This Guitar Amp Costs $150,000... but WHY? 

Anyone got an extra house I can borrow

Legend has it, three brothers each owned a '59 Les Paul, a Klon Centaur, and a Dumble Overdrive Special. It is believed that whoever succeeds in reuniting all three of these items would become the master of tone.

Gentlemen, it appears we have officially entered the tone zone. Sheesh, that amp sounds tasty.

I always love (and hate) how you roll out all of these incredible guitars whenever you do amp or pedal demos. It’s beautiful (and torturous) to see what you have collected through the years.

Wait a minute, that might be the best clean sound I’ve ever heard 😳 I don’t usually get impressed by clean sounds, but that silver sky through that amp was insane

Ya I’m gonna go ahead and let everyone know that I would own every single Amplified Nation amp they make if I could. Taylor, the owner and creator of Amplified Nation, is amazing. I have a Dirty Wonderland modeled off of John Mayer’s Two Rock model and it’s epic. He’s also making a custom 2x12 cab for me. He’s just good people and the products he makes are absolutely epic.

I just bought a Amplified Nation Wonderland Overdrive. It kicks ass. Love it

maybe it's just me but I couldn't justify spending that much money on something that essentially sounds the same as everything else

During a trip to France I was pleasantly surprised by the brand Kelt, which are guitar amps handmade in France If you have the opportunity one day to try it would be great

Hey I think you should really check out the PRS vela series, knowing you’re a prs artist already it shouldn’t be too hard to get your hands on one. I think you’ll really enjoy it

Jesus - that Amplified Nation head sounds incredible. The internet is killing my financial future.

One thing that people fail to understand about guitar gear like the Klon or Dumble amps is the fact that the circuitry of these products are built with components and parts that were built in the 1940s and 1950s, so the technology isn't as complex or advanced than you think. Yea it may be cool to get a product hand built by one boutique builder who makes it their life's work to create an excellent high quality product, but it's 2022 and it only takes one person to get a copy of the circuitry of these products and produce them in larger masses with a much smaller price tag. If you can afford these crazy expensive pieces of gear by all means get it. But if you can't afford it you can get basically the same type of gear at a fraction of the cost.

2:08 sounds eerily like JM’s ‘Any Given Thursday’ clean tone from 2002. Super spacey and gorgeous.

That Gibson ES-330/335 is wicked beautiful! You absolutely had a great "on" day playing in this video!

As the old saying goes (something like) "things are only worth what people are willing to pay for it". If people didn't keep buying them around that high of a price for long enough, the sellers might consider lowering the price.

I just bought a 74 Fender Super Reverb for $400. It has the original CTS speaks and someone, probably in the 70s, added a master volume and mounted it through the second R in reverb on the faceplate. Had it recapped, removed the mod and blackfaced for 3 organ amp chassis I had laying around. It's an awesome amp, even with the extra hole in the faceplate and for 400 bucks.

Very impressive! I'm curious how all the Dumble clones stack up against each other in a shootout. Like a Centaur shootout - but for Dumbles. This sounds extremely good and sounds FUN to play.

I'm just an occupational therapist in Germany whom never ever could afford any of your gear, but I love everything you own (guitar gear!)

I believe that Alexander's original intention for the FET input was actually for acoustic guitars? I don't think it's intended as a primary input? I would definitely experiment with both inputs. The few times that I met Alexander his ears seemed to lean towards a very warm and balanced tonal spectrum. Look at the guys that he makes amps for. Stevie Ray Vaughan, Robben Ford, eric Johnson etc. etc. etc., the FET has a tendency to make a Strat sound very brittle and overly bright. I would experiment with different settings using the normal input and do some a/b'ing to compare the two. Just my two cents...

Ive seen robben 3 times. Twice with Dumbles once with a super reverb and an 808 as a boost. He sounded just like himself at all 3 shows.😏

The best clean tone I have ever heard is from a Magnatone Panoramic. But Amplified Nation is tempting me with some of their amps. I want to try their SSS

Music is win, thank you for giving me the courage to try harder riffs to expand my knowledge, but can you go deeper on how Kurt cobain stutters at the start of smells like teen spirit. I am following your vid from 3 years ago but can’t grasp on how you do it. If you see this , you might not please make a vid to help other starters like me to play the guitar the right way👍🏻

And here I am being happy with my Fender Frontman 212R 100 watt half stack I got a decade ago.

If you’ve ever tried a Vertex SSS-SRV pedal, it gives the same vibes. One side is the gain channel and one side is the clean boost, with a very Dumble style sound.

