SQUARE AMPS
THE FARM
REVIEW BY YOEL KRESISLER
STREET PRICE $700.00
Pedals are awesome, no
question. If I didn’t love
them more than my hardearned cash, I wouldn’t
be here; and if you didn’t
love them, you wouldn’t
be reading this publication
made for freaks like us.
As much as we love our
pedals however, sometimes
nothing beats the sound
and smell of a tube amp
cooking away—serving up
warm, fat, and dynamically
hollow tones. The tube
amp is the backbone of
our tones: the solid, stoic
and beautiful tower of
sound that stands behind
us during our musical
moments of success and
failure, unwavering in its
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GEAR REVIEW
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resolve and commanding
in its voice. Our favorite
amps come in all shapes
and sizes, and in the last
couple of years, there have
been some very interesting
innovations and takes on
the classic formula. What
has fallen into my lap this
week is nothing short of
a triumph of tone, and
an aesthetic pleasure
for anyone seeking both
vintage looks and vintage
tones. Matthew Richards
of Square Amps take the
whole “vintage look”
about forty steps ahead
of the competition, by repurposing old tube AM
radios from the ‘30s and
‘40s into fully-functional
Square Amps The Farm
guitar amps. This design
philosophy of preserving
the past and bringing it into
the future is what drives
Mr. Richards’s business and
passion for amplification,
swirling together the
perfect cocktail of
functionality, looks, and
huge vintage tone.
The Farm is a repurposed
1937 RCA-Victor radio,
running a three-tube
configuration. Coming in
stock are three JJ tubes:
one 6V6 power tube, one
12AX7 preamp tube, and
one 5Y3 rectifier tube. The
design of the amp itself is
simple but very effective,
unadulterated tube tone
that rivals some of the best