After a year+ working there, he opened up his own shop in Boston, MA, where he was soon in-demand for all things related to guitars and amplifiers.

[1] As a young guitarist, Bob Gjika was dissatisfied by his inability to achieve the guitar tones he was hearing on the recordings of the artists he enjoyed listening to.

But his modifications failed to satisfy him, as these amplifiers were observed to have intrinsic design flaws which made them unreliable, therefore, not worth the effort and expense to attempt to turn them into what he was looking for.

But there was still a major problem with this amp: its large size and heavy weight which made it impractical to use for touring and gigs.

Gjika continued with his mission, seeking to achieve this same guitar tone in a smaller, lighter package, and made quite a few more designs, both single-ended and push-pull, but after years of guitarists requesting that Gjika bring his 8-EL34 stereo amp (Gold Amp) back into production, he then focused on re-designing the old Gold into a more user-friendly, portable unit and on improving the tone further.

I mean you can crank that dog to the top and still the amp sounds sweet and warm, with just more nice high end.

Further, "Bob Gjika has worked with Eric Johnson, but might be best known for the scorching single-ended EL34-based amp that the late and largely underappreciated fusion virtuoso Shawn Lane used on his Powers of Ten...a massive beast with four EL34s (or eight in its stereo configuration) and possibly the largest transformers I’ve seen on a guitar amp, giving it earth-shaking body and tremendous gain.

[11] Some of the artists Gjika has worked with: Shawn Lane,[12] Tony Rombola, Eric Johnson, Joe Stump, Reeves Gabrels, Keith Scott, Webb Wilder, Steve Earl, Joe Strummer, Joe Bonamassa, George Benson, Stephen Bruton, Leo Howard, Scott Sherwood, Danny Click, Michael Kraynak, Lance Keltner, Bruce Edwards, Ken Fischer - founder of Trainwreck Circuits, Eddy Murray of E.U.

Wurlitzer Music and Sound, Marc Ferrari, Paul DeBartolo [13] of Spread Eagle & Bang.