People really pimping the Amplified Nation stuff. They sound fantastic! Would not mind owning one at all.

Wow! The Amplified Overdrive sounds a lot like the Dumble Overdrive Supreme I tried in 1987. I played a Les Paul Standard through it and it sounded incredible. It was very loud and very clear and had a wonderful feel to it. The thing was just very musical. I used to try boutique amps all the time in L.A. in those days when I was playing in a bunch of metal bands. At the same shop where I tried the Dumble I also tried a Klon. The thing was considered a joke by the store owner who only ordered it out of curiosity. Back then I think it listed for $200 which was considered ridiculous for an overdrive pedal. Yes, it sounded terrific, but wasn't worth the money. The amps I played it through were a Marshall Jubilee combo, a Fender Deluxe Reverb and a Matchless.

Robben Ford setting his red solo cup on top of his Dumble, that’s a legend right there!! He drags his all over the world and plays the shit out of it. That said, I have the Vertex SSS SRV pedal and it does a reasonable facsimile for my purposes. I’ve tried two real Dumbles and they were unique, I’ll give them that. No piece of music gear is worth $150,000 in tone though. The name carries a mystique.

I've recently bought the MXR Shin-Juku Drive and it actually imitates the Dumble sound pretty awesomely...

But my word, that Bombshell Overdrive, sounds gorgeous 😍

@ 6:40 HOLY SMOKES I didn't think it was possible to have both a JUICY and a SPICY lick all rolled into one! Really throwing down the stank right there bro! Love it!

Here in Indy we get the occasional guitar show that comes through. It's at the Airport Hyatt (I think) and it's a small time operation, maybe 15 or 20 booths and it's all local dealers and shops. You'll see guys from Cincinnati, Louisville, Chicago, etc. Last year one of them had a Dumble head for sale for the low price of $130K. Of course I had to check it over and it just looked like an ordinary amp. So I asked if I could play it. The owner asked if I was interested in buying it, I chuckled and told him no, he politely declined, saying only serious buyers could play it. What? I could not believe my ears. What possible harm could come from me noodling on it for 10 minutes? Anyways, I left in a huff and kept an eye on it until someone else came by. No one did. So I was talking to another booth and he said that the Dumble I was looking at had some serious questions surrounding it. Something about the numbers not matching or too many digits to be real...something was just putting people off. I suppose the point is like the Klon, forgeries abound. When you're talking $130k, buyers beware

I knew Howard dumble back in the seventies. I had one of his very first amplifiers that he did. It was a black face Showman that he ran the channels in series and put a master volume on it. He had a little Electronics repair shop in Santa Cruz that he worked on amps and other things. I'm guessing it was probably one of the very first ones he ever modified as it was probably in about 1973 or 4. Sounded great probably should have kept it huh?

Had an opportunity to get an original Hiwatt 100 for $1800, and I regret it. I did buy the last Mesa Stiletto Deuce made in the original Mesa factory before they sold to Gibson. It is in a curly maple cabinet with a wicker mesh front. Super boutique, lol. It is an amazing amp. The curly maple matches my Dean Icon NYC Skyline.

I have a $1,000 Marshall combo. It’s a nice little amp. However, my favorite amps are vintage Fender amps with some overdrive placed in front of them. I played through a vintage Fender Concert amp in a local music store, which is one of the last hand wired Fender amps (or so I’m told). Anyway, it sounds friggin amazing

One of the best tones I’ve ever heard was a guy in a country store playing a Tele strait into a $150 Peavy bandit, go figure😳

I’ve always believed in the law of diminishing returns. At a certain price point, the difference in tone just doesn’t justify the enormous cost.

Our local luthier has one and lets me plug in when I visit. Does sound pretty damn cool, even at low volume.

Interestingly, in the litterally 10s of thousands of posts I've read online since I started my dive into Dumble clones, I've almost never seen anyone use the FET input

The funny part about most "tone snobs," is you could do a blind test with multiple amps, including sims, and 99% of most players wouldn't be able to pick out the super expensive Amp. I remember the Anderton's blind test video on active vs passive pickups, and the guy who swore by passive pickups was wrong almost everytime.

can never understand how you get your hands on these….? 🙌🏻

Dirty tone, clean feel. Freaking immaculate dem tings and many of the lookalikes too.

