Carr Hammerhead Amp Quick Manual

GEARBOX
Carr Hammerhead
Tone Shark
,a
ByMidraelllueller
I
After Years of dual rectifier
lE
madness, boutique Class A
k
a m p l i f i e r s h a v e m a d e a
E
comebackasmoreandmore
_I-
guitarists areoptingforamps
AWAru
that will allow their nattual
ffiffi
tone to come through. Carr's
Hammerhead fits the bill.
CLASSACONSTRUCTION
Steve Carr claims that he looked to
'50s and
'60sValco amps and early Marshalls for his
tonal inspiration. Suffce it to say, he not
onlyfoturd itbutwent the exEa mile to adopt
quality control from that time as well. The
Hammerhead uses carbon comp
'50s-era
resistors, polypropylene filter caps, and a
solid pine cabinetwith dovetailed corners.
Additionally, each amp is point-to-point
hand-wired on terminal
s t r i p s w i t h n o c i r c u i t
boards-another throwback
to that era.
The Hammerhead is avail-
able in 1x12, 2xIO, and 2xI2
confi gurations. Our review
model was a 25W combo
powered by a matched pair
ofEL-34powertubes,withtwo 12M7s com-
prising the preamp section and a 12"
Custom Kinpin 60 speaker.
G E T A G R I P
The controls onthe Hammerheadare abit
cryptic, but after spendingsome time both
withthe manual and the amp, you catch on
fairly quicHy.Volume and Master controls
are pretty self-e4planatory.Volume settings
below 11 o'clockwillyieldvarious shades of
clean tones, whereas anything above that
willbringonthe overdrive. As forthe Master
control, Carr recommends a setting of at
emphasis d la late-'60s British tube amps.
The Impact control is interactive with the
Volume control, having inaximum effect
whenVolume is set to 3 o'clock and below
BABY YOU AAI{ DRIVE THIS GARR
Much like my
'55 Fender ChamP, the
Hammerhead overachieves when cranked
up. In fact, the only downside is that the
amp, like my Champ, doesrt't sor:nd all that
special at low,
"the wife is watching'Queer
Eye for the Straight Guy' reruns in the next
room" practice volumes. But then, the
Hammerhead is designed to be driven-
hard-in small clubs over drums, bass, and
vocals, not to mention chatty audiences.
Usinganearly-'T0sIesPaulCustom, Ieffort-
lessly channeled Angus Young and ear$
Marshall crunch (see music example). Using
a Fender Strat, blacKace blues licks were
crisp, showing shark-like teeth. A serendip-
itous surprise: regardless of humbucking or
single-coilpickups, therewasno amp hum!
All told, the Hammerhead is a
"player's
amp." And because it's everything a hand-
wired amp should be and then some-€reat
dynamic response, organic tone, attractive
look-all at a fantastic price, wete proud to
give the Carr Hammerhead the
"l Award."
GoNTACT Can Amplifiers, 919-545-0747,
caffamps.com
least 10 o'clock to drive the
o u t p u t t u b e s , a n d a f t e r
spending some time with the
Hammerhead, we agree. ln
fact, much like the Marshalls
Carrlooked to for tonal inspi-
ration, the best tones were achieved with
the Master wide open-a bark so intimi-
dating, Dobermans will howl in jealousy.
Now about those Grip and Impact con-
tols. The 4-position Grip switchvaries the
preamp gain, increasing it from positions
1-3. In position4, the response of the power
tubes changes for a sharper sound.
The 4-position Impact switch is broken
down in the following manner: 1) flat
response; 2) hightreble emphasis ilablack-
face amps; 3) high treble and upper mids
emphasis d la metal-face early-'70s British
tube amps; 4) high treble and ful midrange
62 GUIIAR ONE ( guitaronemag.com ( FEBRUARY 2004