A fun little guitar amp, umm, pre-review epilogue:

There's this prorietary guitar amp system which consists of *pre-amp modules* that plug into either 1) simple rack-sized units (for sending preamp-shaped signal direct into e.g. mixing table), or 2) into the same manufacturer's smallish 20w-50w *power amp* head to make an actual standalone guitar amp (just add speaker(s).

There are probably dozens of different pre-amp modules (at ~US$400 each) and since the pre-amp is 90-95% responsible for the tone and character of the amp, the idea is that by simply swapping those modules you can have something quite similar to their real-life counterparts in a very portable and relatively affordable setup (compared to owning each of those original amps that is).

Most of these modules appear to be aimed at the metal/blender/shredder crowd (not me), but a few looked potentially interesting. One that sounded pretty good in demos was called "Z-Wreck" after the brand of customized 'Vox-on-steroids' amps they were imitating.

The company behind this system, Synergy, is American so when muricans elected the whackjob trump again to complete the whack job on the United States (and free world) this instantly raised alarm bells since I conscientiously avoid funding any bad regimes to the best of my abilities.

But maybe they were *pro-democracy* muricans? So I started digging: Synergy's social media presence consisted of just a handful of years-old barebone tweets, with one political re-tweet for good measure:

"@SynergyAmps retweeted Senator Ted Cruz: Today's @UN vote is the culmination of the Obama admin's systemic agenda to weaken #Israel & strengthen its enemies."

Uh-huh... OK. Cool. 🤐️

Next I trawled reviews and dedicated gear forums.

Turns out all their gear is manufactured in, you guessed it, People's Republic of China. ☭🇨🇳

I must have inherited some masochistic traits because I continued digging. There are only three places still manufacturing amplifier *tubes* in the world: Europe, People's Republic of China and Russia.

The Synergy PRC-made pre-amps modules apparently come invariably with PRC-made tubes too. Except that Z-Wreck that got me interested: <drumroll> russian tubes. 🇷🇺 😂

Cool, cool. Very cool.

For the sake of completeness it should be noted that Synergy gear appears to suffer from various quality control issues, but if you're fine with the package described above those shouldn't be a dealbreaker. Just ship your broken or ill-fitting gear back and they will replace it.

#SynergyAmps #Zwreck