Customer Comments: Twelve

I just purchased one of your Port City 12s from Boutique Guitar Exchange in Atlanta and wanted to tell you how thrilled I am with the new amp. After playing through a solid-state Marshall for years I couldn't believe my ears when I plugged into the 12 for the first time. I was truly blown away at how much sound could come out of such a small and simple "plug and play" type amp.

It had that subtle clean break-up that I was looking for in just about every amp Guitar Center had to offer. I originally just went into the store to look around as most of the amps in there were out of my price range, but when Ben turned on the 12 I knew that I had to have it. I will definitely recommend Port City to anyone in the market for a new amp, and wish you and your company the best in the future.

-Tyler Work
Auburn, AL

After a couple of months of searching and a few weeks of waiting, my amp and cab are finally here. My wife and I are expecting our first child, so I was looking for a lower wattage head/cab setup to replace both my Fender Twin and Mesa Mark III.

It's a Port City Twelve, 12-watt 6v6 head and a Port City 1x12OS cab.

First off, the head is exactly what I was looking for. The Tone and Volume controls are very interactive so there's a big range of tone to be head out of this head. It's exactly what I was looking for coming from the slightly sterile sound of my Twin -- rich tone at all volume levels. It loves my pedals as well - from BoR and OCD to the previously on-the-shelf Fulldrive 2.
The cab is a beast on it's own. It's super lightweight and beautifully constructed. I can't really even describe the tone coming from this guy -- so full and powerful. Stealing a sentiment from my friend, it's got that "4x12 midrange growl"; It's a big cab sound in a much smaller package. Combined with the speaker, it's got great separation and clarity which was an unexpected surprise for me.

Yesterday I received my 'twelve' amp from Stu at Fat Sound. Even though I have lived in Colorado for nearly 10 years, Stu is still the man I trust the most with my tone needs.

When I phoned him recently I told him that I needed a low wattage amp that had both a great clean tone and a nice tube saturated dirty tone that would be appropriate for playing at church. A lightweight grab and go amp that would allow me to sound great at low volumes and would save all the trouble of dragging the 'big rig' out of the basement for 5 songs on a Sunday morning would be perfect. Increasingly sound board guys at church are worse than those at clubs when it comes to volume. Even my MAZ 18 head from the good Dr. was too much and I hate the idea of attenuating an 18 watt amp!

Stu quickly recommended your 'twelve' combo. I had seen your website and listened to the clips and thought it might be exactly what I needed. Again, when you don’t have the luxury of noodling for hours with an amp before you buy it, you have to trust someone to help you. Stu has never let me down.

The 'twelve' is exactly what i needed! It couldn’t get more simple than a volume knob and a tone knob. The tone is very 'black faced' in my opinion and delivers such a warm creamy gain sound at low volumes that i have no doubt that our sound guy will soon be asking me to "turn it up".
I know you did not necessarily build this amp for use at church, but it is the perfect wattage and mix of both clean headroom and tube saturated gain. I love it! I want to encourage you to hang in there with this amp. I told Stu that he needs to tell every guy he knows that is a church player to check out this amp. It really fills the niche that a lot of guys like me are looking for and believe me, there are thousands of 'church players' out there that are more than willing to put up the $$ for the right answer to their problems.

Thanks again for your determination with this project. Stu told me a bit about the evolution of the amps and how he initially offered some constructive criticisms about the amp. No doubt you heeded his advice, because this amp is perhaps the best truly low wattage amp on the market today.

I will be using it live with our band in a couple of weeks and i will let you know how it works for me in the live stage situation. Thanks again for designing this amp!

Jeff Rudder