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Ryan: So, I know quite a bit about Dean Zelinsky through Dean Guitars, but I would like to know more about Diamond Amps and how this whole partnership came to be.

Jeff: Ok, here’s the story: About fifteen years ago I became friends with Bob Bradshaw. Really, one of the biggest names in guitar rigs and interfacing systems. And through my relationship with Bob, I became friends with Martin Golub who was really the amp guy at Custom Audio. So for about a decade and a half, Martin and I had been working on different things that we liked. So, one day I decided we really had some great stuff and we needed to put it out there.  I called up Martin and asked him what he thought and he said, “Yeah!” So, Martin and I took our stuff and went into business on our own.  I was already doing mods for people and Martin was doing this for a living.

Ryan: So this was more of a garage operation?

Jeff: I did independent rig consulting in Texas for a long time and Martin was doing this full time. He was doing rigs and building amp mods.

Ryan: Oh, ok.

Jeff: So, Martin and I set out to do Diamond and put some of our stuff into full scale production, which we did. Now, as the story goes, Dean went into Make’n Music in Chicago with some Dean Guitars and was talking to Teddy Gordon who owns that.  Teddy personally plays my amps, so whenever he’s testing anything or doing anything, he plugs it into my amp.  So, the story gets back to me that, "Dean Zelinsky sent Trivium to talk to you because they were looking for an amp company."

Ryan: Ok, so there is a Trivium connection here.

Jeff: Well, sort of. What happened was Dean was listening to the amp. He wasn’t paying attention who it was made by, but he said that is the best sounding amp he’d ever heard.

So, he remembers this and a couple of weeks later the Trivium guys call Dean and say “Hey, we are trying to find a decent amp company. Do you have any recommendations?” He said, “Yeah, hang on.”

So, he calls back to Teddy and says, “What the fuck was that you were playing, that’s the best sounding amp I’ve ever heard.” He said, “I want to send the Trivium guys”.

Then he said, “Oh, that’s a Diamond.”

Dean goes, “Oh really, so that’s Jeff's?” and Teddy said, “Yeah!” 

Dean said, “Oh my God, that’s freaking amazing.” He tells the Trivium guys that they should call me. That conversation got back to me from a couple of different sources, all of whom are mutual friends of mine and Dean. Of that whole circle of people I was just talking about, Dean and I were the only ones who had never met or weren't talking on a regular basis. We knew who each other were but, we hadn’t had a chance to hook up. That was in part because I was trying to do some work with Dean Guitars and was frustrated because it just wasn’t happening. So I thought I would get around to Dean later. 

 I thought, "I really should call Dean and thank him for the compliment".  I was told that Dean and I would get along great because we were really like minded. So, I called Dean out of the blue and said, “hey this is Jeff, I heard about the nice compliment and I wanted to say thanks” -And out of that we became pretty fast friends. We saw the music industry eye to eye. I hinted around about it a little bit that I had heard it through the grapevine that Dean wasn’t really happy where he was and that he and I should build guitars together.

Dean was like, “yeah, yeah, yeah...”  I said, “anytime you are ready, we’ll talk.”

So, the separation occurred at Dean Guitars. He called me up and said, “Hey, you remember that conversation we had?”

I said, “Yeah.”

He said, “How serious were you?”

I said. “Completely…why?”

And he said, “Well, I’m not with Dean Guitars anymore.”

And I said, “Since when?”

and he said, “ahhh since forty-five minutes to an hour ago. So, do you want to talk?”

and I said. “Yes.”  So, my partner, Terry Martin and I flew up to Chicago. We all sat down and talked about what he saw and what we saw and next thing you know we are in business together.

Ryan: Well that is fantastic! So tell me how many major models of Diamond Amps you have out now.

Jeff: Six: Spitfires. ( a one channel and two channel). Outside of that, Phantom, Nitrox, Decada, and Spec Op.

Ryan: So, no proprietary info. But, can you tell us what makes your amps different from other companies?

Jeff: There is nothing proprietary about tube amps.

Ryan: You know that is kind of the general consensus.

Jeff: Everybody building tube amps is basically ripping off Fender or Marshall. People get into that all the time. So, take a look at this circuit design, that circuit design, and my circuit design and its like, "Fuck you"…it's all Fender’s and Marshall’s.

Ryan: Yeah, open up a schematic of any tube based circuit design….

Jeff: People say stuff like, “oh, I’m going to do a different design” and they’re getting into all of this technical stuff…. “Oh, you mean the B+ design that Marshall has been doing for forty years is wrong, and doesn’t work right?” That is confusing to me because I thought forty years of testing was adequate… but, obviously, you guys know better, right?  (Laughs)

Ryan: So at that point you are just designing things that basically make your life easier and make the amplifiers more flexible?

