Testimonials
Here are a some testimonials from some of our satisfied customers' . . .
"I want to thank Pete Jorewicz (Jim) for bringing this old dog back to life...Both myself and this amp, as we're each 1955 models. Bigger transformer, caps, RCA 6V6 tubes, and a Celestion Blue 12" speaker. Sounds great! Jorewiky Amplification also hand builds killer new amps!"
Peter Broberg
"I just had the opportunity to try out another one of Jim's fine creations, this time a 4-10 configuration. I've never played anything he's made that didn't sound amazing, and this amp was no exception: beautiful tone with the creamiest break-up I've ever heard. VERY impressive. Anyone looking for a truly great amp should try one out."
- K. Kirn, Chicago, IL
"Jim loaned me the prototype of his 20 watt amp to try out. After playing through it for about a half-hour, I called him to tell him how AMAZING the thing sounded, and when I returned it, I asked him if he could build one for me. He could, he did, and it's even BETTER than the prototype!"
- M. Kissinger, Sharon, PA
"We were very pleased with the tone quality…it ROCKS!."
- R. Schultz, Maricopa, AZ
"Great experience from beginning to end including the shipping . . . was able to get exactly what I wanted. The sound is amazing. You can't miss if you go with the Sound Doctor!"
- C. Grove, Greenville, PA
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Article posted June 17, 2012 in the Sharon Herald Newspaper in Sharon, PA
Titled: Sound man - "Amplifier expert puts it all together"
By Joe Pinchot - Sharon Herald Staff Writer
HERMITAGE — It takes a steady hand, it takes patience, but it also takes something more.
“It’s a sickness, my wife says,” said Jim “Sleepy Fingers” Jorewicz.
What his wife, Cindy, was referring to is building and refurbishing guitar amplifiers, those speaker-front pieces of furniture with knobs and switches that take the sound a guitarist makes with his fingers and throws it in your face.
The Hermitage man held a length of solder in one hand and a hot iron in the other as he connected wires to electronic components on the chassis, the aluminum structure that supports the wiring inside the amp.
“It’s kind of like microsurgery, sometimes,” he said of the nature of what most people would consider laborious work.
But the work suits Jorewicz just fine.
“I don’t play darts,” he said from his garage workshop, smoke curling up from the heated solder. “I don’t bowl. You can usually find me here, if I’m not playing or listening to bands.”
Jorewicz’s twin interests of playing music and fiddling with the components that make electronic things work developed at about the same time.
He played his first gigs with his first band in eighth grade, but was as interested in how things worked as how they looked or sounded. He would rip radios and televisions apart and put them back together in different ways to see what would happen.
While he ended up as an electrician owning his own company – Tri-State Electric Service – Jorewicz has never been far from a guitar. He brought both interests together when he started building his own amplifiers in 2001.
Jorewiky Amplification grew from wanting to have the sound of the amps he had been lugging around – including Marshall stacks and Fender Bassmans – without the bulk.
“I got tired of carrying big stuff around,” said the 1970 graduate of Hickory High School. “When I was young, it was, ‘the bigger the better.’ We all had strong backs.”
Jorewicz, who plays guitar and sings with the Gordon-James Blues Band, builds his own amps, and also repairs classic amps.
“People are buying up the old amps and refurbishing them,” said Jorewicz, who has about 65 amps that he plays.
Part of the reason older amps are so sought after is that they use tubes instead of transistors. Jorewicz is a tube amplifier man all the way, as are many others who have rebelled against the major amp makers’ reliance on transistors.
Transistors, which started appearing in amps in the ’60s, “are known for a rather cold and sterile sound,” he said.
The glass and plates of a tube “can move and variate,” creating a warmer, distorted sound, said Jorewicz, whose work van license plate says “AMP MAN,” while his car’s reads “SND DCTR” for sound doctor.
“It’s nothing more than a switch,” Jorewicz said of a tube. “It changes voltage based on the amount of voltage going in. Transistors do the same thing but a transistor is a current manufacturing device, while a tube is a voltage manufacturing device.”
Transistors have their place, especially with jazz and steel guitar players looking for the exact sound that comes from a guitar’s pickup, which “picks up” the sound of the vibrations of the strings and sends them to an amp, he said.
But, players who like to fiddle with the sound go for tube amps, he said, noting that guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan generated a “classic type of tube sound.”
Jorewicz, who also played with the bands Dennis O’Belle, Blind Robins and Civil Defense, has the cabinets made by a man in Florida and the chassis by a man in Texas, and he wires the circuit boards, speakers and switches to the chassis.
While Jorewicz likes to make his own amps, he also is mindful of the tradition of amp making.
“There are no new designs,” said the native of Gary, Ind., who moved with his family to Sharpsville in 1968. “The circuits were all designed back in the ’40s.”
There is a difference in the sound of tubes by maker and era, he said. Three overseas companies still make tubes, and Jorewicz collects old ones. His current favorites are JJ Electronic and Tung-Sol models, and Russian military tubes, which have a “little rawer” sound.
No matter which tube a musician prefers, they will wear out and need to be replaced.
“There is a time limit on them and there are many variables,” Jorewicz said. “Ten years is about the most you’ll ever get out of one. Most guys change them every year.”
Jorewiky amps seem to work best with humbucking pickups, which are associated with Gibson-style guitars and a thicker guitar sound. He said they suit well his guitar playing-style, which he described as “kind of a locomotive train.”
I've known Nick for over 35 years. He has been doing speaker repairs and restorations since 1973.