I've followed Amplified Nation for a few years. Taylor does excellent work and seems like a genuinely decent guy. He works his ass off creating each amp practically from scratch. So, this comment is not intended to be an attack on his character. But I wonder about the ethics of straight up copying the Dumble amps. He's using Dumble's hard earned notoriety to sell his own amps. Even if the circuits aren't exactly the same, the aesthetics, logos and amp names are taken straight from Dumble's own work. I get that people in the amp, guitar and pedal communities frequently copy from each other, but this feels like a step further. He has the chops to make his own amps. The quality is next level, from cabinet fabrication to his extremely clean circuit designs and high quality parts. He could probably build amps better than Dumble could. Maybe he couldn't create a circuit from scratch like Dumble, but Taylor can put one together like no one else. So it just feels weird that he clones those amps, especially since Dumble was sort of known for protecting his work.

For $150,000 you can graduate with a BSEE, build your own and have a job for life.

Obviously not for this video, sorry, but your 50 guitar tips video came up on my auto play like 10 days ago and it reminded me of this. In it you mention somebody’s suggestion for rocksmith. I first watched that video like a year or something ago maybe(?) after I’d given up on properly learning and getting into playing guitar for the third time. I started watching your videos shortly after I picked up a schecter and a spark during Covid lockdown to try to keep me interested in guitar and inspire me, but guitar super system was too overwhelming, fenders learning subscription was too easily completed, and playing random tab online was frustrating because it’d take me hours to be able to get the first 10 notes to sound like the actual song. When I first watched the 50 tips video, I bought rocksmith and ordered a cable to play it off Amazon, but it never showed up, surprise surprise. I took it as a sign that guitar just isn’t meant to be my thing. But after watching that video again the other night, I ordered an actual cable made specifically for the game from a real seller. It showed up a few days ago and I’ve been glued to rocksmith for like 3 hours every night until my fingers hurt too bad to continue. Not only because it’s fun, but because I’m actually making real progress, and quickly, since it makes you follow a little quest line to jump around to all the different features. This is the most excited I’ve been to play guitar and I’m much better after three days of rocksmith than I was even after the semester long acoustic only boring ass guitar class I took in high school. It’s obviously too soon to know, but I’m pretty sure I’m actually going to stick with it this time. I’ll never care enough to become good enough to be in a band or anything, but I’ll be able to show off for family and friends and maybe find some new friends to play with. So I just wanted to thank you for including that in that video and to let you know it’s an awesome tool for absolute beginners first getting into guitar. Thanks dude.

Hey Tyler! Great vid by the way :D Also what is that blue strat O_O. I have to know!

Thank you so much, I've been learning so much from you for about the past month, gone way past where I ever thought I would be

That awesome man, never knew an amp could cost that much!

Got myself the NUX steel singer and it rules but would love to try the real thing.

When I was starting with electric guitars, I thought buying stuff will make me a better guitar player. Of course it didn't. I improve playing by watching lessons and practicing. But I have a horrible tone. I improved my tone by starting to stop thinking like a guitar player(and buying useless stuff), and start thinking as a sound engineer. No matter how good your gear is, it may sound good live(specially if you're alone in the mix), recording things and mixing it in a Band context is a different game.

I mean, I have never played a Dumble but this one sounded great. If this is the Dumble sound but at a more accesible price, I'm in on this one. Not that I can afford this one either XD, but it is 50 times less the cost, so I can at least aspire to have this one.

Ps for those wanting such Dumble tones at a reasonable price, have a look at Ceriatone offering. All handwired amps and with many different flavors of Dumble available.

The only thing that makes these or any other item worth so much is nut cases being willing to pay for it.

I've never heard a tone like that last one. Holy shit what a sound

They cost so much for three reasons: 1, they are good, 2, they are rare, and 3, purchasers expect them to go up in value. They aren't just amps. They are investment amps.

From what I followed on some guitar forums, guys might be better off to get familiar with amp rebuilding and tweaking… You can create an absolutely integral-for-you piece of gear that suits your playing ambition and creative drive. If you buy a Dumble, you’re buying somebody else’s specific amp built… Rather like buying a bespoke suit made for someone with a different physique than yours. It’s just a well-made amp. Whether or not you are lucky enough to find one that fits your playing style.

Try a Longhorn amp. You'll be astonished. The El Patron is amazing.

...or, just get an FM9, if you can find one. If you do, you will have all the tone you would ever want right at your feet. It will sound 95% as good in person and 100% as good in the mix. Once dialed in and recorded you would never be able to tell the difference between a Dumble an the FM9. That is a fact. IMO, it's a great time to be a guitar player. For under $2,000 you can now have 9 glorious pedals and access to thousands of amps and cabinets with unlimited combinations of very high quality effects. You can fine tune your presets to a silly degree using the PC editor and have consistent tones everywhere you go. You can make the FM9 sound like virtually any amp/cab. and sound like the original song. It is also far more convenient than a heavy amp that you have replace tubes and constantly adjust to get the right tone. Best of all, if you have bad ears like me, you can play quality tones without having to crank it up (not an option here) like it is usually needed on any tube amp- they sound better the more you crank them.

