Music Power. Unbridled amplifier power. It is starting to sound ugly. But this is 1993 and we are going to have to talk about this sooner or later. It is coming and you should be aware of what you are going to have to deal with. The new era of amplifiers will have a failsafe lock on the power switch like the arming sequence of a rocket on an F-16. It will have a red lift up panel with the words printed, “Warning, system is armed.”
There are no volume controls. It’ll be set it at full stun, or even kill. You don’t set the bass, or middle, or treble on this rocket, you will just fire the thing and let it go do its job. No control panel here, just a bare, gaping front that looks black and ominous where the speaker lurks. It is so sinister that nobody would even think of touching it, let alone stealing it. If it is done right, most won’t even want to look at it.
If you want one of these amps you will have to get a security clearance, an asbestos suit, and a set of long tongs for handling it . You won’t be able to buy one, enlist for five years and you will be issued one.
And what good is an amp that only launches sound waves in one direction? Come on, this is 1993! Sit on a bandstand and there are people all around. This amp rotates 360 degrees on a pedestal like a radar antenna.
This amp can’t be rated in watts. It can only be measured in foot pounds of pressure per square inch and cosmic wind velocity. With an amp like this you don’t talk about music power, we are talking about moving things here, more like high or low fronts do with the weather. You can track this amp with a radar.
The front page of the instruction sheet has a chart dealing with how far away things are and how far you can move that far thing away. The guy who gets one of these amps will have to learn to count songs off in a whole new way too. Instead of counting 1,2,3, and 4, he will need to learn to count down 3,2,1, and blast off.
It is going to revolutionize the bandstand as we know it. You won’t even think of sitting down to your pedal steel guitar without having a crash helmet, and a flightseat fitted with a seatbelt and safety harness. The primary reason for this being that this is an ejection seat for any unforseen uncontrolled reaction. Options with this amp are a players side airbag if you plan to play anything resembling rock and roll. And are you going to sit on stage with your back turned to a big black box that looks like something that Darth Vader has sexual fantasies about?
And I can’t wait to see what they will name these new amps. Rocket breath….Cosmic Crusher…Fatman & Littleboy…Mother…Cluster Vibes…Voice of God…What??
Jeff