The result is 65’s most diminutive offering yet, both in physical stature and output level, but as we shall see, the stated “clean output” of 12 watts can be deceiving, and this isn’t the mere bedroom brawler that such a rating might imply. Having seriously dug this prototype’s overdriven sound, 65 Amps’ Dan Boul and Peter Stroud set about tidying up the circuit, giving it a usable clean voice and a much broader vocabulary, and making it into a versatile - yet still quite simple - club-gig and studio amp for the contemporary tone fiend. The Lil’ Elvis has, in the broad sense, been in development even longer than most - a stately 48 years or so, if you take into account its roots in an odd little combo owned by Vox collector and author Jim Elyea, one that Vox designer Dick Denney had built as his own personal amp, but which never went into production. THE CREW AT 65 AMPS HAS A REPUTATION for putting considerable R&D sweat into every new amp design before it leaves the maker’s Los Angeles, California, headquarters.

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