Three flavors

Hi-Mu amps never came in more than three flavors: 7 watts, 12 watts and 18 watts. This was 12 years ago, long before the low-watt amplifier renaissance. All of Hi-Mu amps were delivered in the same cabinets, irrespective of the amps watts. One could chose either a combo version with a 12 inch speaker or a head version. For a $50 up-charge you could get tweed, Fender-style black tolex came standard.

While a huge stack of Marshall 4x12s looks really cool, most performance venues use a public address (PA) system rather than trying to fill the arena with the amps the band brought. A properly mic'ed amp doesn't have to pump out a lot of watts to get the right sound. Studio players have always known that great tone can come in small packages, and few people are interested in trying to record or listen to 200 watt amplifiers in a little recording room. While the stories of Duane Allman's Fender Super Champ (18 watts) and Jimmy Page's low watt Valco amps are widely discussed, in the early to mid-90s there weren't a whole lot of amp builders producing low-watt amps. Hi-Mu was one of the few, its top of the line amp only put out 18 watts.

Here are three 1990 era catalog entries on those three Hi-Mu amps.
First below is a catalog description of the 7 watt standard single 6V6 power tube amp.



Next comes a 12 watt version, driven by a single 6L6 power tube.



Finally Barry offered a 18 watt version of his amp, driven by two EL-84 power tubes. He suggested it was basically half of a Vox AC 30.



For the player wanting an amp that also had a three spring tank reverb, Barry offered an up-grade to any of his single channel amps for $150.

Party like it's 1995

If you were smart enough, or lucky enough, you'd have known about the Hi-Mu amp in 1995 and could have asked for a catalog. Here's two pages from the catalog Hi-Mu's mastermind, Barry Barish, would have sent you. If you had a little coin in your pocket back in 1995 you could have purchased a custom-built, hand wired, point-to-point, 18 watt 'boutique' amplifier in real tweed with a 12 Greenback for less than a grand!



Check out the prices!
The same quality of amp today would set you back twice the price at least.
I'll be posting specs and more pictures from the catalog for those interested.
By the by, a tip of the hat to Steve at Do It Yourself Amps, who also is a Hi-Mu fan, and from whom I 'borrowed' the original pdf that these images come from.

Noise washes you clean

I keep an electric guitar and an amp next to my computer whenever I can. Five years ago, while working at the SF Examiner, I purchased a cheap acoustic Fender guitar from the pawnshop around the corner to leave beside my desk for anyone who might pick it up in need of those moments that require the inner solitude and introspection a guitar can bring in a place of chaos. Several months after I’d left, a former co-worker told me what she missed most was the quiet sound of the guitar while she wrote her daily quota of news.

My guitars and amps give me great pleasure. I’m especially pleased with the instruments I've managed to rescued from dis(re)pair. Pictured above are a Gibson The Paul and a mid-60s Fender Showman cabinet I was able to resuscitate. The Hi-Mu 5.5 amplifier is another story, it came to me whole and full of life.

I purchased the Gibson for $125 when I was working as a production artist for the SF Weekly back in the late 1990s. It was cheap because someone had started to dismantle it for future improvement.
The future turned out to be too far away for the fellow that started the project.
Originally the guitar was black but when I received it the former owner had scraped off most of former paint. The pickups and other hardware also were random replacements so I didn’t have any hesitation finishing his strip job, re-contouring the body, adding an after market mother of pearl headstock logo, refinishing the guitar in antique cherry, replacing the pickups with Fralin humbuckers and the hardware with vintage original gold plated Gibson equipment. It’s not collectible but with a decent set of strings it sings and looks good.

The Fender cabinet, sans speakers, was a similar find for $50 on Craigslist. A pair of inexpensive and dysfunctional mid 60s Jensen 15 speaker were sent to Audiovex for re-coning with Celestion Greenback cones and for less than $200 I had a great sounding if a tad ugly cabinet. Someday I'll recover it in new tolex.

The Hi-Mu wasn’t so easy, but then again, it didn't need anything. Using my research skills I traced down the original builder, Barry Breisch, at home. He stopped building amps in the late 1990s but it turned out he no longer was playing his personal amp and offered to sell it to me for a reasonable price. It arrived in immaculate condition, as though it had been carefully lost in the mails in the mid-90s and magically arrived on my doorstep a decade late.

Not a day goes by that I don’t turn the amp to ten, the guitar to a similar level, and create a quiet empty peace in my head, letting the amazing, cleansing sound wash over me. It’s renewing in a way that only holy music played loudly can be.

This post was originally written for my other blog, which is typically about politics. If you're interested in a LIBERAL perspective on the world you are welcome to check it out at www.tourettesdujour.blogspot.com

Be well and live in peace.

Hi-Mu High Gain Prototype amplifier

Here's a Hi-Mu prototype low watt, high gain amplifier I recently acquired on eBay.
The amp came without tubes or speaker or even a cabinet, and with the warning that it didn't work! I'm hoping to bring it back to life.

Clearly it can be seen by the pictures above and below that this amp was a work in progress. Barry Breisch, the designer, used an existing chassis and pop riveted patches over the amp's cutouts to create an amp architecture that was suitable for his needs.

Here's what she looks like from the control panel.

From this picture you can see that Hi-Mu used a black print on white design for the earliest versions of the amp. Most Hi-Mu amps in circulation are white lettering on a black background.

Here's a picture of late generation production version of this same amp, in a cabinet, using white lettering on a black chassis.

For those interested in her innards, here's Barry's hand-drawn schematic for this prototype, it's basically your standard English-style, mid-1960s EL-84 design.



For comparison, here's a standard Mullard EL-84 design of the era.

Hello Hi-Mu amp lovers

I'm a Hi-Mu amp fan, lucky enough to have three, count 'em, three Hi-Mu low watt amps. This site hopes to become an homage to the Hi-Mu Amplifier company's great products. I'm looking for any information anyone out there might have, and I'm happy to share the information I have. If you're a Hi-Mu fan, or a low watt amplifier fan, please feel free to weigh in with your opinions. I don't know too much about the technical side but I plan to learn and share. I can be reached at fdodsworth at comcast dot net.