The Secret to Great Sound

My design philosphy is simple: simple circuits sound the best. Guitar amps are built for music generation, which requires tone controls, reverb, presence, etc. Hifis, on the other hand, are built for music reproduction - they should get out of the way as much as possible. Which means reducing the components used to the absolute minimum (though if you’d like tone controls, I’m happy to build that).

The Warmth of Analog

All of my amps are all-tube, with no digital or solid-state circuitry in the signal path. Vacuum tubes don’t just sound better, they look better. Just as a fine restaurant plays to your complementary senses of smell, sight, and sound, a fine stereo should play for more than your ears.

The fire that lights up the tubes is the same fire that humans have sat around for thousands of years, and the sight of a glowing tube still fills us with that same sense of mystery and serenity. When I talk about the “warmth” of analog tubes, I’m not just talking about the sound - I’m talking about their literal heat. A perfect nod to the fires of tiki.

I make each Tiki Tube Amp by hand at my little shop in Los Angeles, California. It's outdoors. Sometimes I get rained on. That's life.

I begin with sustainably recovered logs - no trees are felled to make a Tiki Tube Amp. The log must be the right size to accommodate all the componentry. And it must want to become a Tiki Tube Amp.

Once the log is chosen, it’s carefully prepared and carved. For this I mostly use chisels, gouges, and rotary tools, but occasionally I’ll use an angle grinder or chainsaw if they're called for.

The brass hardware is all custom made by hand for each amplifier. Brass is the historical metal of seafaring since it resists the corrosion of saltwater and stainless steel wasn’t commonly available until recently. Plus it looks cool.

Electrical wiring is all done by hand, point-to-point, with tag boards for some of the signal path. I do not use PCBs with their skinny traces. I solder all of it with my trusty Weller soldering iron.

All capacitors are of the highest audio quality. Resistors are metal film with 1% tolerance. The wires themselves are classic cloth-covered, solid core wire.

Because each tiki is different, the internal layouts change slightly to accommodate the varying placements of the tubes, inputs, outputs, switches, and so forth. Your typical hifi manufacturer will not do this as they prefer repeatable, assembly-line manufacturing. I do this because I’m not an assembly line.

Let's face it: hifi stereos all look the same. Rectangular metal boxes. I think that's boring. Tiki Tube Amps are fun. They don't hide away in a nook of an entertainment console. They're out front. They command attention. They're the first thing you see when you walk into a room. "What's that..?"

I think the world needs more fun stuff. And the most fun, whimsical thing I know of is tiki.

There's nothing like the experience of listening to music while your stereo gazes back at you. An ineffable presence that doesn't just play music, it delivers it.