I'm guessing that any amp model may vary from on to another, but didn't Dumble tailor his O.D. Special to the individual client for whom he built it ?

I looked at those amps. By the time I picked my favourite colour and grill cloth, it might as well have been 150,000.

The amp sounded good and I’d take one at $1K, maybe even up to $1,500… Amps at over $2K though, I start chuckling and then laughing pretty hard! But at a $150K, that’s hilarious! That being said though, someone who thinks it’s worth that amount or more would consider it a bargain!

Great Video Tyler! Amazing tones and fantastic playing 🔥

A buddy of mine has one that started as something else, then completely modded by Dumble, which used to be the most popular option. He’s looking to sell it now, and recently said he thought he’d only get $20k for it. I laughed at first, then told him to not even think about selling it that cheap, but still…it’s just an amp. It’s an amazing amp, but still just an amp.

I tried replying to your email at the username you provided but your account didn’t show up. I’ve thought it would be interesting to have followers describe rigs that they had but liquidated for whatever reason and regretted it. If you see one that’s interesting or you find worthy, try to recreate it. Call it the rig that got away type thing. For instance back in the 90’s I had a rack setup with a Mesa/Boogie Quad preamp,through a BBE 462 Sonic Maximizer, a Marshall (1st Gen/ 6L6 version ) 9200 Dual Mono-Bloc power amp into a stack of Marshall JCM900 4x12 cabs that sounded incredible. I replaced it with a Marshall JCM800/2210 stack that I still have and love but I do miss that rack I had. It would be awesome to see someone demo that setup.

The reverb on that sounded like playing to an empty theater but in a good way

I'm curious where you got the advice to use the FET input for the "boosted stages"? I have had a different experience than that. The Normal channel responds too all the pedal selections as one would expect. The FET is kind of odd and sort of brittle to my ears, to the point where no one uses it.

Anyone have a good practice/exercise to memorize which note is where on the fretboard I’ve been playing for 6ish years and play mainly using shapes which isn’t terrible but I wanna be able to just be like “here’s every d# on each string every fret”

I believe I'll have to stick with my Boss Katana for now...

I want a 2rock! I love that clean but dirty as can be but still cleaning sound. Digging in gets it dirty! That natural dirt

I have an old like 1930s Gibson lap steel guitar, it was my grandfathers I don’t play it much but that steel stringer amp might be good for it.

I got recently my first experience with a Dumble style preamp with the Synergy OS module (plugged to the effect loop on my 20w 6L6 amp). The great thing about it is that it is very responsive to the picking and cleans very nicelly when rolling down the volume. It is a very versatile beast; and has many "unique" tones to it. But it takes a bit of practice to balance the drive and clean sounds. Overall, the clean tones are quite close to those you showed here; the driven tones are a bit more agressive than your demo but this depends a lot on the speaker too (i have a V30). Overall, I am very happy with this preamp module !

Stevie Ray Vaughn's Dumbles kept breaking and Dumble would milk every penny from srv. I believe he even charged him for advice on how to fix it over the phone.

Good video but why FET input the whole time? Most people don’t use that input at all.

Love to hear more about that Blueberry burst 335?!?!sounds great!!!With the silver sky I could hear a feeling of good ol' Brian May tone.Maybe just me.Thank you Tyler for the awesome video as always,you Rock!!!🤘😎👍

I feel like a helix patch with an IR / kemper profile for these amps would sell like crazy

Guitar amps (and real individual pedals vs effects pedals that do everything) are like the eye contraption they put on your face at the doctor and ask, "one or two better?" I can't tell the difference between any of them enough to care. I couldn't tell you if a 100 dollar amp or a 100,000 dollar amp sounded different.

The funny thing about this, is my $200 Monoprice amp I bought on Amazon sounds just as good as these amps. Go figure.

That singer sounds likes it's been used in a million movies. Or maybe it's a dumble. But yeah sounds like the dumble sound is a favourite for movie soundtrack guitar tone.

Sounds cool but 1/ not quite my taste, 2/ no amp should cost that much. It's just a fucking amp. It won't play itself. If you suck on a $1000 amp, you will suck on this amp too.

