HISTORY: 1980-PRESENT

Ernie Breifel started Music Technology Inc. (MTI) in 1977 as a wholesaler that imported instruments. MTI was looking to expand the corporation and in 1980 Ernie and MTI bought Ampeg from Selmer-Magnavox. This finished a deal that Ernie had tried to do back in the late '50s, but he didn´t like how Hull worked and refused to deal with Ampeg. At this point, the Japanese market was in high swing for instrument makers. Ampeg followed suit and started to make amps overseas. These new amps that they were making just didn´t have the same sound that the old Ampeg amps had, and they weren´t well received by the public. MTI ended up filing for bankruptcy and the name was up for sale again. Gene Kornblum of St. Louis Music (SLM) was there to purchase the company in the bankruptcy court. When SLM went to move all of the stock out of Long Island, all Ampeg had was two truckloads of odds and ends, and very little inventory. In short, SLM had very little to go on. SLM had started to distribute Crate amps in the '70s and Ampeg was brought in for the higher end of amplifiers. It only took one model, the SVT-100 made of old MTI heads, but it brought Ampeg back into the market. In 1987, Ampeg introduced 14 new bass and guitar amps at the NAMM show. The sign that Ampeg was back into the majors was their new "Monster" bass amp. This amp stood nine feet tall, weighed in at 718 lbs, and had 600W running into 32 10 in. speakers! It is now a world record.
As the 1990s rolled around SLM, and Ampeg were both going strong with new products and endorsers joining consistently. Ampeg was keeping up with technology and what other companies were doing. That is something that they really failed to do in the '70s and early '80s. Now Ampeg amps are distributed throughout 40 countries, they have made reissue amps from the glory days and continue to take the Ampeg pride into the new century. Ampeg also reissued the Dan Armstrong Ampeg lucite guitar. In 2005, LOUD Technologies, Inc. purchased St. Louis Music, Inc. and all of their trademarks. With this acquisition, the headquarters of St. Louis Music was moved to Woodinville, WA and production of all amplifiers moved overseas shortly thereafter. In 2010, Ampeg introduced a new American-made line of amplifiers called the Heritage Series. Jess Oliver passed away on June 30, 2011.
Source for Ampeg History: Ampeg The Story Behind the Sound by Gregg Hopkins & Bill Moore.