Literally like new 45 watt head that’s Z’s take on modern high gain. Cleaned up amazing with just the volume knob on your guitar. Amp circuit was built by Carol Ann amp genius (the late) Alan Phillips. Beyond the gain knob and the ubiquitous EQ section, there’s the variable Sensitivity control, as seen on many Carol Ann designs, to tailor the amp’s front end to the player’s choice of guitar and pickup. Dialed lower, this control ensures clarity with hot-wound or active pickups, and set higher it increases input signal to beef up low wound single coils found in Strats and Teles to maximize thickness and sustain.

Further down the CAZ-45’s control panel, the Aggression control is a satisfyingly versatile feature that introduces overdrive in the unique cathode-biased, 6L6-based power section. It creates new harmonic textures and tightens the low-end while focusing the high end to cut through a dense mix like a surgical blade. Set this control lower for warm and smooth classic overdrive as preferred by Alan or dial it up to induce percussive grind, as suggested by Dr. Z , when you just need more, more, and more gain! By utilizing the Gain, Sensitivity, and Aggression controls on the CAZ, you will find that regardless of how much distortion you pile on, balancing these controls will allow you to clean up the amplifier to crystalline, harmonic-rich chime with just the roll back of the guitar volume knob.

Packing this much gain into a hand-wired amplifier was no small task, and to address the concerns of the modern guitarist, Alan included his tube-driven effects loop into the CAZ-45 to integrate the large palette of effects units available on the market. Similarly, Dr. Z wired in his lauded Level control to serve as the answer to loudness concerns. The Level is a volume scaling control, as seen on the popular CURE and JETTA amplifiers, that acts as a master fader on the amplifier to adjust to whatever situation the player finds themselves in. Be it at home practicing with the family within earshot, or on stage where you need enough volume to let all your playing nuances shine, you will not find any lack of singing sustain and crushing gain, nor experience any loss of tone regardless of where the volume is dialed.