Blues City Music 10th Anniversary Soldano 44

Blues City Music celebrates their 10-year anniversary with their exclusive edition Soldano 44 amp, co-designed by Soldano Custom Amplification.

The most distinct feature of this all-tube 50-Watt combo amplifier is its blue tolex, following the name of the Blues City Music, who is known for carrying boutique amps, guitars and other gear.

Blues City Music owner James Burke worked with Mike Soldano to create a small footprint tube amp that has plenty of punch and volume. They aimed for an amp with tones similar to the Soldano Astroverb 16 amp, but in a 50 Watt package. What they came up with is a redesigned Soldano 44, a "top shelf" combo amp that comes with versatile tube tones that is exclusively available at Blues City Music.

This 50-watt 1x12 amplifier is designed to be louder than what you'd expect from its size, measuring at 17.5" tall x 17.5" wide x 10" deep and weighing in at 48 pounds. This is achieved by combining Soldano's special amp design and distinct semi-open cabinet.

At the heart of this amp are two Sovtek 5881/6L6 power amp tubes and five 12AX7s pregain tubes from JJ, Tung-Sol or Electro-Harmonix. The tubes are configured to produce the same voicing as the SLO-100 crunch channel that is known for its straightforward and transparent tone. Tone tweaking controls include the usual 3-band EQ (treble, middle and bass), presence, preamp and normal volume. The company says that you can use these knobs to get a variety of classic tones, from Nashville clean to blues friendly gritty tones.

An interesting feature of this amp is the footswitchable lead volume control, which is essentially a booster pedal feature built into the amp. You can use this to have louder volume during your solos without the need for a separate booster pedal, which at times also color the tone.

Another nifty feature of the Blue Soldano 44 is the reverb knob, which lets you control the built-in three spring Magic reverb tank. The company gives you the choice to use the standard tank to chassis harness and speaker connection, or upgrade to custom harnesses designed and manufactured by Solid Cables.

Instead of setting the speaker choice in stone, Soldano is giving you the choice to pick your preferred 12" speaker. You can pick between Celestion Vintage 30, Jensen Neo, Eminence Legend, Blackbird, Electric Lightning and WGS Blackhawk or Reaper. The speaker choice will vary the resulting tone subtly, and the company will help you find the right speaker for your style if you're not sure what to pick.

Check out the official video demo:

If you need to go louder, the amp comes with two speaker jacks for connecting to an extension speaker cabinet. A rotary impedance selector switch is provided to make the amp compatible with 4, 8, or 16-ohm speaker loads.

Complementing the blue tolex exterior, the power indicator jewel of the amplifier lights blue, a combination that's only available from Blues City Music. The retail price for the Blues City Music 10th Anniversary Soldano 44 is $2,349. Head over to Blues City Music for more information.

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