Specially Built for Eric…

2006 Cornell The 'Eric' Amp Custom 40.

This Cornell-Custom 40 Combo was specially built by Denis Cornell in 2006 for Eric Clapton and is covered in the chocolate brown imitation aligator the same as Eric's other Cornell amps. For some reason unknown to Eric's supplier (Chris Trigg of Vintage and Rare Guitars in London) Eric decided not to take this one and it was shipped to yours truly here in sunny Calabasas… where it has been used by us for demo for the past four years. The Cornell-Custom 40 is a super clean amp designed to cater for those who want Eric's sound, but prefer a smaller, more compact amplifier. Initially, what is now the Cornell-Custom amplifier was only a custom-built order for Eric Clapton. The Cornell-Custom 40's minimalist design, with only 3 controls (volume, bass and treble), provides a truly "plug and play" amplifier. With very few components in the signal path to corrupt the tone, its simplicity is its strength; the natural tone and response can only be a result of that no-fuss design. At the heart of the Cornell-Custom 40 is the Tone Tubby speaker enhancing its response thus resulting in the perfect Blues sound. The Cornell Custom 40 main features include a Pine shell & plywood baffle: 40 watt, switches to 10 watt; High and Low inputs; Separate volume, bass and treble controls; Point-to-point hand wiring; Stainless steel chassis; One twelve inch Tone Tubby hemp cone speaker; the pre-amp tubes are 2 x 12AX7 + 1 x 12AT7; and the two power tubes are 6L6GT's. The combo weighs 51 lbs and the exterior dimensions are 18 inches wide x 23 inches high x 10 inches deep. Leather handle and rubber feet. The Cornell-Custom 40 amplifier output stage is Class AB1, which means that the grids of the output valves are controlled by a negative bias voltage. The output transformer of the Cornell-Custom 40 has a small, independent winding that picks up the signal being produced in the final stage of the amplification process. As the winding is in the output transformer itself, it will exactly reproduce the signal appearing at the speaker. This output is used to feed the line output, reproducing the sound of your guitar as accurately as possible. This output is isolated from the chassis, ensuring that no earth loop (and the resultant hum) can be produced when connected to a mixer or external power amp. This unique UK amp has been modified by Cornell to run on the US standard 115 volts. In as new mint (9.50) condition.

"Virtually all modern amplifiers are built using printed circuit boards, which helps to speed up production and keep down costs. There is, however, one major drawback with printed circuits - conductor tracks that connect components together often run very close to one another, creating a small capacitance. The result of this in a guitar
amplifier is a substantial loss in both high frequency response and harmonic richness. Cornell amplifiers are designed to avoid this by having point-to-point wiring throughout. Components are mounted onto a specially designed component board which is then sealed, using a conformal coating to prevent noise and the reduction of component life caused by moisture penetration. The hand-wiring, carried out by our highly-trained staff, takes time but ensures that each of our amplifiers performs to the highest standards of reliability and sound. The stainless steel chassis holds our specially-designed transformers, and chassis-mounted (rather than circuit-board mounted) valves (tubes). Such attention to detail ensures a very close reproduction of the full harmonic spectrum of your guitar’s
pick-ups, resulting in a pure, natural sound that will turn heads at any venue and/or that records superbly. The Cornell-Custom 40/Custom 80 is designed to be simple in use, and yet produce the wide range of sounds that the musician of today expects from a professional amplifier. The Bass and Treble controls work over the entire frequency range of your guitar, allowing for increased amounts of low and high frequency adjustment." (manufacturers manual).