"Success is falling nine times and getting up ten times."
- Jon Bon Jovi
ABOUT US
Airspeed™ Amps is the brainchild of entrepreneur and musician Rusty Shaffer. Rusty is the inventor of the Fretlight® Guitar and spent over 30 years in the music industry poineering the technology. Rusty has spent his entire life around guitars, amps and recording studios. He's played on stage with America and hung out with artists like Alice Cooper, Chris Issak, Steve Miller, Nelson, Pink Floyd, Carlos Santana, Neal Schon, Gin Blossoms, Kenny Loggins, Lady A, and many more. He owns a plethora of various vintage and modern amps along with a slew of guitars.
When we asked ChatGPT 4 what Rusty's contribution to music was, here's what it came back with:
"Rusty's Fretlight technology helps beginners learn and allows experienced players to explore new musical ideas. Rusty Shaffer's invention has been widely recognized and used by guitarists around the world."
Rusty created the best guitar learning system the world has ever seen, and now he's turned his sights on innovation in the world of guitar amplifiers and speaker cabinets.
Uh oh, he's at it again...
Rusty was playing guitar one day and made an interesting observation.
“Guitar amplifiers sit on the floor most of the time. As you stand and play, where does the sound hit you? probably at your ankles right? Well, that doesn’t seem smart.
You really want your sound hitting you in the chest. Guitar players on stage have been tilting their speaker cabinets upward for decades so their sound can project upward and outward. Isn't that why Fender put the 'robot arms' on their Super Reverb amp? You want to feel that amazing tone hitting you in the chest - resonating throughout your body.”
The solution: The speakers inside the Airspeed cabinets are angled upward so that the sound hits you in the chest, instead of the ankles, when you're standing about 12 feet away. You hear on-axis sound rather than off-axis sound.
Listening to the ghost of Steve Jobs...
Rusty wasn't done. He wanted the Airspeed cabinet to look unique.
“I grew up in the Bay Area when Steve Jobs was trying to convince everyone to buy an Apple computer. His ideas were revolutionary of course, but he always had style and beauty in mind. He wanted his computers to not just be housed in a square box, but ibe elegant and thoughtful in design. Even today, Steve's legacy lives at Apple. Their products are beautiful - and yes, it does matter.
So with that in mind, I wanted our Airspeed cabinets to be stunning and gorgeous as well. But I also wanted to let the customer be able to choose their idea of beauty by offering different exotic wood accents - and even carbon fiber. There's no doubt that Airspeed speaker cabinets turn heads.”
I'm an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs test the status quo and think outside the box,
pushing the limits where others are afraid to go.”
- Rusty Shaffer, CEO, Airspeed Amps, Inc.