20th Century Guitar reviews the Clark Beaufort

By Ray Matuza

For those of us who have ever swooned over a ceramic socket, been titillated by a NOS Tube or just plain love a great sounding amp, this month spotlights two low-production hand-wired honeys which span the tonal regions from Beale St. to Swing St.

When Bob Ogulnick of the Perfect Note told me of Mike Clark's line of Fender Tweed-Era replicas, I knew I was in for a high quality time, as Bob's company only deals with real serious gear. The Clark Amplification Company pays homage to the beloved 5E3 Tweed Deluxe with its own Beaufort model. The Beaufort sports a few twists and updates that would probably put a smile on Mr. Leo's face. From the finger jointed solid pine cabinet to the triple chrome-plated steel chassis, this little bugger has a very solid feel and vibe to it. Doing a little back panel surgery revealed an extremely clean layout with all lengths of the Belden cloth covered wires neatly run and dressed. Twisted pairs are bent at accurate right angles and lay flush against the inside wall of the chassis. The optional high-quality Audio Note paper foil and oil caps and Allen Bradley carbon comp. resistors are cleanly soldered on the fibre circuit board while the hand wound transformer's extra leads are thoughtfully covered with heat shrink tubing and tie wrapped out of harm's way.

The also-optional audio Note ceramic octal and NOS Cinch 9-pin sockets play home to a pair of Phillips NOS 6V6 power tubes and RCA NOS 12AX7s. Oh yeah, "When renewing insist on a genuine Philco Tube",reads the base of the NOS 5Y3 rectifier. Don't ya love it! A second tube package ($80) featuring 2 Phillips 6L6S and a GZ34 rectifier is also available and can be installed without rebiasing the amp. A nice long rubbery feeling AC line chord (with ground) feeds in the juice while the AC power switch is a progressive double pole switch with a center stand-by position. A three position ground switch with a direct chassis ground in the middle helps eliminate any grounding problems. As per the original, two volumes and a tone control flesh out the top panel along with the fuse holder and pilot light.

Okay, enough of the technicalities!

Plugging into the Bright channel's number one input immediately reveals that classic tweed tone, only with a little more detail and clarity. Moving through the volume control's range produces a nice graduation of distortion from 2 through 12 as well as a true increase in volume. While headroom is at a premium here, more can be had thanks to the interactiveness of the two volume controls. For example, dialing in the Normal channel's volume between 11 and 12 keeps the bright side pretty clean up to about 9 on its volume. Beyond that adds a meaty sound with just a little tinge of breakup that works great for rhythm chores. Also, the 12" Fane Alnico speaker helps the amp sound less "boxy" than an original 5E3 and rounds out the tone a bit. Speaking of tone, the singular lord o'er the frequencies has a smooth taper with a wide range, my fave settings being between 8 and 12 which adds a nice bite and top end to the notes with no harshness. The Normal channel produced similar results with an attenuation of the highs, obviously. My '73 Strat seemed to like this channel best in the middle or back pickup positions and in fact, while I had the amp cranked, inspired me to play a pretty authentic sounding Larry Carlton "Don't take me alive" intro!

With a bodacious tone for blues & rock and tons of options available, the Beaufort offers a sensible alternative to shelling out big bucks for an Original Tweed Deluxe (that you probably won't take out of the house anyway!).