01/06/2014 Over the last couple of years we have been talking with JJ Electronic about building a guitar amp and utilizing their 300B for power. For the past year JJ has been working to make this a reality and a few months ago we received the first prototype, the “JJ One”.   Since then we have experimented with the amp and components working with JJ to fine tune the amp. The photos you see here of our prototype are slightly different than the now finished product which you can see at the bottom of the page. The amp will include a matching 2X12 cab, speakers to be announced. 01/30/2014 The "JJ One" made it's debut at the 2014 winter NAMM show and everyone who listened to it or played the amp was astounded by its warmth and dynamics. One of the most frequent comments was "that's only twelve watts!" The amp is plenty capable of gig level volumes without sacrificing tone, or it's right at home at levels you can talk over.  

Meet the “JJ One” Guitar Amp

When it comes to building amps JJ Electronic is not the new kid on the block. Of course their production has always been audiophile focused, until now. We are very pleased and privileged to announce JJ Electronics first guitar specific entry into the amp world. The “JJ One”. So what happens when an innovative company like JJ Electronic decides to build a guitar amp? Totaling the vast depth of knowledge from JJ’s old school HIFI focused electron tube engineers and their cutting edge designers and you end up with a completely unique circuit that meshes old world approaches in a new school perspective. The JJ One guitar amp is a true class A amp utilizing a custom design of one of the most revered Triode vacuum tubes ever produced for sound reproduction, the 300B. This tube was introduced in 1938 by Western Electric and is a directly heated or “filamentary” type triode. JJ has been producing an excellent variant of this tube for the HIFI market since the mid 90’s. Over the last year the JJ Electronic engineers have created a new version of the 300B called the JJ “300BH“ which enhances the harmonics and distortion necessary for guitar amps. This tube has all the sonic beauty of their standard 300B, an extremely warm and lush sound which is rich in harmonics and rapid dynamics. Exploiting these characteristics the JJ One guitar amp takes the definition of “warm clean tone and touch sensitivity” to new heights. The vision for the JJ One was not only to build a guitar amp with a spectacular clean tone but to also give the player ample room for classic overdriven tones. Running in single ended class A operation with no feedback, JJ mates their newly designed 300BH with a classically derived preamp section that offers beautifully open cleans up to mildly crunchy overdriven tones. It takes pedals in spades. Anything you put in front of this amp takes on a vibe that feels as if was part of it, or “built in” from the beginning. This takes even basic pedals like Tubes Screamers, Blues Drivers and Muffs into new territory. The JJ One’s simplistic approach allows the variances in guitars to shine. With that in mind you can switch between humbucker and single coils with no EQ changes, as if the amp is always in the sweet spot. The amp is hand wired using a combination of turret boards and point to point wiring utilizing high end components with custom transformers. It produces 12 watts of lush clean power and can hit peaks of 25 watts. Featuring hi/low inputs, a basic TMB tone stack, and a foot switchable variable “Solo” boost. The front end incorporates a single ECC83S and the 300BH output tube is driven with an ECC81. There is the option of using a diode rectifier or the on-board GZ34 rectifier tube. This amp is the Goldilocks of guitar amplification, not too loud, but loud enough to gig with and accompanied by a wide range of usable tones at all settings.

“JJ One” Time Line