You know Epifani, but do you really know Epifani? To do so, you need to know Nick. As in Nick Epifani.
The first thing to know about Nick is that he’s a musician. He plays guitar and drums. And he’s quite good at both, they say. He did study electronics in school. But Nick’s path to the USA came as a guitar player. Nick the sound whiz-kid is a guy that started by fooling around with other people’s designs. He did it because he saw the flaws that no one else seemed to notice; something not right in cabinet construction or a woofer surround that didn’t move properly. So he fixed them, just to get the sound he was looking for. People started to notice the improvements. Shortly after, so did top guitar amp companies, like Fane and Bruno, who hired him to work on their designs. But guitar was easy. Bass is much harder. He started out to build just a few bass cabinets, but bassists started to line up to get them. So Nick decided it was time to put down his guitar and sticks and start in the bass cabinet business for real. Nick began in his garage in 1992, and as a company in 1994.
Epifani started out by building their cabinets by hand, one at a time. Nick worked tirelessly with Eminence, innovating designs which have been adopted around the industry. The company grew, cabinet by cabinet. The big breakthrough came when Nick met Joey and Vinnie of Fodera. You know Fodera right? Bass guitar company to the stars? When the guys at Fodera first heard Nick’s cabinets, they said that they were the first cabinets that let them hear their basses as they were meant to be heard. So Fodera introduced Nick to their roster of artists. Nick built a 2×12 for Matt Garrison. Then a 3×10 for Lincoln Goines (to be able to compete with Dennis Chambers). And then he met his supreme client, who started demanding all sorts of specifics - 1″ woods, silver wiring, custom drivers, etc. That client was none other than Anthony Jackson, who pushed them to go where no cab company has gone before. The rest is history…
Epifani did start as a custom bass cabinet maker but very quickly moved into the study of bass amplifiers. Just as quickly, Nick was working on his first digital amp - in 1999! That’s more than a decade ago and years before most others even heard of digital amplifiers. In fact, Nick’s first production amps, the UL502/902, released in 2004, were years ahead of the industry. The UL902 head, is an 1800 watt (900 x2) digital amp with a switched mode power supply (SMPS). But more than power, the UL amps became instant classics due to their “studio-grade” preamps and superb sound.
Nick’s next challenge was taking the sound of the UL amps but offering it in a less expensive line (the UL’s run north of $1500). After several years of research, Epifani released the Performance Series heads and cabinets. To get the price down, the PS series heads have a single channel preamp, as opposed to the twin preamps on the UL’s. But they share the same exact top channel preamp circuit with the exception that the mid-cut control is now on the front panel.
The new and long-awaited Performance Series amps are the PS400 and PS1000, both using that same UL-series preamp. The 400 uses a class AB analog power amp with a SMPS. The 1000 is a 500w+500w class D amp with a SMPS. Why does the 400 use an analog amp and the 1000 is all digital? “Sound,” says Nick. He feels that there’s still some punch missing in many digital amps. And Epifani doesn’t accept wimpy sound. Not now, not ever. In his testing, lower-power digital amps sound wimpy. Hence, the analog amp in the 400 and the digital in the bigger 1000.
Speaking of sound, what is the Epifani tone? It’s a sound that is musical and powerful. The notes from your bass come across full-bodied, three dimensional, and with all the harmonics intact. Getting this sound requires proper “component coupling” and no sonic anomalies. It requires attention to the smallest details. For example, every circuit uses three separate ground lines; one for the signal, one for the power supply and one for all the digital controls - features found only in expensive hi-fi applications. With careful listening, Nick analyzes and fine tunes each and every part of the design. It’s sort of like how a sculpture is created - carving the desired shape one cut at a time.
Both PS amps are 3.5″h x 19″w x 11″d, weigh 13lbs and have the same visuals. The PS1000 streets at $999, the PS400 at $599. Both are available now. www.epfani.com