Justin Weber

Justin Weber has been at the head of ampsandsound for over a decade, and has been building his own amplifiers for over twenty years. His passion for sound began in high school and college, and appreciation for early tube amplifiers from likes of Luxman, Sansui, McIntosh, Harmon Kardon, Dynaco and even RCA theater amplifiers. Though at first an owner and appreciator of many contemporary hi-fi systems, Justin eventually began building his own systems. Drawn initially by the fascination of the hobby, what started as a project transformed into a passion.

His strongest and most distinct memories with audio were listening to live music through The Wilshire Ebell Theatre and their chamber concert series. To this day, he still loves listening to classical music especially when played with a tube amp and horn loaded speakers.

As he journeyed from purist to exotic systems, Justin slowly learned the value in balance. Amplifiers with complex circuits often had simple yet high quality transformer designs, whereas amplifiers with simple circuits often used more complex transformers. Which parts affected the tone, clarity, frequency response and dynamics of an amp and how. What tradeoffs in mechanical design or build had to be made for usability, and eventually, how to manipulate these characteristics with the careful hand of a master.

As he transitioned from humble beginnings to more exotic systems, he formulated a philosophy on what he wanted his amplifiers to eventually look like. In Japan simple SET circuits were built to high levels of precision and craftsmanship. This was one inspiration. Another was the vanishingly low distortion of American hi-fi circuits, which aimed for unprecedented bandwidth and transparency. Thus began Justin’s journey to what would eventually become ampsandsound, driven by the desire to refine the circuits and designs, and elevate concepts of build and execution even further.

To this end, every piece of the amplifier is considered. Wiring clean enough to eat from and the in-house transformer designs are of particular importance to Justin’s philosophy. These were both carefully developed over many years of trial, error and careful study of the best examples of past decades. In many cases, ampsandsound transformers will outperform legendary vintage transformers both subjectively and on the test bench, and our wiring work is rarely equaled and never surpassed. Both of these are key ingredients to going beyond mere copies of vintage amplifiers, and creating something that pays homage to its inspirations, and then takes their design goals even further.Though ampsandsound is a small family run business, each amplifier is assembled by hand, with the flagship headphone amplifiers and all but one of the loudspeaker amplifiers utilizing turret-boards exclusively. This is regarded as the highest form of amplifier building, and future-proofs an amplifier: it will never see a trash heap due to obsolescence.

Every amplifier that comes out of ampsandsound has been personally measured, tested and approved by Justin, and he continues to strive for perfection in all areas of amplifier design. The core concepts of auditory purity and artisanal build quality are accompanied by thoughtful assessments of modern needs: layouts, sizes and other ergonomic and user experience improvements are carefully considered, despite the vintage heritage of the finished products. We believe you will find these much easier to own and enjoy than even heavily modified and updated true vintage amplifiers. When you receive an ampsandsound amplifier, it bears Justin Weber’s personal stamp in every aspect, and is intended to be an heirloom product passed onto future generations.