Light Custom Shop Strat and pulled up a chair in front of the Space Heater, watching it warm up and the projector light give off the sunset glow while everything settled in. I used the Evidence Audio Siren speaker cable we always use for our amps and cabinets and grabbed an EA Source power cable so I could hear them both. Power supply is so critical, whether the wall warts we use for pedals or the main power. Just yesterday, we sat with different 9-volt wall warts, after being seriously disappointed by two of them from major brands (a pedal company, in particular). We love their work, but they will be getting a call from us soon, so we can let them know, respectfully, how badly they've dropped the ball. Gotta do it. Everything matters.
We checked out the volume range up through it all, instead of maxing it, just to know the range and what the Heater has going on. It was certainly nice and woody, a bit compact, but it didn't really astound us or anything. We could tell there was a lot to explore, but Austen assured us we should dime it and work from the guitar volume, and sure enough, the amp woke up, became alive, and was firing on all cylinders once we did put it on 10. Out came this enormous growl and wicked rumble with this musical feedback I could completely milk, gushing and throbbing at will. I had to be tremendously aware of how little I needed to lean into it, as it is responsive to the hands in such a powerful way, almost like our picking hand is giant magnet relative to the nickel of the strings. The amp feels everything, senses it, and feeds off itself, flowing out in such a giant vocality. Geezus. And this was just with the Strat. She's a darker amp, smokey and brownsugary, in spooky yet beautiful ways. For this one, we really needed to pay attention to the tone settings and were happiest in either the highest or second spot.
We grabbed a Strymon Flint, version 1. We prefer it to version 2, which sounds too hi-fi to us; we like the warmer analog vibes of v1. Although even our vintage tweed Deluxes sound amazing with the Strymon, the Space Heater told us right away, what are you thinking? Don't put this modern shit in my path. The Flint got yanked and went back to the bookshelf.
With the 1967 EP-2 tube Echoplex, oh, yes, it suddenly sounded like we were in an IMAX theater, bigger than imaginable, just fully 3-D and stunningly deep, beautiful, and magnificent. This thing must record or mic up magically. We just know it. These wide-glide soundscapes, all while throwing sparks and harmonics, with Fender/Vox chime and pure fidelity in there, yet juicy and analog as heck. The big-box 2-prong 1978 Deluxe Memory Man delay/chorus was also truly surreal with it. So good.
The amp loves the vintage 1960 Jensen P15N speaker in the 100-year-old cab from a Montana bar floor that was built for us by Larry Pogreba. Somehow, even if you are sitting a couple feet from the amp, it sounds as if you are out in the arena more. Interesting. It likes the 40-watt Eminence SC-59 Alessandro 12-inch alnico, too, but it's much crunchier and almost aggressive with that. It prefers the vintage Jensen 15 all day and night.
The gain in this is rich, heady, downright menacing even if you tune to low open D, or borderline apocalyptic with the old analog delays. You can paint movie soundtracks with this for decades, which is what Blake Mills is most likely doing, among other gigs he has. It is somewhat vintage Marshally, but far richer, swirling, though more EL34 than what you'd think — and more pleasing, even. When launched in full bloom, it does have cranked AC30 vibes in there, but without the harsh iciness and blizzard of nails. I also hear and feel some old brown Gibson amp-type gain in there, like our GA-40 from 1959 we've had forever.
I'm naming this amp The Dark Horse. After hearing the hype for all these years, I get it now. I understand. I can tell I have a long way to go with it, with other guitars and setups, etc. When I changed out the banana power cable to the EA Source Tony Farinella had sent us, the soundscape became even more unreal and otherworldly special. There was no comparison to the cables: The EA was a million miles high in the stratosphere in transparency and liveliness, purity, and beauty. Well done. It is worth the admission price, for we'll use this for life.
I feel like I have the full story here, finally. The Projector Preamp Pedal, on reflection after now having been piloting my own Mother Ship Space Heater, is like letting the genie out of the bottle. It has the warmth and vibe of the Space Heater projector amp but is simply a big whoop-ass organic engine for whatever we bring to the table with our guitars and amps. The pedal is a "Hold my beer and watch this 400-foot in-the-bleachers home run," while the Space Heater amp is simply one of those things we've dreamed of in our heads for ages, now in our hands and ready, willing, and surreal. TQ—Riverhorse