Specifications

Manufacturer:
Carr Amplifiers, carramps.com

List Price:
$1,990.00; with "cowboy" covering, $2,090.00

The Carr Artemus sounds as classy as it looks, offering tone similar to an AC30 but with greater punch, detail and variety.

When an amp features four EL84 tubes, it inevitably gets compared to a Vox AC30. But although a quartet of EL84 power tubes is an essential part of the AC30 sound, it’s only a small part of the overall tone equation, which includes the transformers, circuit and speakers. The Carr Artemus is a new combo featuring four EL84 tubes, but instead of being an AC30 clone or slightly modified tribute it’s more of an improvement on the Vox classic that offers some of the AC30’s desirable characteristics while eliminating its not-so-desirable ones.

FEATURES

Carr offers the Artemus with three different speaker configurations—one or two Eminence Red White & Blues 12-inch speakers or an Eminence Legend 151 15-inch speaker—or as a stand-alone head. In addition to four EL84 power tubes that provide 30 watts of output, the circuit features a pair of 12AX7 preamp tubes and a 5AR4/GZ34 rectifier tube. Controls consist of volume, bass, and treble knobs, an Edge switch (bright/upper mid boost settings), a mid switch (flat/scooped settings), and a 15/30-watt switch.

The cabinet is solid pine with dovetailed joints. The stock covering is black tolex, but Carr offers a wide variety of cool custom covering options for $100 that include “cowboy” (simulated tooled leather, as featured on the 1x12 combo I tested), purple, blue and coco, or exotic gator and ostrich coverings for $250.

PERFORMANCE

The Carr Artemus may be a single-channel amp, but it can produce a wide variety of clean and overdrive tones. The amp sounds best when the volume control is cranked all the way up, producing smooth, responsive overdrive with just a hint of compression. The clean headroom on this amp is impressive. With a Tele plugged in, there was no breakup until three o’clock (about 75 percent up), but even at lower levels the amp’s clean tones remain bold, punchy and assertive. The fixed-bias output stage (compared to an AC30’s cathode-bias circuit with no negative feedback) is largely to thank for the enhanced articulation and detail that the Artemus provides.

THE BOTTOM LINE

The Carr Artemus sounds as classy as it looks, offering tone similar to an AC30 but with greater punch, detail and variety.

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