Greenhell MF-1 (Prototype) 2025 (5E3-based like Fender Deluxe with Marshall-style foot switch-able channel)

This is a custom 5E3-based amplifier we designed for the studio to handle a wide-range of guitars and dead quiet for the studio compared to a typical 5E3 design.  However, it goes well beyond a typical 5E3 circuit design with quite an improved voicing, ultra low noise and channel and gain switching via an included footswitch with illuminated indication and dead-quiet switching.  It has two main foot switch-able "M" and "F" voiced channels with low and high gain switching per-channel direct from the footswitch pedal.  We added a double-sided audio-grade ground plane for ultra-low noise with an added safety fuse along-side the main fuse for added safety and tube short protection.  To boot we included an attenuator/power soak for full-volume studio or small stage volume to bedroom practice to "baby sleeping in the next room" quiet practice. ~---scroll to the bottom for quick specs---~

The channels are slightly modified from a typical 5E3 design to match the closed-back 2x12" cabinet and to provide proper gain-staging and breakup that never gets too far into the mud tone of a typical 5E3, giving you the entire volume range to precisely dial-in the desired breakup and tone.  We designed it to allow a bit of that nice sag mode right before it gets into flub territory, but to stay out of the unusable mud range.  The circuit is vintage cloth hand-wired throughout with only the exception of small short PCB runs for channel switching and for the added power safety and select-able DC filament preamp mod.

The first channel is more of a Marshall-style channel with a tighter low end to handle beefier guitars like Gibsons, Gretches, Rickenbackers or guitars with F-holes, lower tunings, or shorter scale lengths.  The M channel also has more of a british drive than the F channel.  Both channels are much quieter than just about any 5E3 design out there for improved studio functionality. The second Channel is the F-based channel with more low end and the clean tweed chime, much like a 50’s tweed 5E3 amplifier, but with more range in the volume control to dial in the level of breakup more specifically.  The second channel was more designed for F-style guitars for cutting through the mix but having plenty of bottom.  

The matching cabinet is closed-back with a beautiful sparkling gold cloth that just doesn’t come out in photography and really looks great in person against the dark green levant.  We spent many, many months designing this amp and had much trouble getting it out due to COVID and health issues.  In fact, I’ve had some fairly major health issues my since and the name of the amp comes from a combination of my last name and the life-long challenging experiences, beyond the obvious.

The idea was an amp that has minimal circuitry for pure vintage tone, no tone-sucking eq circuitry in the preamp design, no modern filtering for too much of a modern tightness, but not too loose with the typical 5E3 flub when turned up too loud or trying to use a beefier guitar than a Fender-style solid body.  I designed it after my personal ‘55 Deluxe which is the best tweed Deluxe I’ve ever heard tone-wise, and with speakers inspired by both the British-style ceramic magnet speaker my Deluxe had in it as a replacement for the vintage AlNiCo and a also inspired by a Wilder speaker 2x12 cabinet I have loaded with Heppner bell AlNiCo speakers that have always sounded highly musical and really beautiful to me.  

The amp head's output transformer and speaker cabinet are also matched for a tone secret mod in my vintage ‘55 Deluxe giving the amp early breakup, a seemingly cleaner chime, slightly cleaner headroom – it takes a little more volume knob to get the power tubes to break up, tighter, punchier low end – less power-tube sag as the bass doesn’t get as bloomy or loose, brighter, more aggressive top end, and the flyback voltages in the output transformer are higher, so you get more sparkle and cut (many players describe it as “more British” or “more hi-fi”). As a result, the power tubes run a bit cooler and happier (longer life).

For the cabinet, I combined a very high quality and insanely great-sounding AlNiCo bell magnet speaker painstakingly matched with a British ceramic magnet speaker to get the best of both worlds, so that I could get both great blues tones, sparkling clean tones, but crank up for hard rock, stoner sludge, even metal tone if desired.  I was truly going for something versatile, but completely pure and vintage-sounding. We spared no expense in the speaker department.

The output transformer is the best 5E3 clone available, paper-wound, just like the original, an exact match.  The parts should last a lifetime.  We used the best of everything possible.  We even added second filament transformer for the DC filament mod power and the channel switching relay power so that no original vintage tone is sucked from adding modern modifications to the original vintage circuit.

Each channel has two volume knobs.  The small knob for the channels I use to set a low gain setting and I use the bigger knob to set the high-gain setting (can be reversed, whichever is desired, settings are independent).  The channel switch on the front can be used to switch channels without the foot-pedal, but you’ll just have the bigger knob as a gain setting unless you use the foot pedal to switch gain settings.  The front panel channel switch has an indicator built-in to the bat that displays yellow/gold for the plexi-style "M" channel.

This is a completely new design I’ve never seen utilized in a guitar amp design before.  The switching doesn’t just add a gain-stage, it literally routes around each volume pot to jump to a new gain setting, keeping you with original vintage tone, no modern tricks, no negative-feedback, no gain-stacking, just pure tone at two different gain settings.  You could think of it as a switch-able set of 4 presets more than gain stage stacking like a modern amp.  This keeps the tone pure and vintage, but with modern functionality.  A win-win.

