The Laney LA-STUDIO tube amp head evokes the sound of 1967, with a low-power, high-tech version of the company’s iconic Supergroup amp—which was made famous by Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi. The Class-AB tube power stage rages at 3 watts, delivering the perfect volume level for home and studio recording. But if 3 watts is still pushing too hard, engage the onboard power brake to drop the output to 0.1 watt.

You can run the LA-STUDIO into a cabinet and mic it, or record direct to your DAW via the speaker-emulated Torpedo DI module by Two Notes Engineering. Two Notes DynIRs are included onboard that offer six virtual Laney speaker cabinets in different environments captured by your choice of a dynamic or ribbon mic. (Two more DynIRs are yours upon registering your LA-STUDIO.) Further parameters are accessible with Torpedo Remote software and additional DynIRs can be purchased from the Two Notes web site.

Four inputs are on tap—Bass Hi (transparent), Bass Lo (same tonal characteristics as Bass Hi, but with less gain), Treble Hi (accentuated high end) and Treble Lo (lower gain). The remaining I/O selection includes MIDI In/Out/Thru, USB, a balanced XLR output (Torpedo embedded), two ¼" mono speaker outputs (16 ohm and 8 ohm) and a headphone jack.