Very good sounding amp.

Sounds like the Carvin X100B. Listen to Blue Powder by Steve Vai to hear it.

If people are willing to pay that amount, then fine. If you own an amp that's worth that amount, and other are willing to pay the amount you are selling it for then it's an good trade for both the seller and buyer.

Some typical comments here from ignorant folks who can't really afford Amplified Nation gear so in order for them to feel better they just deprecate. Even via shitty RU-vid compression the sound is detailed, crisp, dynamic...blah, blah, blah! It sounds rad. If I had the funds I would have no hesitation in dropping $6k on a 100w Steel String Singer & 2 x 12 cab.

Yes! Another super fun one, and I have to say it again, you can play! You also can make us laugh- good fun- thanks!

I would love to see a video testing a bass amp with guitar, specifically the Fender rumble, I have seen some people get amazing sounds with this amp, but I haven't seen people really break this down at all, wether or not it is a good idea or not.

It coast that much because some snobs declared it’s worth that much

I used to work at a pretty big night club that brought in all kinds of acts. The one thing I can promise you is, no matter how good your tone is, as soon as it goes thru the PA, it all sounds like 20-30% worse than it sounds on stage!!! But also, drunks at 1am Don't Care about your tone!!!!!

Doesn't really matter if it's worth $150k. If you buy it you're not setting that $$ on fire or 'wasting' it on a vice. You're moving that money from an account (presumably) that's not earning any interest these days, into a product that will likely return your money and then some whenever you decide to bail out. I'd much rather enjoy that money as a fine guitar or amp, that I can stare at and touch and use rather than it be hidden away in an account getting dusty.

Music is Win: do a video of you playing a 59 Les Paul through Klon into a Dumble.

Great video! Did you use any pedals when making this video? Or was it all amp? Cheers.

Ah, but be the real magic is behind the Dumble amp's access panel at the back... That's the Dumble-Door... :)

Would love to see you do a review on Tagima guitars

Tyler you don’t need an extra house to sell. The tones coming out of you and those amplified nation amps is no joke the best guitar tones I’ve ever heard. You and them sound sooooooo good. The cleans simultaneously sounds super harmonically saturated and crystal clear. Wow.

Let’s be clear… you like “distortion”, which is not the same as gain. Gain is the increase in output to input of an amplifier. Distortion happens because amplifiers do not have the capability for infinite gain, and so the output signal starts to distort and or clip at higher gain settings. The distortion is feeding power into various frequencies, or amplitude clipping, harmonics produced etc. rather than in pure signal gain.

@1:01 at the Andy Wood guitar camp, the blue amp behind Robben Ford is a Koch Amps the Greg model. Did you get a chance to play with Greg Koch, the man the myth the gristle legend himself? How about his amp, I'd be curious of your opinion of it. I have one and I love it, it's so versatile. It's only issue is it's also heavy and I'm old and have a weak back.

I learned a long time ago not to sit drinks on top of my amp. From time to time, I’d walked over to my amp in between songs to take a sip of my beer and it’d be gone. Then one night we’re playing to a small crowd and suddenly, mid-song, my signal completely cut out. I turn around to see what happened, only to find that my mixed drink had vibrated off of the amp and landed on my pedalboard 😂🤦🏻

Subscribed. Man you are insanely good and satisfying to watch. I really love your playing thank you for playing for us! Wow what a tone on every video. You could make my 8 inch 20 watt gorilla amp from 1983 sound good.

There are many amps doing the same thing .. Try Fuchs , Redplate,Two Rock etc...you will love them all and the ANation is excellent..

Without watching, i'm going to say it's because the amp is good, rare, and sought after.

It's wildly expensive, but I wouldn't say it is 'overrated'. I mean, the sound quality is absolutely there. You're not going to find many amps that can produce that tone. The fact the average mere mortal could never afford to own one shouldn't really be part of that evaluation at all. I mean, I couldn't afford guitars over half a grand until my mid-20s and plenty of people way way older can't afford them still. Doesn't mean we should pretend a $3,000 guitar sounds the same as a $300 one. It's just not. We can agree it's unfair to those who can't afford it, but we can't deny the difference. It's debatable whether it makes sense to buy like a $40,000 guitar and I understand that. But I'd say up to like $5,000 to around $10,000 will get you arguably the best money could buy. Also keep in mind anything custom made can easily quadruple cost compared to like a 'factory model', which doesn't translate to a tone that's also four times better. And yeah you pay for how rare the amp is.

Wonder of the sound if you had put the Klon infront of the Steel String Singer.