Echoplex

[3] The predecessor of the Echoplex was a tape echo designed by Ray Butts in the 1950s, who built it into a guitar amplifier called the EchoSonic.

Butts built fewer than seventy EchoSonics for guitarists including Chet Atkins, Scotty Moore, and Carl Perkins.

"[6] The main innovation of the Echoplex was a moving record head, which allowed for variable delay time without changing the tape speed.

[1] These two units were noted for their "warm, round, thick echo" and the sound quality of the tube preamplifier section.

Once the two were satisfied, the solid-state Echoplex was offered by Maestro[7] beginning in 1970 and designated the EP-3; Battle, unhappy with the sound of the EP-3, sold his interest in the company.

Around the time of the public introduction of the EP-3, Maestro was taken over by Norlin Industries, then the parent company of Gibson.

[2] At the end of the 1970s, Norlin folded and their Maestro brand and Market Electronics was forced to find another distributor for their products.

Units built for Harris Teller carried an Echoplex badge that omitted the Maestro name.