As a proponent of the way that Andy Fuchs builds his amplifiers, I'll admit I am biased.
Biased towards great gear, great sound and top shelf American craftsmanship isn't a bad thing though - is it?

So, how do I go about explaining to you the reader, just how well built and great sounding these amplifiers are? I'll try by starting with the Fuchs build process.

Let's start with some things that few if anyone else does, like:

• A T6 Aircraft Grade Aluminum Chassis: Which is lightweight, structurally more stable than the steel chassis out there and dissipates heat build up better than any other material, and we all know how bad heat is for an electronic circuit - not to mention the superior shielding it affords to outside interference.
• A two-sided, heavy duty copper clad PCB with full solder mask, which boasts a superior ground plane, strength and conductivity for years of service.
• Chassis mounted best in class tube sockets, no PCB mounts here.
• Way overbuilt, audiophile grade output/power transformers and choke; which results in the finest transmission of sound quality and purity of power supply.
• Off board PCB parts/components still hand wired the old fashioned way for durability and low noise/hi-quality signal transmission.
• Audiophile (hi-fidelity) "Wonder" capacitors used in all signal path applications for superior 'fast' response/low noise audio signal circuit response.
• All built into a solid wood cabinet with the finest road tough hardware available.

Ok, that says something for the quality of the parts from the ground up, but what makes this amp sound so special other than that?

Andy Fuchs is not only a player himself, or even a savvy amp builder - he also has a background in audiophile electronics, you know - the reproduction of sound on your stereo that maximizes the quality audio you listen to. Starting with that mindset at the source, the Fuchs amps are built like no other when it comes to delicious tone and low noise. The noise floor of these amps is so low that they are eerily quiet, even in high gain applications.

The resulting tone is, if I had to sum it up in one line of metaphors is: "Tantalizingly sweet, dripping with a 3D aural bouquet of sound - that makes your ears hunger for more."

Let's get on with some of the features of the ODS 30, which is the lowest power unit in the ODS line of products from Fuchs Audio Technology. 30 meaning 30Watts of power is very decieiving, with the transformers this amp has in it and the power stage design, pushed out beyond clipping, it is more in the 50W to 60W range. What makes this amp so unique though, is all the user features it has for contouring the sound to your liking. It excels in both the rich warm cleans area and the fully driven smooth overdrive areas. The overdrive itself can be configured from a dark early Mesa Mark like sound to a crisp sharp bladed vintage JCM800 sound to the slighty spongy and harmonically over the top Dumble like sound. This is all accomplished by the flexibility of tone manipulation the front panel gives you.

You'll notice the ODS has a single high impedance input in the first picture; that input has been tailored to accept both dry guitar and FX laden input signal equally well. Many amps fold at the input when driven too hard by an FX chain, not so with the ODS. Next, you see a 'Gain' knob - from here on out is some pretty innovative circuit engineering, the Gain knob is actually the input control for the pristine clean preamp inside this box - think of it as a clean channel control. Next to that are three toggle switches that change both the voicings and boost levels of the frequencies they are assigned to - Brite, Deep and Rock/Jazz. Further across the panel we see the High/Mid tone controls, each of these also has a pull on boost, and finally a beautiful well rounded Low control for the bass frequencies. It should be noted here that all of these controls are exceptionally functional and boast a very wide range. How many times have your turned a Low or Bass control down and lost your bottom mid range frequencies? Not so with this amp - and turning the low frequencies up dials in crisp clean bass frequencies, not a muted or boomy bass like so many other amps.

Now we get to the real magic, unlike many amps that run the preamp channels in parallel to the power section, when the boost is engaged on the overdrive channel, by either pulling the knob out or activation via footswitch... the clean preamp is mixed into the over drive channel. The Input knob of the OD channel controls how much signal is fed in from the clean preamp, adjusting gain - the output knob controls the amount of wet/dry clean preamp mix going to the power section. With this setup, which is pretty unique, you can control all the parameters of your gain, from level of output to bite and clean preamp mix. This control affords a ton of tonal combinations, literally, coupled with the tone controls and voicing switches - you can make this amp sound just about any way you like.

Moving on down the line, you'll see an Accent knob, which is Fuchs version of a Presence control, but unlike other presence controls - it is very sensitive, dramatically changing your sound with the smallest increments and can make your amp sing or just cut through the mix, I've never had the pleasure to use a Presence control quite like this one. Finally, we see a Reverb control for an internally mounted spring reverb unit that also works superbly with deep rich reverb, not tinny or boomy at all. A lot of the way all of these controls work has to do with how Fuchs manipulates DC in the amp circuit, giving clean and rich audio signal output with little or no 'broadband' noise.

But it doesn't stop there - looking at the back panel:

Here you will see the standard On/Off and Standby switches, a 3 level ohm tap to support the most common loads and then a great FX loop design. You can choose to run your FX loop in either series or parallel, which means you can attenuate with the 'Trim' switch and control Wet/Dry FX mix. This circuit also supports In/Out level control to really dial the FX loop in, and the Trim control attenuates the FX loop for strong signal rack mount gear or stomp boxes - truly, an FX loop that is both configurable and can handle just about any device you plug into it. To the right of the effects loop is the footswitch jack, which can take on a few different looks depending on which pedal you get. The standard 1/4" jack shown here, controls the OD and Reverb On/Off. Fuchs also offers Artist pedals which support switching of up to 4 other parameters as well.

The output section is furnished with TAD 6L6s, which are just amazingly clear, with each power tube having its own bias control for perfect tube bias. Also in the cabinet is a 3" cooling fan to keep all of this superb circuitry running nice and cool. One other feature of the amp is, the user can pull the chassis out and change a trim pot on the interstage gain to either clean it up or add more dirt to it - making this amp completely tailored to the sound you might like.

It really is no wonder why Fuchs is fast becoming a major player in the amp world - with the likes of Shane Gibson (Korn/Jonathon Davis Solo Tour), Dweezil Zappa and Kenny Wayne Shepherd using these amps, Fuchs is making a major push into the mainstream. For anyone wanting further information, feel free to ask me and/or visit the Fuchs site, where tons of audio clips exist.

One last thing about this ODS 30, which I used to record both acoustic and electric guitars (no FX) on my recent version of Carol of the Bells, it does it all, and it does it all extremely well - Andy Fuchs really has an ear and a great take on an old concept, putting the sound before anything else - terrific amp!