Zachary Vex is a music engineer and electronics fetishist whose unique effects pedals and tiny amps have earned him the adulation of discerning music-gear fanatics around the world. His little company, the Minneapolis-based Z. Vex, is best known for its hand-assembled and hand-painted effects pedals, many of which are designed to produce beautifully sick low-fi sounds. A year or two ago Z. Vex expanded into the world of amplifiers with the Nano Head, the world’s smallest tube guitar amp, which fits in the palm of your hand. When coupled with a speaker cabinet, the Nano Head is capable of some excellent AC/DC-style crunch.

Now Z. Vex has announced its latest product: the iMP AMP, a stereo vacuum-tube power amplifier “intended for studio use, or with small sound sources such as iPods, mini-disc/cd players and laptops to power passive monitors. Perfect for your office or recording environment—you can put the iMP AMP right on your desk with bookshelf speakers and have a mini tube hi-fi setup for your iPod.”

Unless you have lots of disposable income, you probably won’t be buying an iMP AMP anytime soon: The retail price is $525. But I’m sure it sounds great, and the retro-futuristic design is beautiful. It almost looks like a discarded prop from the set of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil.

Here are some more details from the e-mail Zachary Vex sent out last week:

It’s a hi-fidelity stereo vacuum tube power amplifier designed to power passive speakers (like old-fashioned bookshelf speakers or studio monitors like Yamaha NS-10s or JBL L100s, or even high-end audiophile speakers.) It’s one watt per side, with RCA input connectors, barrier-strip output speaker terminals, and adjustable sensitivity so the iMP is compatible with any standard level, from +4dB (studio level) to -20dB (consumer gear like the iPod.) It’s slightly smaller than the Nano head because it doesn’t have a fan. […] Its frequency response is nothing short of amazing, at +0dB/-2dB from 10 Hz to 22kHz.

I’m really thrilled with this amp. I use it at my desk, where it takes up very little space and is plenty loud to fill my office with sound. I have another one driving my old JBLs at my lab bench, where we listen to all of the CDs we receive from players using our products! There’s one more in my living room with a Clearaudio Basic phono preamp feeding it, driving my Monitor Audio Golds. It makes my old Zep records sound just like 1971, man.

My favorite Z. Vex pedal is the Seek Wah, which functions like an array of sequencer-triggered wah-wah pedals. If you have no idea what that might mean, or you just want to see the Seek Wah in action, there is a video demo on the Z. Vex site, complete with charmingly geeky commentary from Zachary Vex himself. It’s an amazingly cool gadget.