Colby dtb50 Head plus Cab

Colby amplifiers have been designed with tone as the number one focus, period. Everything possible is done to keep the signal path pure, all tube, and sounding great. There is and will never be a compromise when it comes to tone. Adjectives like sparkle, fullness, compression, body, focused gain, smooth, and great feel have all been designed in with the careful selection of components including resistors, capacitors, transformers, chassis and tubes. Colby amps are built to the absolute highest quality standards and are 100% hand-built with care. The designs tend to have a lot of controls but a few things are of paramount importance to the outcome; the control panel has to be easy to operate and understand; nothing is done if it would compromise tone in any way; and every feature has to be useful. Every Colby amp achieves these goals, otherwise it won’t be built!

The Colby dtb “Dual Tone Booster” amp took over two years of tonal development before it was finalized. It was created with the help of Jim Weider, Tele player extraordinaire and known obsessive tone fanatic (who played with The Band and Levon Helm for over 20 years). The main goal was to build a hand wired, tone-to-the-bone channel switching amp with two channels, each with its own dedicated tone controls. The amp was put through its paces by Jim in both live and recording situations and the development went on until he was more than satisfied. The first channel (Clean) is “American” based and the tone is chimey and full with a lot of punch. The second channel (OD) starts where the Clean channel leaves off and goes from there into various amounts of overdrive and distortion. You can dial in full range or smooth tones. Having two differently voiced boosts on the overdrive channel gives you five instantly accessible, footswitchable sounds.

The Dual Tone Booster 50 head and cab is neatly attired in off-white tolex, with a brown panel and matching brown grillecloth. Though technically a two-channel amp, there are a great many more tonal options via the footswitch, which not only changes channels, but accesses the two distinctly voiced boost options. The amp has a bypassable, tube-buffered effects loop (with send and return level controls), a back-panel bias pot (with meter jacks), and a variable impedance selector.

No matter how thick and distorted this amp’s tone – regardless of channel/boost modes – its sensitivity keeps the player in control. Chords of all types ring with substantial bloom, resulting in a round, tubular tone and beautiful, singing notes. Because it sounds great at any volume, the dtb50 makes a great amp for the studio as well as live venues of all sizes. The dtb50 offers tonal excellence, versatility, and superior construction.

ABOUT COLBY AMPS
From 1978 through 2010 Mitch Colby worked for one of the most prominent companies in the music industry, Korg USA, distributors of Marshall and Vox amps (Colby served as chief marketing officer). Mitch was involved with Marshall for his entire 32 year career at Korg, and along with an international team of dedicated people, helped bring VOX back from an almost dormant state to become once again one of the leading amp companies. Mitch’s continual fascination with guitar amps led him to repair, restore and collect many rare and vintage amplifiers. In fact, he has had the good fortune to restore the largest collection of vintage guitar amps in the world! Over the last 40 years, Mitch always wanted to do it his way, but being a part of a larger team always led to compromise. Now that he has total control, as the owner of Colby Amps, he is building the amps he always dreamed of, the amps he would like to play, no matter how long they take to develop or how much they cost. These are amps that inspire you to play whether on stage, in the studio or at home. They will last a lifetime.