In amplification there is room for every kind of product: whether you like heavy rock, blues, jazz... whether your budget is tight or you can afford the luxury of driving a Ferrari (metaphorically speaking, and from a guitar standpoint). It is precisely the latter case we are in now, assuming your budget is around 2000€. The amp model is a 15W Class A Spitfire, with a single channel and one 12” speaker.
What For?
One of the questions I usually ask when someone tells me how this or that guitar, amp or pedal sounds is: what can I use it for? What sounds or styles will it suit? If we apply these questions to the Spitfire, the answer is very clear and simple: great clean sounds. It's a single-channel amp that sounds incredible, but we also have to bear in mind that we'll get saturation by pushing the amp's preamp and controlling the master. So it's ideal for pop sounds with a certain British flavor (that classic Strat® sound with its chime) or for a Robert Cray-style blues sound, where the Strat® sounds clean. If you plug in a Telecaster®, it can even sound with a very special country twang. If we saturate the preamp, it gives you a much creamier sound, with very present lows, where you can feel the push of the speaker.
With What?
Another question that hits me when I have something new in my hands is what to pair it with. If your guitars are loaded with EMG or high-output pickups, it may not be the most suitable amp. But if your guitars lean toward a clean, barely processed, practically raw sound, this could be one of your amps. You have to keep in mind that this amp is very honest, for better and for worse; it will make your guitar sound the way it should. For Strats® and Telecasters® it sounds incredible; it gives a 335 a deep color, perfect for jazz/fusion; plug in a Gretsch and it will sound like a Fender on steroids.
And what do we put on the floor, that is, which pedals can go with it? The answer is simple: anything that doesn't saturate too much, especially in the lows. That is, any light boost or an overdrive with a fun color. Vibratos and delays work too, but they aren't as crucial as the drive pedals.
What You'll Find
Let's see what the amp offers, what controls and pots we have, what buttons we can touch, and so on. The Spitfire, true to Matchless form, isn't conceived as something convoluted with a thousand controls, but designed around the idea of “less is more.” On the front of the amp we have:
1) Volume. This is the preamp volume, that is, how much signal passes from the preamp to the power stage, which lets us choose how much we want to saturate. It's a control that greatly shapes how saturated or clean the sound is.
2) Master. This is the power stage volume, that is, the final sound. The higher it is, the fewer chances we have to saturate (without going deaf, of course). The master simply raises the amp's output power.
3) Tone Switch. This pot lets us control the amp's tone and so manage each tonal feel through EQ. I should mention that it's really sensitive, and when you change it, you can hear the waveform shift.
4) It has two instrument inputs. One is the main one, which gives the amp its power and makes it easier to saturate. The second input is used for softer, sweeter sounds.
5) The power switch, accompanied by standby, as on all tube amps.
Rear Panel
A 220 V power inlet and a fuse
Speaker outputs at 4, 8 and 16 ohms, that is, maximum versatility
Combo with a 12” speaker in an open-back cabinet, which makes it much easier to blend, although we lose a bit of punch at the same time.
Controls aside, Matchless adds its own particular touch by putting a light in all its amps, illuminating the entire front panel so it can be seen from anywhere on the stage and even from the back rows of the audience. Besides the aesthetic effect, this interior lighting makes it easy to find the knobs and their settings on a dark stage or in a dark room. Playing live, we can take a quick glance and stay in control, even in low ambient light.
Another factor to keep in mind is that, like any good tube amp, it has two large transformers and a speaker, so it's somewhat heavy. In fact, the question “If it's 15W, how can it weigh so much?” springs to mind. In this case, I see its weight as a sign of good health, since those two big transformers are responsible for its great sound (we should never forget that the sound of a tube amp is due in large part to its transformers).
What Does It Sound Like?
Now we get into the sound. It doesn't matter how pretty or ugly it is; what matters is how it sounds and whether the sound suits me or not. We can say the amp sounds completely like a Matchless (not as obvious as it seems, since the Clubman, another member of the family, has a Marshall® color among these references). The fact that it sounds completely like the brand that gives it its name shows in the amount of harmonics and the great low-end authority it provides. At the same time, it has a completely creamy, round color. Perhaps where it stands out most is in the mids; there are enough mids to plug in an SG and play “You Shook Me All Night Long.” Great authority, especially for rhythm sounds. Since it's a relatively small combo (15W), where you place it can be decisive, because any object can interrupt its projection. It's true that this type of amp sounds really good with a bit of distance between your ear and the cone, because with such forceful punch, your ear can't even tell what note it's playing, so when there's a little air between your ear and the speaker, you can enjoy it more.
If you wonder whether 15W will be enough for any situation, rest easy, because given its architecture, you'll be heard all over the stage or the club. That is, as long as your style falls among blues, pop, rock, jazz and so on, and isn't a metal style. The reason? The push or authority of any metal amp doesn't show up in this amp or, if it does, it comes with a different color.
For the tests, I armed myself with a couple of guitars: the Strat® and the 335, which have two completely different, extreme voices, so I could get an idea of what the amp was capable of. With the Strat®, we get a completely clean sound, slim but with body, and with the typical Fender® chime. The sound I was getting only lacked a bass to blend with that timbre (often, when I'm testing a piece of gear, if a thousand ideas come to mind and I can almost see the song finished, that gear has something that draws me in). With the 335, the amp behaved completely differently: we got a lot of defined, clear low end. The sound it naturally gave without much fuss was Scofield-style jazz/fusion. If I turned the preamp up a little and made it saturate, we crossed over to the Robben Ford, BB King side and so on, getting very controlled sounds on the lower strings and wild ones on the higher strings.
Conclusion
After laying out what it has and what it doesn't, let's think about the moral of this little combo. The first thing I have to say is that it's an amp built for a clear purpose: blues/rock/pop/funk/jazz; it isn't meant for metal and its offshoots. A single channel and 15W will be more than enough to handle almost any situation. The amp will make you play in a special way where lies don't work, and you'll be able to enjoy that guitar you love so much and that sounds so good. You have to think about the price, since it isn't a cheap amp. Don't hesitate to try it if you want a machine with not much power but supreme quality.