MTCH SCHF 120 1995 QC Essential

Watch demos and our introduction to the Matchless SuperChief 120 captures here: 
 
StoryTime episode on the Matchless SuperChief 120
 
 
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It’s big, it’s angry and it’s green, therefore we dubbed this beast of an amp “Hulk”. THIS is the largest and most powerful amp that Matchless ever built for Guitar (the Thunderchief with its 200w output being a Bass amp). It is also the only Matchless Guitar amp that runs on fixed bias, as the whole brand has built its sound based on the less powerful, softer and more compressed sounding cathode bias. This specimen is a beautiful Sampson era example and sounds simply glorious.
 
The quad of EL34 tubes. Fixed bias and massive transformers gives this amp a huge, powerful sound. While according to what i could research, it looks like design-wise it is rather a relative of Hiwatt than VOX< it still sounds clearly like a Matchlass amp and it desplaus the typical traits of that lineage – it has a decisively VOX meets Marshall type of sound with a bigger sonic foot-print than a VOX, but not as bold as most vintage style marshall -it is more focussed on the mids and it has that typical steely Matchless high end, which is not shrill, but detailed and cuts like a knife through the mix. 
 
Despite this amp not claiming to do what so many others promise, it kind of sounds like a VOX AC30 on hormone replacement therapy AND stereoids. Of course the AC30 analogy is a vibe thing, not that it sounds exactly like it, but it is mids focussed, has a nice chime and shimmer, has also a nice compression despite what one might expect from that huge power, but it just has a lot more low end and incredible punch. 
 
It has a Gain switch that i have not seen on other Matchless amps what lets you access some higher gain and somewhat brighter sounds.
 
Sonically it has parallels to the Chieftain, as the name suggests, but it has a more full and natural midrange and a bigger sound. The SuperChief also gets more eadsily into the Marshall type teritory via the Mids control, which is even more active on the SuperChief than on the chieftain. From 8 and above you get access to Marshall-land and from 7 and below you get that steely Matchless top end with the somewhat scooped midrange response. 
 
The master volume works really well not only for volume reduction, but also for tone-sculpting in order to control the amount of overtones and harmonic content. 
 
The amp excels at clean and driven tones alike and can gain up considerably with the Gain switch in the A setting. 
 
The set features 36 full captures that were recorded through the matching ES412 Matchless 4X12 cab with 30W Matchless speakers and the mics used were 2x Royer R121, a Beyerdynamic M160 and a Neumann U87. Please refer to the full list of included captures in the product photo section.