A closer look at Demeter TGA-1-180D The Mighty Minnie

Measuring a mere 10" X 7" X 4.5" and weighing just five lbs, the Mighty Minnie was originally designed for Sonny Landreth, who needed an amplifier that was small enough to fit on a pedalboard when he couldn't bring his Demeter TGA-3 rig on fly dates. This hybrid single-channel amp features a hand-wired TGA-3 tube preamp that couples with a high-grade Jensen audio transformer to drive a 180-watt (into 4 [ohm] class D output stage. It's a tremendous amount of power for a "mini" guitar amp, but plugging into an 8 [ohm] cabinet drops the power to 100 watts, while a 16 [ohm] 4x12 reduces the output to a humble 60 watts. Still, that's plenty of power for any gig, and the fact that the Mighty Minnie is small enough to stuff into a camera bag makes it a perfect companion for players on the go. 

Ruggedly constructed with a steel chassis and a perforated metal cover to protect the two preamp tubes, the Mighty Minnie packs Gain, Bass, Midrange, Treble, and Master controls--the latter with a push-pull function that inserts a 20dB pad into the circuit in order to give the Master more range of control at high Gain settings. The amp also features a standby footswitch (with status LED) to mute the output when tuning up or going on a break. Another hip feature that more amps should have is a regulated 9-volt jack (2.1mm) for-powering pedals. All that's needed is a cable with multiple outlets (not included) and you're in business. I tested the Mighty Minnie with a Buzz Feiten T-Pro, a PRS Modern Eagle II, and Gibson 1963 ES-335 reissue. Speaker cabinets consisted of an Alessandro Crossbred 1x12 with a Eminence GA-SC64 ceramic-magnet speaker, and a Fuchs Buzz Feiten Designed Ultralight Vintage 2x12 with Eminence Patriot Series Texas Heat speakers. 

For its part, the Minnie did everything asked of it, delivering detailed clean tones with the Gain set to around 9 o'clock and the Master pointing halfway up or higher. The headroom is quite impressive (especially with the Master fully up), and this configuration worked great with the pedals on my board, which included an Alairex HALO distortion, a Way Huge Echo Puss delay, a Diamond TRM-1 tremolo, and an MXR Phase 99. The preamp can be turned up as needed to get more overdrive, which, with the Gain pushed toward 3 o'clock and the Master down a bit, was a perfect recipe for sweetly overdriven neck pickup tones with humbuckers--great for slide playing-and slicing leads from the T-Pro's bridge single-coil. The TGA-3 preamp stage is very responsive to picking dynamics, and it stays smooth sounding as the gain is dialed toward maximum for heavier rhythm grind and sustaining lead tones, which sounded fat and sinewy when driven with the Gibson and PRS guitars' bridge pickups. 

The well-mannered EQ also makes it easy to dial in different guitars, providing ample low end, bright treble, and rich midrange textures from humbuckers and single-coils alike. Most importantly, however, the Mighty Minnie sounds and feels like a tube amp throughout its volume envelope. The class D output stage provides the heavy lifting, but it doesn't sound clinical or in any way detached from the core tube tone being generated by the preamp. The fact is, you can essentially forget that you're playing a hybrid amp and just dig on the convenience and ease of setup that the Mightly Minnie affords. Bottom line: if you need a rig for travel or just don't want to lug around a heavy tube head, take a look at what this new Demeter has to offer.