Jeff: Yeah, so here is the real deal with our stuff; We design our amps with top quality all the way through. The way we voice our amps has been much more pleasing to professional players. I probably got the highest compliment I am ever going to get in my career just within the last couple of weeks. 311's Tim Mahoney, who is an endorsed artist, has been in the studio recording and Tim called me saying that the producer was freaking out over his amp...The spitfire, he is freaking out over it.

Ryan: So what did he say?

Jeff: He said; “I want to thank you, this is one of the best amps I’ve ever heard in my life.”

Ryan: This guy has heard amps. Tons of them...

Jeff: The producer is Bob Rock! And I’m saying if Bob Rock is saying; “This is one of the best amps I’ve ever heard.” I’ve got to give it up to that because I hear that Bob is one of the best guitar tone producers. I mean: Motley Crue’s Dr. Feelgood,  Metallica’s  Black Album and the list goes on for days and days and days… If I could have my choice of producers if I ever had a band, unquestionably it would be Bob Rock. So, you talk about a guy who has had access to every amp ever made, it's him.  Bogners, Engls, any of them…. he has heard them. To get that compliment from him is probably the highest  I’ll ever have. And he pointed out some of the same things to me. He said obviously they are built like a tank. Beyond that, the clarity and the precision of the amp is beyond anything I have ever seen.

Ryan: Is that point to point wiring in your stuff or do you use printed circuits?

Jeff: It is all hand assembled. It is all hand soldered. We do use a pre-printed circuit board and I do it for this reason and this reason only; It is an unnecessary cost to do point to point and it is far less reliable then a printed circuit. As long as your board is designed right it is a substantially more reliable product. Because you are not relying on human beings' ability to do six hundred solder points accurately and not mess any of them up. I can’t name six hundred of anything in my life that I have done right every time.

Ryan: You get one cold solder joint in there or something and…

Jeff: Not even having ice tea! I spill some. Nothing! I can do six hundred times without incident. That part goes away with a reliable product. It’s really the voicing of the amp that does it for me. We like our amps to feel upfront, to breathe, we like the guitar player to literally feel it.

Ryan: Yeah, you like to move some air with it.

Jeff: I’m not one one of those guys that do what a lot of guys do with their amps. They design their amps to make it easier for the player…. a lot of distortion, a lot of saturation. They take out a lot of things that create clarity. They create an amp that no matter how bad I play, I still sound ok.

Ryan: That’s the kind of amp I have to have. (Laughs)

Jeff: I don’t want to do that. I want the amp to be true to the player. Because if you are playing anything correctly, it sounds substantially better.

Ryan: Sure, absolutely.

Jeff: With an amp set up like that, there is a limit as to how bad you can sound, but there is also a limit as how good you can sound. I’ll never have an amp with a limit as to how good someone can sound, because the better their fingers are, the better I want them to sound. I don’t want them to be limited by my product. And that is where people tend to gravitate towards what they hear. It’s big and it’s full and I can feel it and hear everything… and that is really what sets us apart. That and I spend the time to give the guitar players what they want. Controls that work,  a real tube-driven effects loop, dual volume gain design that I do on my crunch channels that give you more or less gain rhythm or rhythm in a lead. Those are the little touches that make the guitar player go “thank you, I don’t know why it’s so hard to get an amp that does this.”  For me, that’s what it comes down to.  Outside of that you just build them as good as you can, using high quality parts.

Ryan: As far as speakers in your cabinets, are they your design or Celestions, or what?

Jeff: It’s theirs (Celestion’s).  I love them.

Ryan: Are those twelve inchers in there?

Jeff: Yes, twelves in all of our cabinets. I had a conversation with Jim at Celestion about this, and he understands and does agree with me that at a good shop, some significant portion of the cabinet sound is the speakers, but, there’s an equally significant portion in the construction of the cabinet.  It makes a difference as to how it sounds. I’ve talked to people that say, “No, no, I don’t need another cabinet, mine is as good as yours.”   I say, “Alright, I’ll tell you what, A/B (switch) it…” and you know what?  Hands down, they pick mine.

Ryan: Do you have a specific type of wood that you use in them?

Jeff: Baltic Birch

Ryan: Well, let’s go take some pictures of you with those amps!

Jeff:  Let's go!

Visit Diamond Amps on the web at: http://www.diamondamplification.com or on myspace at: www.myspace.com/diamondamplification

By Ryan

"Well, think me up a cup of coffee and a chocolate donut with some of those little sprinkles on top..." editor{at}roadcrewmag.com