Fender expands their unique looking Pawn Shop Special amps with the release of the new 9 Watt tube amp “Ramparte”.
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Like the other amps in this series, the Ramparte comes with a very distinct look and vibe, far from the usual look of a Fender.
The amp is described by Fender as “the perfect pawnshop prize”, and just by looking you can see why they would call it that way, especially in the aesthetics department. It is fitted with a finely detailed exterior that can easily match the most elegant furniture found in your home.
The amp’s two-tone chocolate and copper fabric exterior feature elegant details that will easily fit anywhere in your house, from your room, living room, to your porch. It actually looks more like a designer suitcase than an amp, but it’s furniture like features end when you plug-in your guitar and power up the amp.
This 9-watt amp utilizes class A circuitry with two 12AX7 preamp tubes and one 6L6 poweramp tube. The amp drives one 12″ custom designed Ramparte speaker that has an impedance of 8 ohms.
For tonal flexibility, the amp has two channels that provide a variety of sounds – the “Cool” channel goes from warm and clean to moderately gritty, while the “Hot” channel goes from gritty to wild. Each channel comes with its own input jack and volume control.
Check out the video demo below:
Based on the video, the guitar has a distinctly rough tone when overdriven, contrasted by the well defined fat throaty clean sounds. Having to unplug and plug your guitar to switch channels may not be a very efficient approach, but I guess efficiency is far from the amp’s goals, rather it is designed to take you to your “happy place” – as Fender put it.
The Pawn Shop Special Ramparte has an MSRP of $549.99. You can visit Fender for more information.
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