With its trio of unique controls, 3rd Power’s Clean Sink MkII delivers three blendable iconic amp tones in one game-changing tube combo.
BY DAVE HUNTER
AS MODERN GUITARISTS lean toward digital solutions in their quest for optimal amp tone, many tube-amp makers are redefining this 100-year-old technology to suit current-day demands. To that end, acclaimed Nashville-based brand 3rd Power offers up its Clean Sink MkII as the optimal, gigable, classic-clean amp, with stealth-like versatility for the 21st century.
A former touring and recording guitarist, 3rd Power’s founder and head designer Dylana Nova Scott has earned a stellar reputation for thinking outside the box to pack unprecedented versatility into tube amps that otherwise follow rather classic templates. The company’s Kitchen Sink 6VEL, for example, seeks to run the gamut of American and British clean-to-dirty tones via a control panel far less dizzying than those of many foot-switchable, multi-channel amps. Likewise, the company’s now-deleted Dreamweaver and Dual Citizen straddled both side of the tonal pond with an authenticity that won many users.
An amp designed purely to achieve the world’s finest clean tones at usable stage and studio volumes might not, at first glance, appear to follow the same versatility premise. However, there’s a lot of flexibility within the Clean Sink MkII’s control interface, thanks largely to three knobs that extend its voicing and volume capabilities beyond the standard gain and EQ controls. In addition to the traditional volume, treble, bass and reverb, it boasts controls for:
Voicing: With a range from AM to AC, the voicing control rolls continually between American/Fender and British/Vox, with a broad range of blendability in between. A two-way Normal/T-Boost switch alongside the single input further refines the Voxy reaches of its fully clockwise rotation.
HF Damp: This high-frequency cut control sweetens up the frequency range and avoids harsh highs (particularly useful when the amp is used onstage with in-ear monitors).
Hybrid-Master: 3rd Power’s patented take on the master-volume control, it governs overall volume levels without altering basic gain and EQ responses.
The foundation for all this is an all-tube circuit with four 12AX7s in the preamp, reverb and phase-inverter stages, and two 6V6GTs in the output stage in Class AB fixed bias. Rectifi
