Premier Guitar August 2016
From the classic lean and clean DR103 100-watt heads to rare and unique one-offs, the Hi-Tone team left no stone unturned when it came to researching the amps that inspired their new company.
Guitar Player February 2017
ONE GLANCE AT THE HI-TONE HT50 JP and fans of the bolder, punchier verges of British tone will know exactly what they are looking at; or nearly, anyway, since this hand-wired, American-made amp revitalizes a rare variant of the fabled Hiwatt DR504 circuit. Hi-Tone is the progeny of Hiwatt fanatics Clayton Callaway and Mark Huss, with assistance in “U.K.-based component sourcing and circuit accuracy” from Glynn Reeves, the son of late Hiwatt founder Dave Reeves. If you think all this implies that Hi-Tone goes out of its way to render its amps as accurately as possible to the original Hiwatt designs and build techniques, you’d be right: components are hefty and of high quality, the wiring work is impressively tidy, and Reeves-certified build techniques are adhered to throughout the HT50 JP chassis.
Vintage Guitar June 2017
While many have tried via transistor trickery to replicate the tone of Jimmy Page’s Hiwatt at Led Zeppelin’s legendary January ’70 Royal Albert Hall performance, the Hi-Tone HT30/JP 15 is the most authentic reproduction yet, with a few welcome updates.