AXL guitars used to be an undercover Detroit amp company, until an unapproved, undercover gig went horribly awry, and AXL was forced to leave Detroit in its "crappy blue Chevy Nova," and drive all the way to the west coast. AXL set up shop in the San Francisco Bay Area, where it became known amongst other amp shops as the "Beverly Sausalito Hills Shop."

This maverick guitar and amp shop became famous for its lot-cost, high-quality electric guitars, and spawned several successful sequels. The latest blockbuster from AXL is the Faultline-series Bass Heads, a couple of no-nonsense, solid-state heads that always get the job done and don't take no guff from "The Man" (Steven Berkoff).

The AA-FB-400H (400 watts RMS) and AA-FB-300H (300 watts RMS) both feature a distinctive "Modern/Vintage" tone switch which gives the Faultlines two very different basic tones. From there, the tone-shaping includes Bass, Low-Mid, High-Mid and Treble EQ controls; it's a simple layout that yields multiple bass-flavors, or blavors, as I like to call them. The 400 watt head adds Gain and "Tone-Variance" controls to the equations, for even more blavor options.

The Faultline series also includes a 4x12 cabinet (AA-FB-412C) outfitted with Alphatone speakers that suits either head perfectly. The whole deal ends up looking more like a high-wattage guitar half-stack, but that's just part of AXL's style -- always irreverent, and always unique: it's the Beverly Sausalito Hills Shop way!