Top Drawer Tone

Emprize combines two coveted vintage Fender voices, authentically capturing brown-panel lead tones and black-panel rhythm sounds in one amp

- Nick Guppy 

The British boutique builder’s market for guitars and amplification is in rude health, with many smaller operations becoming more visible as the pandemic abates. One of the better-known is Emprize, which is based in York. The company is headed up by founder Philip Fisher, who learned his craft, like many amp builders, by working on pedals and amplifiers for local bands, before taking the plunge and building his own designs. Emprize offers a wide range of small- to medium-sized combos and heads, most of which are inspired by classic Fenders from the 1950s yet with some unique twists, such as the one we’re looking at here, the Emprize Harrier.

It’s a compact 1x12 combo, housed in a 1960s Fender-style solid pine cabinet. Heavy-duty cream Tolex, a wheat speaker grille and cupcake control knobs add to the vintage vibe, giving the Harrier plenty of Fullerton mojo. The electronics are housed in a steel chassis that supports generous mains and output transformers, as well as a choke and a smaller coupling transformer for the amp’s valve-powered spring reverb.

Speaking of valves, the Harrier has plenty of them, with three TAD 12AX7s and two 12AT7s in its preamp, driving a pair of TAD Red base 6V6 output valves and a GZ34 rectifier, for an output of around 20 watts. The loudspeaker fitted to our sample is the Eminence GA-SC64, designed in collaboration with legendary amp guru George Alessandro.

The Harrier’s circuit layout takes its cues from Fender eyelet boards, but it uses turrets that are mounted on a solid G10/FR4 baseboard for vastly improved reliability and longevity. The valve bases are neatly hand-wired, along with all the front- and rear-panel components.