| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Amplification |
| Founded | 1989 |
| Founder | Rick Perrotta |
| Headquarters | , |
Key people | Mark Sampson, Steve Goodale, Chris Perrotta, and Phil Jamison |
| Products | Amplifiers |
| Website | matchlessamplifiers |
 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(April 2022) |
Matchless Amplifiers is a Los Angeles-based company which designs and makes electric guitar amplifiers, specializing in class-A tube circuitry.
Matchless Amplifiers was founded in 1989 by Mark Sampson and Rick Perotta. The company started in Perotta's home in Hollywood, California. Steve Goodale and Chris Perrotta were also key initial partners. The company saw great success in the early 1990s, meeting the demand for sonically consistent and structurally reliable tube amplifiers. Their flagship amp is the DC-30, an EL-84 amplifier based on the Vox AC30.
Due to the growing demand, the founders elected to become partners with the U.S. Music Corporation in January 1994. This merger was done to acquire much needed growth and capital. This merger lasted until October 1995 when Mark Sampson acquired Matchless without the other founding partners. Sampson stayed on with the company as president and C.E.O. until late 1999. [1]
By the late 1990s, Matchless began to decline financially due to over-expansion and market declines. In 1999, Matchless filed for bankruptcy. Phil Jamison, a Matchless employee from 1992 to 1997, acquired the company in 2000 and has been the chief operating officer (COO) ever since. [2]
Early "Sampson-Era" amplifiers fetch high prices on the after-market; however, Jamison states that current-production Matchless amplifiers are of higher quality than the early amplifiers and have more efficient circuit layouts. [3] There are currently[ when? ] sixteen production amplifiers offered by Matchless.[ citation needed ]
Vox is a British musical equipment manufacturer founded in 1957 by Thomas Walter Jennings in Dartford, Kent, England. The company is most famous for making the Vox AC30 guitar amplifier, used by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Yardbirds, Queen, Dire Straits, U2, and Radiohead; the Vox Continental electric organ, the Vox wah-wah pedal used by Jimi Hendrix, and a series of innovative electric guitars and bass guitars. Since 1992, Vox has been owned by the Japanese electronics firm Korg.
Orange Music Electronic Company is an English amplifier manufacturing company, noted for their products' distinctive sound and the bright orange Tolex-like covering of their heads and speaker cabinets. The company was founded in 1968 by Cliff Cooper, who decided to build his own amplifiers when vendors refused to supply his West End musical instrument store, Orange Store, due to Cooper's youth and countercultural image. The brand's early amps were adopted by Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac and were used on Stevie Wonder's Superstition, which brought Orange worldwide recognition. The brand's "Pics Only" models—nicknamed for their use of symbols rather than text on their control panels—were released in the early 1970s to much success and established a signature "Orange sound." However, large-scale production of Orange Amps ceased in 1978 and Cooper spent the '80s building and selling amps in limited numbers. After a line of reissue models licensed by Gibson in the early '90s proved unsuccessful, Cooper regained control of the brand and found new success with the 1998 release of the AD30, with notable fans like Jimmy Page. In 2003, Orange released the Rockerverb series, which has become a favorite amp among heavy metal guitarists.
Sansui Electric Co., Ltd. was a Japanese manufacturer of audio and video equipment. Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, it was part of the Bermuda conglomerate.
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