Teenage Engineering CEO Jesper Kouthoofd recently declared that the company would stop making synthesizers, but it seems that the Swedish brand isn’t going to be leaving the music-making world altogether just yet.
A recently unearthed FCC filing shows that Teenage Engineering is preparing to release an amp, the EP-35 K.O.-AMP. The filing, which contains several pictures and a user manual, reveals that the EP-35 is a portable battery-powered amplifier with – as is to be expected from Teenage Engineering – a few unexpected quirks.
Housed in a blocky, grey plastic chassis that closely resembles its sampler counterpart, the EP-133 K.O. II, the EP-35 is topped with a handle for convenient transport, and this is where you’ll find the inputs and most of the controls.
On the front panel you have a 30-watt woofer and 25-watt tweeter with a frequency response of 50Hz-20Khz. Round the back, there’s a handy storage compartment behind the plastic grille, for cables, USB drives, or even a sneaky cold one. Opening up the compartment turns on a built-in “camp light” with an intriguingly-named “disco mode”, and the unit is splash-resistant, too, just in case your outdoor jam gets a little out of hand.
The EP-35 is well-equipped in terms of connectivity, and can be used to amplify guitars, synths, keyboards, or any electronic instruments you like. Active inputs are automatically selected, so it’s plug-and-play, and it looks like there are digital effects onboard for both the guitar and mic inputs, though we don’t yet know what these are.
On the top of the amp is a 3.5mm line input, an XLR microphone input with +48V phantom power, a ¼” guitar input and a 3.5mm line output, along with two USB-C ports. A device port is used to hook up to your computer or phone for firmware updates and to act as a sound card, and a host port for connecting to thumb drives, USB audio devices and as-yet-unannounced accessories.
EP-35 has both FM radio and Bluetooth, so it’ll act as a portable speaker. The amp can also transmit Bluetooth audio via Auracast, so you’re able to link up with other EP-35s wirelessly. Judging by the pictures, it looks as if multiple amps can be stacked on top of each other to create a multi-speaker rig that really pumps up the volume.
We’ve no word on pricing or availability yet. As the amp is part of the EP range, we wouldn't expect it to be exorbitantly priced, but you never know with Teenage Engineering – this is a company that charged $1,599 for an aluminum desk and called it a “modular workspace solution”, after all.
In other Teenage Engineering news, the company has just announced a firmware update for the OP-XY that introduces a new drum synthesizer called drumline, multichannel audio over USB–C, a new dynamic filter, expanded envelope controls and more.
