Boutique amplifiers

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Boutique amplifiers are a type of guitar amplifier that is hand built with the intention of being much better than the ordinary variety offered by large companies. This is often reflected in their price. Sometimes they are clones of older designs, often with minor improvements in layout or circuit design. Sometimes they are new designs altogether. Invariably they feature better parts than ever appeared in any commercially available amplifier, and use vacuum tubes as the primary means of processing sound.

As a response to the many boutique builders, large companies have released reissues of their classic designs, touting their faithfulness to the original sound and the labor intensive building process. Terms like hand wired and point to point wiring abound, causing some confusion over their meaning.