You can go from clean to breakup, or slight breakup to full-out with the click of an insanely quiet switch, or even switch from M/F voicings on the fly to cut through the mix for solo'ing or to switch guitars quickly without needing to switch amps. You can have fuller, prettier clean parts with the F channel, and tighter breakup or distortion parts with the M channel and the footswitch is spaced so that you could switch from F clean to M british dirty with one step, or stay on the desired channel and just go clean/dirty with one step. If you prefer F bottom crunch and M slight-breakup with a tighter bottom for clean, you can do that too. The choice is yours, with many, many options.

We put a ton of work into this amp.  It is like no other.  It is simply really balanced and beautiful nice tone no matter where you set it or how hard you push it.  There is nothing like it out there.  I listened and tried capacitors and resistors in many positions to pick by ear each part in the areas where we thought improvements might be made to get the right bottom-end, tone, tightness, sag, full volume range, you name it.  I really was just trying to create the perfect studio or small stage tube amp.  The closed-back mixed-magnet cabinet really brings a new tone and added versatility to the 5E3 circuit sound and more options for recording and mixing with the two different tones from two entirely different styles of speakers that were painstakingly matched, auditioning dozens and what felt like hundreds of speaker combinations until we got the perfect match.

I will have a demo up as soon as we can put something together. Message me if you'd like me to forward the link to you once it's complete.

This is a prototype amplifier.  It’s solid build-wise beyond where mass manufacturing could likely get it.  It’s not a mass production amp in design, but it’s hand-made and a prototype idea realized.  We’ll likely only make nine of these for release if we keep going.  This is the first up for sale and number 2, as I’ll keep number 1 for reference.  If we decide we’ll keep going with it, the design will probably change slightly for ease in manufacturing and perhaps a slightly different layout.  This is not an easy amp to build.  

No one in their right mind would try to mass manufacture an amp like this.  There are just too many additional pieces and parts tucked into a small chassis, which makes hand-wiring very difficult. We just want to offer a few up to see what the reaction is and make a decision from there.  I thought we’d share what I think is a really great and nearly perfect studio amp sound-wise with a more usable pure tone and very low noise and virtually no channel switching noise, perfect for the studio and for use with a wide selection of guitars.

I hope you sincerely enjoy as much as I have if you purchase.  The vacuum tubes were carefully selected for matching the gain-staging and tone.  Tons of time was put into proper tube selection.  All high-quality tubes hand-selected by ear for bass response, headroom, gain-staging and breakup balancing before considering cost.  Each tube is a different model and manufacturer in the preamp, tone/phase-splitter, power and rectifier to pick the best operation for each duty. If you decide to change the sound a bit to taste of the amp, tube selection really goes a long way in this one for each section.

The amp will be shipped with maximum padding for safe travel.  Local pickup could be an option near Chicago or Aurora, IL.

Cloth hand-wired point-to-point tube amp built to vintage spec with modern safety and reliability with four gain settings via two channels select-able via foot-switch. Every component is premium, every connection is deliberate and every detail has been obsessed over.

Head Specifications

· Designed and assembled in the US with cloth hand-wired construction

· 15 watts (5 watt / 1 watt selectable power soak attenuation)

· 2 - 12AX7 tubes in preamp (vs 12AY7/12AX7 in original 5E3 circuit for preamp)

· Tube recitifier (5Y3GT)

· 2 - 6V6 power output tubes, class A/B push-pull design

· Single short signal-path pure vintage tone control (5E3 style)

· Premium selected components throughout

· Sprague Atom electrolytic filter capacitors

· Sprague Orange Drop capacitors

· Premium silver Mica tone capacitor

· Double-sided audio-grade ground plane for ultra-low noise

· Added second internal fusing for emergency tube short protection and fire safety

· Premium channel selection switch with illuminated bat built-in mode indicator

· Ground-shielded coaxial cable on sensitive signal paths for quieter operation

· Nearly zero “click” noise relay switching (dead silent channel/gain switching)

· 24 mm Alpha audio-taper pots (smooth, precise control)

· Switchable DC filament mod on all 12AX7 preamp tubes – eliminates 60-cycle hum even at insane gain levels

· Constant-impedance 3-step reactive power soak: Full Power / 1/3 Power / 1/15 Power (bedroom to studio/stage)

· Included dual footswitch with dual LED indicators *yellow for gold plexi M channel, red for hi gain*

· Channel switching: Ml-style ↔ F-style with hi and low gain switching for each channel

· Volume/Tone boost contour

· Dimensions: 8" x 20" x 8.25"

Vintage Tone With Modern Safety & Reliability – Built Like It’s 2025 (Because It Is)

· 94V-0 flame-retardant PCB portion (For added power safety/switching, audio path is handwired)

· Double-insulated power cord + fully isolated chassis (no ground lift switch, no death cap – ever)

· Power transformer 1500 V HI-POT tested for zero mains leakage

· Separately fused DC power supply rails

· AC mains input fused

· Genuine UL-listed power cord

· Internal power-present neon safety lamp

Cabinet

· Matching 2×12 cabinet

· Beautiful matching green levant with sparkling gold grill cloth

· 16 ohms

· 80 watts max power-handling

· Finger-joined Baltic birch ply, dovetailed corners, green levant & sparkling gold grille cloth

· Dimensions: 20" x 32" x 11"

Limited run to nine units, likely.

If you’ve ever wanted a lifetime quiet studio amp that can do Plexi crunch, Tweed chime, from pro studio or small stage loud volumes to bedroom whisper… this is it.