Re: Tribute to British Tone.
Here's a snippet I found:
posted by Terry Bateman (Ex Roost Employee) on December 20, 2001 at 17:01:24:
: Hi All,
: Roost sound equipment was started back in 1972 by Brian Roost (hence the name) and Ron bailey, who were both local musicians based in Southend-On-Sea, Essex, they were also at the time fixing amps for the local music shops and bands. The Roost amp is similar to the Hi Watt amplifier with a little bit of the early 100W Sound City amp throwen for good mesure. The early amps also used Sound City transformers, as Sound City were also built in Southend at the same time. The Early amps had a black engraved front panel similar to the Hi Watt amplifier; the circuitry was built on tag panels, whilst the later amplifiers had black screen-printed metal front panel; and the circuitry was then built on a Printed Circuit Board.
: The range consisted of 50, 100 & 150 Watt amp heads with the option of reverb, the later units had a master volume control, there was also a range of 2x12 50 & 100 Watt combo amplifiers, both available with reverb, there was also a range of speakers to go with the amplifiers 2x12, 4x12, 1x15 & 2x15 early units had Fane speakers but the later units had Celestion speakers, there was also the option of EV as well.
: The amplifiers were of a rugged construction with a hefty steel chassis and large transformers, the 50 and 100W amplifiers gave a good 50 & 100 Watts RMS output, whilst the 150 Watt gave 125 Watts but it did have six EL34’s (viz Sound City 120 head). The circuit was well engineered and gave the typical British valve sound. The driver and output stage gave a lot of grunt, typical of the Hi Watt and Sound City circuits. I remember the 120 Watt amp with its six EL34’s making a good Bass amp, whilst the 50 watt really “sung”
:
: I first got involved in Roost in 1975, whilst at school, and looking for bits (transformers chassis etc) to build my own guitar amplifier, I went on to spent that summer working at Roost, and in exchange they gave me parts to build my own amplifiers, I went on to join Roost full time the next year when I left school, the experience I gained working at Roost building Roost amplifiers & fixing + hotting up other makes of amplifiers is invaluable even to this day, Roost never had more than eight employees, in fact when I joined there were only four employees including me.
: Roost was sold in 1980 to FAL who were based in Leeds, I was also made redundant when Roost was sold, and so I moved on, I now work for a local Hi-fi company as a design engineer, but I still fix and work on valve amplifiers for local musicians.
