Anniversaries tend to be big occasions, but when an anniversary is celebrated with a gadget, it’s usually cause for a manufacturer to do something fun, or at the very least, add a splash of paint and build a limited edition.
Something like that is happening over in the world of rock, with amplifier, headphone, and speaker-box maker celebrating the latter. Specifically because of the man responsible for “Fire”, “Crosstown Traffic”, “Voodoo Child”, “Little Wing”, “Third Stone From the Sun”, and a whole bunch of other awesome tracks.
According to Marshall, the maker of the amplifiers Hendrix used, it’s been 60 years since Jimi plugged his electric guitar into one of its amps, which happened in 1966. While Hendrix passed only four years later, his music lives on, even being played by classical violinist Nigel Kennedy.
It’s not just his music that endures, but also the style, and that’s what Marshall is reviving for this Hendrix-connected special edition set of gadgets, coming in two speakers.
There’s a wireless Bluetooth speaker for the home in the Acton III, an amp-inspired Bluetooth speaker with a 5 inch woofer and two smaller tweeters, as well as a design focused almost entirely on wireless sound, and then there’s a proper speaker for musicians in the Marshall JMH Half Stack.
This last one is a little special, arriving with a 100-watt hand-wired valve head, connected to a cabinet made of four speakers, complete with a Fuzz Face Pedal.
While both models are clearly pitched at different people, both will be on the way to Australia, with the Marshall X Hendrix Acton III priced from $499 locally, while the Half Stack head and speaker box will be a little more, fetching $6899 when it lands later in the year.
Both gadgets come in a style specific to Hendrix for the limited edition, using crushed velvet splashed with purple, purple knobs, and purple LED lights. If you didn’t know Hendrix loved purple from his song “Purple Haze”, you do now (and you probably aren’t a fan, but there’s no time like the present to get stuck in).
