Originally established in 1946 in Linden, New Jersey by Everett Hull and Stanley Michaels as "Michael-Hull Electronic Labs," today Ampeg is part of the Yamaha Guitar Group.

The Hulls relocated to New Jersey, and Everett met electrical engineer and amp technician Stanley Michael, who was selling a bass amplifier of his own design, soon renamed the Michael-Hull Bassamp.

Additionally, Eddie Safranski signed on with Michael-Hull to promote Ampeg products, receiving a royalty payment for equipment sold by their influence.

After Michael's departure, Hull continued to leverage connections with well-known musicians to increase awareness of his products within the New York jazz community; Ampeg's new location between Carnegie Hall, NBC Studios in 30 Rockefeller Plaza, and the Paramount Theatre helped establish relationships with bassists like Oscar Pettiford, Joe Comfort, Amos Milburn and Don Bagley.

In 1955, local musician and electrician Jess Oliver visited Ampeg's offices to purchase an amplified peg, and upon easily making the installation himself, Hull offered him a job.

In June of the following year, after continued struggles to meet production demands and maintain cash flow, Ampeg announced an initial stock offering and became a publicly held company.

[8] The company continued to experience growing pains – by October 1966, with 200 employees and 40,000 square feet of space, Ampeg's production capacity had increased to $350,000 per month, yet had $3.5 million in unfulfilled backorders.

[citation needed] Amidst company struggles related to growth and manufacturing, as well as disagreements with Hull, Oliver resigned from Ampeg.

[citation needed] Ampeg chief engineer Bill Hughes and Roger Cox, with input from Bob Rufkahr and Dan Armstrong (a New York session guitarist and guitar expert hired as a consultant), were developing what Cox envisioned as the “biggest, nastiest bass amplifier the world had ever seen.” The Rolling Stones anticipated using Hiwatt DR-103 amps, as during their 1969 Hyde Park gig, which they brought from England.

The V-2, V-4 and V-22 were adopted by high-profile guitarists like Ron Wood and Keith Richards; both would use Ampeg SVT heads and cabs until 1981, when they replaced the SVTs with Mesa Boogie Mark I and Coliseum 300 amps.

In 1971, citing lack of compensation for his contributions to the V-series amplifiers, Armstrong left Ampeg, and refused to renew the agreement allowing manufacture his guitar and bass.

In 1980, Ampeg was acquired by Music Technology, Inc. (MTI), a wholesaler specializing in amplifiers from Japan and keyboards from Italy looking to expand.

Working from original SVT drawings and parts purchase orders from 1969, the team created a run of 500 amplifiers in 1987 dubbed the Limited Edition SVT-HD amps.

[20] In the late-1950s Jess Oliver invented[3] a combo amplifier with a chassis that could be inverted and tucked inside the speaker enclosure to protect the vacuum tubes.

In 1961, Ampeg became the first company to incorporate reverberation (reverb) in an amplifier with its Reverberocket, which preceded Fender's Vibroverb amp by nearly two years.

In 1969, Ampeg's Chief Engineer Bill Hughes designed the Super Valve Technology circuitry for the amplifier of the same name.

At 85 lb (39 kg), the Ampeg SVT provided 300 watts of RMS power, considerably more than most other bass amplifiers of the era.

The SVT-VR (Vintage Reissue) is almost identical in design and construction and the closest thing to any of the original SVT models produced by Ampeg.

The design was purchased from Zorko, re-engineered by Jess Oliver, and manufactured in a corner of Ampeg's Linden, New Jersey factory.

The guitars incorporated slide-in user-changeable pickups, and the short-scale basses used two stacked coils with a "pan" pot[jargon] for a wide range of tones.

There were also Ampeg branded accessories that included covers, picks, strings, straps, polish, as well as two practice amps, the Sound Cube and the Buster (a Pignose clone).