Dr. Z Z-40 40w 1x12 Combo Blackout

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Seller's description

Having much success developing half-power versions of his popular amps, the MAZ 18 and the Z Wreck Jr. being exemplary best-sellers, the impetus to distill the brilliant British character of the Z-80 down to a manageable 40 watts of dual EL-34 power was strong. And let’s face it, not every rockstar needs the full 80-watt potential of the Z-80, so the Z-40 seemed an obvious addition to the line. Yet the path it led Z down was winding, as trying to wrangle the Z-80’s behemoth tone by simply marrying it’s preamp to a twin tube power section wasn’t as easy as simply dreaming up the idea. Finding the same robust, chiming clarity of the bigger amp challenged Dr. Z to rethink the technical design while retaining the essential features every player appreciated about the Z-80. Still present in the Z-40 is the smooth, fader-like post-phase inverter master volume to manage the overall output, the unique, individually cathode-biased EL-34 power tubes which gave the original design it’s harmonically rich character, and the versatility of the Metro “Zero-Loss” FX loop for the modern player’s pedalboard. Re-designed was a proprietary output transformer from Heyboer, not a copy of any previous amp, vintage or otherwise. The gain-staging of the preamp was considered to maintain superb clarity and headroom, with chiming British cleans that bloom into defined, grinding saturation. This amp includes a first in Z’s design history: the use of TAD Hi-Grade 12AY7 preamp tubes in the first two positions which provide a punchy, well-balanced response across every note of the fretboard. Adding the novel “bootstrap” tone stack driver circuit from the previous amp to the Z-40 increased bandwidth and gain which was essential to its sonic signature. Finally, another tweak rarely employed by Dr. Z: a subtle, fine-tuning of negative feedback in the output section corrects any mushy artifacts and produces an accurate, extremely low noise amplification of the guitar’s signal. But Dr. Z wasn’t satisfi