After designing several amplifiers, I have arrived at several defining characteristics of Crossfire Guitar amplifier designs.

Tenets of Design:

• Keep it simple: So far, I have concentrated on simple amplifiers done very well. Crossfire amplifiers are basic no frills. By keeping the feature set to the necessary features, the designs are quieter, lower in distortion, lighter, and more compact than would otherwise be possible. There are an amazing number of effects pedals available today and I find that most artists prefer to create their effects in this manner. I am always open to requests for Tremolo, Vibrato and Reverb for example in a custom design. However incorporating these features adds considerably to the size, weight and noise of an amplifier.
• No aftertaste: This is a design characteristic of Crossfire Guitar Amplifiers. When the musician strikes a strong pick attack followed by silence, the amplifier is absolutely silent. There is no ringing, noise or after effects. This is as a result of several design features incorporated in my amplifiers.
• Clarity of all notes: Each individual note can be heard clearly among all others. This clarity is a result of design decisions and careful tuning of each design before introducing it. A Hi-Fi analogy would be low intermodulation distortion.
• No sag: As the amplifier is driven hard, each note sounds the same as if it were played once preceded by quiet and followed by quiet. A characteristic of some classic designs is that as the amplifier is driven hard, the power supply is unable to keep up and the supply voltage sags or droops during the period of heavy drive. This causes distortion and muddy notes. A industrial grade approach to power supply design eliminates this effect in Crossfire amplifier designs.
• A great low end: Most guitar amplifiers roll off about 200Hz or so. The Low E note of a guitar is 82Hz. So why would we tolerate an amplifier that does not reproduce the entire range of the guitar? It is possible to have crisp high notes favored by lead guitar players and still have a great low end. The reason many guitar amplifiers do not is simply cost. It takes a lot of metal in the output transformer to reproduce the low frequencies and this costs money. The output transformer is the single most expensive item in a guitar amplifier. It is tempting to control costs in the purchase of the OT.
• Use the highest quality components: I choose the highest quality components including the magnetics, resistors and capacitors. This improves performance, reduces noise and improves reliability. Component selection as well as design contributes to that fat sound of a Crossfire Guitar Amplifier.