Bogner's new Ecstasy Mini amp head is a $329 bundle of high-gain joy

The Bogner Ecstasy's Red Channel is the stuff of legend. In electric guitar circles, many consider it to be the acme of high-gain tone – all hot crunch and musical saturation that can be used for a variety of rock and metal styles.

Bogner Amplification is well aware of this, and having tried to capture its magic in a overdrive pedal, the US boutique amp brand has now exported the Red Channel experience to a single-channel 30-watt guitar amp head, the Ecstasy Mini.

It's a move straight out of Friedman's playbook, whose BE Mini head took the BE's preamp mojo and applied it to a solid-state amp head weighing less than a couple of bags of sugar.

And it's great news for anyone who likes the idea of that Red Channel sound but might balk at the price for a full-size valve-driven Ecstasy head – and would perhaps like a housetrained version of that tone that's both portable and affordable.

As with the BE Mini, this shrunken Ecstasy shares the aesthetic of its larger sibling. You have the Bogner custom made basket weave grill on the front and there are white chickenhead dials. And like the full-sized fire-breather – and indeed the Ecstasy Red drive pedal – there is an abundance of tone-shaping features.

There are dials for Volume, Presence, Treble, Middle, Bass and Gain, with a switchable gain boost, a three-way switch for selecting mids, and a three-way pre-EQ switch that can be used to toggle between more open and tighter, more aggressive voicings. There is also a Variac switch for chasing those Eddie Van Halen-esque 'Brown Sound' tones.

On the rear of the amp you'll find a pair of 8-16ohm speaker outputs, and an effects loop for integrating your pedalboard. 

The Bogner Ecstasy Mini is powered by a 24V universal-voltage power supply (included), and is available now, priced $329 / £249 / €299 street. See Mini Amp for more details.