primary sources . please improve this by adding secondary or tertiary sources . march 2014 learn how and when to remove this template message hiwatt amplification type pro audio amplication industry amplification effects pedals founded surrey england 1966 founder dave reeves headquarters london england area served united kingdom united states website hiwatt.com hiwatt is a british company who manufacture amplifiers for electric guitars and electric basses . starting in the late 1960s together with marshall and vox hiwatt contributed to the sonic image popularly termed british sound . contents 1 history 2 see also 3 references 4 external links history edit dave reeves started hiwatt and hylight electronics in 1966 . in order to raise capital for his young company reeves accepted a contract to build a line of amplifiers for ivor arbiter s store sound city . by mid 1968 and the contract with sound city fulfilled reeves focused on his own brand hiwatt . by 1969 the who and pink floyd were the most well known users of hiwatt . later that year jimmy page led zeppelin had a hiwatt custom made for him . jethro tull and manfred mann were other famous users at that time . by 1970 hiwatt produced pa amps as well as 50 watt dr504 100 watt dr103 and 200 watt dr201 all purpose amplifiers . until that time reeves had been building all of the amps in his garage with the help of his wife daphne and doug fentiman . in early 1970 reeves accepted that he could not keep up with demand and began looking for well qualified electrical technicians to be contracted . harry joyce electronics was selected and by mid 1970 was wiring chassis that were then sent to reeves for final assembly and testing . this arrangement lasted until reeves s death in 1981 and harry joyce electronics continued to wire chassis for the short lived biacrown electronics 1981 1984 between 1984 and 2013 there have been various owners of the hiwatt trademark namely richard harrison and fernandez who owned the trademark for north america and japan . in 2013 hiwatt was brought back under full british control . hiwatt continue to produce amplifiers by hand in the uk . hiwatt also continue to use british fane speakers which are custom built to hiwatt s exacting specifications . 2014 saw the introduction of the hiwatt little rig series of amplifiers which are 20w 0.5 w versions of the already popular hiwatt signature series and are based upon amplifiers used by david gilmour jimmy page and pete townshend . also new in 2014 is a range of hiwatt effects pedals including the generation fuzz dynamic compressor and power boost . each model is made by hand in the uk . hiwatt has been used by some of music s biggest acts including the killers coldplay david gilmour jimmy page pete townshend arctic monkeys the darkness styx albert hammond jr. joe walsh noel gallagher and many more . the who namechecked hiwatt amplifiers in their song long live rock . see also edit the who s influence on musical equipment references edit jimi hendrix can be seen using a music city amp head on the 1968 miami pop festival footage . external links edit hiwatt amplification official site hiwatt amplification official facebook hiwatt.org hiwatt history and technical information thewho.net page documenting pete townshend s transition from sound city amps to hiwatt retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title hiwatt & oldid 704019582 categories guitar amplifier manufacturersmanufacturing companies of the united kingdomelectronics companies of the united kingdomhidden categories articles lacking reliable references from march 2014all articles lacking reliable referencespages using infobox company with unsupported parameters navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version in other projects wikimedia commons languages deutschespa olfran aisnederlands edit links this page was last modified on 9 february 2016 at 01 13 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view