MATAMP 200 - 89 lbs of Amplification for Bass or Guitar 
This Unit traveled the globe with George Rice when he played in HIGH ON FIRE.
Tonal the amp is basic with a great range.
Volume, the amp produces a moderate thunder to heavy chest pound thunder.
A rare favorite with 7 originally imported in the USA of the 10 made in the UK.
The sticky adhesive from the duct tape over the logo is visable still from the "WAR"
with MATAMP and HIGH ON FIRE. During their touring days from 2001-2005
HIGH ON FIRE covered all logos associated with MATAMP.
Matt Pike with his "Fred Green" Duct Tape logos and Vans Slip Ons.
Bad relations grew between Matamp and Pike over invoices on parts and labor for
gear repairs. Instead of paying the invoices Pike invested in Duct Tape and fowl stories about MATAMP.
However, Pike and Rice continued to use the recently rebuilt gear and new bass gear from MATAMP USA until the bitter end.
Back to the star of the show.
Road wear and tear...
SLAVE OUT and 6 jacks for speakers.
The back of the beast. Metal vent on the back which holds in heat, and a giant
hole in the top to reach into and grab many VOLTS ! The hole is the prior location
of a now melted like a carmel white AC vent.
The beast with two straps to hang on to.
From 1999-2005 this metal chassis was the only new production heavy duty chassis the UK did.
Getting Jeff in the UK to repeat it was impossible.
12 of these units were ordered from 1997-2000 by MATUSA and only 7 arrived.
Dave Green claimed that only 10 of these chassis were ever pressed.MATAMP USA had pre-paid orders with the UK Shop in Huddersfield.
22 Month Wait period before thefirst 3 MAT200's arrived.
The other 4 arrived 8 months later. [30 month wait time]
The other 5 orders had to be refunded by Matamp USA to the customers.
After waiting over 2 years, Matamp USA was probably more disappointed
than the customer[s] in the USA. An earful of excuses from Lewis were always plentiful.
During this era the UK shop was scrapping Amps, and took on so many other side jobs that the
MATAMP USA production took a back seat to other projects going on in the UK shop.
When brand new fresh amps like these pre-paid USA Orders started production,
another problem grew in the UK Shop for MATAMP USA.Word of mouth traveled as people logged onto the only website for MATAMP, www.matamp.com
Bands in the UK would find the location of the shop, and go in and ooodle and awe over the
USA Orders.
Lewis would double his cash flow by selling a USA Customer's pre paid order
to an individual in the UK on the spot. This put Dave Green and Joel Wheeler in a production dilema,
as they would then have to start the USA Orders / production over again.The delays on delivery where way out of MATAMP USA's hands due to this.
Phase B of problem 2 revealed the situation, as when the dude in the UK would
immediately have an amp problem, they would rant the whole story in an email direct
to the USA owned website, matamp.com. In some cases, the USA Customers
name was written on the side of the chassis and owned by a UK Customer.
When George Rice returned this amp to MATAMP USA as agreed it included two worn Souls.
For such a burly amp, the front panel made of trefolite, being the ONLY thing on the front.
The panel is engineered to be only held on by
the pots and jacks. Service & Repairs on these units is no joy.
Notice the Gaza Strip section of the PC Board.
The torched black section of the PC was cut out and Hard Wire was installed.
AMP ON FIRE !
Two Sets of 120watt Transformers with 2 seperate sets of 3 PRE AMP TUBES.
The amp was made into a true 2 chan rig in 2003 when it was turned into MATAMP USA.Prior to that the amp ran as bot eq's and chans feeding into one. Basically all knobs
active at once all the time, unless you turn down one VOLUME.MATAMP USA / Joel Wheeler repaired the unit and made this unit barf massive volume and
made it 2 seperate chans operated by a 2 switch foot box to permit the amp to have either channel or combined.
This amp really hurls volume and tone now.
A Brief look at George Rice's MATAMP BASS 200 after rebuild with the original air conditioning
vent made from nylon. Every Unit we have come across with this 1999-2000 era vent suffered
toxic meltdown !
This vent was removed and from the interior, a metal mesh grill was installed, which is
the standard Military Grade Tube Grill vent application that has been used for decades.The vents looked fancy, but were intended for air conditioners with a max heat capacity of 112f.
The UK Shop in Huddersfield never came accross much heat issues, as there was nobody in the
shop that played guitar to test the amps. 1993 to 2001 the UK sold amps by testing them with
the BBC Radio playing through the input into a 12" speaker. After the factory was refabed in 2001
MATAMP USA pre paid orders were then subject to any "walk in" UK Looky Lou's to Test Drive
a USA custom order.Other than that, the amps weren't tested. Just wrote about in their "official" UK Censored Forum.
The UK never dealt direct with any of the US Bands they tote on their web sites, and especially the
distributor web sites that they established from the UK.Bands like SLEEP and HIGH ON FIRE were given zilch for UK support which created many resentments.
Other bands like REM, DEFTONES, and organization like the BLUE MAN GROUP, are original patrons
of MATAMP USA with continued relations with EA-USA. UK involvement with the US customers was
about 4 pieces of gear on record, out of over 1000 imported amps and cabs from 1994-2005Direct Relations and the relations that stemmed from the UK like this over simple amps and cabs made it evident for
MATAMP USA to cease UK Production in 2005.
AMP BLUE BOOK VALUE:
EXCELLENT TO MINT: $2100 -2,500 even if owned by George.
GOOD WORKING CONDITION: $1600-2100
GOOD WORKING BUT BEAT: $1250-1500
BLOWN but GOOD CONDITION: $ 900
BLOWN but BEAT: $ 400-900
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