Ben Verellen is a Seattle man who makes amps. Verellen Amplifiers are b626eautiful, sturdy creations that give your sound tube strength, solitude, and solid foundation. Each amp is made with care. Each amp bestows the player with a sense of magma, power, and touch that only mountains and feathers know. Playing through a Verellen amp is not unlike a God creating the earth. Let there be light, and there is light. Let there be a finely crafted amp you can trust and love, and there is a Verellen.

Opening a boutique-style guitar amplifier business is a risky proposition in any economy, but 29-year old Ben Verellen is defying the odds. In the last year, he's moved out of his bedroom workshop and into a commercial warehouse space on Aurora Avenue, steadily building an impressive client list of people who share his appreciation for design inspired by the warmth of old-school tube technology but informed by the needs of modern rock players who prefer their sound elephantine and bracingly loud. In addition to his online business, his amps are sold in more than half a dozen music stores around Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia, and Portland.

EE undergraduate student Ben Verellen started playing in bands at age 13 and has always been interestedin what makes musical instruments work, particularly tube-driven guitar amplifiers. After graduating high school, he debated on how he could apply his education to music. This prompted the Tacoma native to enroll in the UW EE undergraduate program.

I can't write a review about my new Verellen AC30-style guitar amplifier (spoiler alert: it is AWESOME!) without talking a bit about Ben Verellen. I first met Ben at his home/workspace in Seattle's Wallingford neighborhood He was running off to class at UW where he's finishing a degree in electrical engineering. But before he hit the bizooks, we spent a good deal of time communing on the perfect amp that he would build for me...More

My first guitar amp was a solid-state Peavey bought brand-new from the big music store next to the mall. For the non–guitar players out there, that's like if your first car was a Toyota Tercel. It was a piece of shit, and I could never quite dial in a good tone on the damn thing. Technique and knob-twiddling is only part of the equation. At some point you can't polish a turd. And that Peavey was a particularly stinky turd... More