Bartel Amplifiers

Bartel Amps are built under one person’s eye. Mark Bartel, best known as the founder of Tone King, designs every amplifier and personally oversees every step of construction at his shop in Baltimore, and the work shows in places most builders never touch. Circuits are all-tube and hand-wired on turret boards made in-house, where they are cut, drilled, routed, and polished. The transformers are paper bobbin and layer wound, the panels are silkscreened in the shop, and even the leather handles are handmade.

Refinement runs through the cabinet as much as the chassis. Solid Eastern White Pine bodies use finger joints and a unified body and baffle with no screws or cleats, then get a sizing compound, natural hide glue, and hand-brushed lacquer in place of shortcuts. The idea is that the cabinet should behave like an acoustic instrument, so notes bloom full and resonant, with harmonic color and without glare or constriction, as Bartel puts it.

These are purist designs, from the Multi-Voice preamp to the transformer-coupled phase inverter, for players who notice the details and want an amp finished to the same standard as their guitar. Browse more guitar amps, compare a Bartel with our Two-Rock and Dr. Z amplifiers, pair one with a boutique pedal, or stop by the shop and play one.