Hi, and thanks for visiting the new site. I am Will Dyke, founder of Armadillo Amp Works, now located in the beautiful Texas Hill Country.
I started Armadillo Amp Works back in 1995, when I was still working for Gerald Weber, President of Kendrick Amps. I started out building cabs on a 10 x 10 makeshift shop on my back porch of a rent house, and would cover the cabs in the kitchen. Man those were the days!! Gerald was kind enough to let me complete my orders in his shop for a while until I had a big enough space of my own to really do the job. Orders started pouring in so I contracted work in my shop and had a small crew by 1997 or so. I was filling larger orders, doing cabs for companies like Bruno, and Kendrick, and Fulton Webb, as well as lots of smaller companies and service shops. I thank all of you who got Armadillo Amp Works on the map, and you know who you are.
After a short time I realized that things were just going too fast for the type of quality I was used to putting out, and sometimes a cab would slip through quality control and be shipped to a customer. It was not that my workers were doing poor work, just so much work that sometimes mistakes could be overlooked, we are just human after all. Around that time I was going through a divorce and needed some time to rearrange my life. I ended up moving out to the country and doing all the work for Armadillo Amp Works myself again, with some part time help. Orders were coming in faster than I could keep up with so my delivery times got pushed back quite a bit, and I found myself with too large of a mountain to get over, without limiting the amount of orders I took in.
So limit I did. I stopped taking large production orders and concentrated more on the smaller companies and working musicians, that would place much smaller orders, therefore I could keep more clients satisfied, and still stay busy. This is pretty much what Armadillo Amp Works has adapted to now, working alone and keeping my quality at a standard. I don’t generate as much business as I used to but I have found a compromise that seems to work.
As a proprietor, I have been providing the amp community with all handmade in America products. Unfortunately, manufacturers are more and more going overseas to increase revenues and to ultimately be able to compete. In turn this drives up the cost for businesses like Armadillo Amp Works, which will continue to make products only in America with American parts wherever available. Please be assured that your cabinets are built by me personally, in Texas, with American made parts, where at all possible, given, as time goes by there may be no more American made parts! It seems that the cheap overseas manufacturers get to charge less for and increase in profits, while good old American companies have to charge more just to stay in business! I am sorry to say that I have had to periodically raise my prices, but the economy has forced this inconvenience upon us all. I would like to thank you for your business, and especially all the patrons who have been ordering my cabs for over 25 years now.
Tonefully,
Will Dyke
Owner
Armadillo Amp Works