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In 1996 the year Oliver started his first repair and custom audio shop, the tribute to the
historic "Valco manufacturing company" today better known as "The Oahu" was the 2nd product to be introduced.
Loosely based upon the historic small combo amp that the Valco company build from 1945 to
1958 in various forms and sold under names such as Supro, Dobro, Tonemaster and Oahu, the first 50 units were all
hand made in Oliver basement in Seattle.
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| Classic two tone covering Black/white |
In the true spirit of a custom made amplifier all components were handmade, metal chassis
were hand bend made of surplus aircraft aluminum bought at the Boeing Surplus Store, the transformer were handwound on
an slightly modified Sunbeam mixer, vacuum coated with ground down shellac records, the woodboxes were made recycling 50 year
old plywood and cedar.
Since Oliver worked in one way or other for most of the Seattle based bands, word spread
fast and several high profile musicians stopped by at Oliver shop to buy an Oahu.
They carried the news of this great recording amp all over the globe and soon orders came
in from all over the world. The demand for this small 15 Watt amp was so high that
the young company moved into 4000 square feed production rooms and stared to build them now under the "Jester Products" name.
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| Modern two tone covering Gray/Black |
From 1998 to 2000 approx. 300 Oahu's were made in various tube set up and woodbox/covering
styles, over 50% of the amps were sold to Japan, Germany and Switzerland, but in April of 2000 the company was closed due
to the fact that it was nearly impossible to retain the handmade spirit of the first 50 units handbuild by Oliver.
Aside production problems as well as what happens when you have 25 plus people on the payroll,
Oliver and his partner Christian decided to close Jester Products.
Oliver started the now current company AMI mainly with the focus on the next generation
U/V units but kept on building Oahu amps on and off as well as providing service and replacement parts for the "Jester
Product" units.
In mid 2005 one of the earliest customer of the Oahu amps, Mr. Keith Richards (in 1996 he
bought 10 amps) contacted Oliver to see if he could buy more of those amps.
During the 2006 concert in Omaha Nebraska a formal order was placed for 20 of the Oahu
amps. Since Mr. Richards ask for an exclusivity on the classic B/W vinyl coving,
we do not offer that style anymore.
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| Keith Richards stage set up on the 2006/2007 tour |
Since the begging of the Oahu production several amps were made by Minstrel Music in Chicago,
ordering just the chassis and making the wood enclosures themselves.
Since all units that are currently made are handmade we mainly sell Oahu amps direct, but
you can contact any of our dealers for more info on them.
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