And a fair amount of amps too. UPDATED 2/2/09

This is the is the companion article to “Good Lord, that’s a lot of guitars.”, but with the focus on amplifiers this time.  Granted, I’ve not owned as many amps as I have guitars, but there are fair amounts, as the headline indicates.  Also, this article further supports my claim to total embarrassing guitar nerd-dom, so don’t be thinking that is new news to the Jeddler.  Here we go basically in chronological order as best as I can remember…

 

1.       Peavey ???? (I still own this one, I think?) – this is an interesting amp if for no other reason than my Dad picked it out and gave it to me as a Christmas Gift in 1987.  Keep in mind that my Pop was not a big supporter of me playing music in those days.  I had been a drummer in bands for a few years by then, and was making an effort to learn guitar.  This amp had one cool feature, it could be operated on batteries.  The sound was a bit anemic – solid state with a 6-inch speaker and transistor “distortion”.  Not a great player, but sentimentally valuable.  I think it is at my parents house as my Mom would use it with her digital piano sometimes.

2.       Marshall Mosfet 30 –I bought this from a pal at MSU in about 1989 or so for about $300.  It was a solid-state Marshall combo that was supposed to deliver the same sound as a tube amp but without all the hassle and expense of tubes.  It didn’t deliver that, but it did sound pretty good, and had reverb which I am always a fan of.  Also, it had a 15-inch speaker which I was not excited about at the time (everyone knows that all the coolest guitar amps use 12-inch speakers, 15-inchers are for bass players and keyboard wankers), but it worked with this amp.  I traded this in at Reliable Pawn in Pontiac, MI in 1990 for a beat-to-death Twin Reverb.

3.       Fender Twin Reverb –Silverface, master-volume, I think mid-seventies, beat-to-death (as mentioned) with one original Fender 12-inch speaker and one “who-knows” 12-inch speaker.  Tolex was tattered and had some black spray-paint on it (probably covering some other color spray-paint) and the lower back panel was missing.  The grille cloth was original but had several holes but the Fender badge was still there.  But it sounded great right… WRONG.  Sounded like ass.  I bucked up for all new Groove Tubes, but it still was assy.  I didn’t know a good amp guy then so I suffered with this thing for a few years.  Two things happened that finally drove me to off this thing: 1. I was working and had some dough, 2. The other guitarist in my band at the time (The Crabby Jacks) bought Twin, and we were both playing Fender guitars, and it was just to much of one sound.  So, off to Massimino’s Music and traded this in on a Marshall.

4.       Marshall JCM 900 Combo – The 900 amps were really new at this time, and I thought I needed 100 watts to keep up with my brothers drum volume.  This was model 4102 which is a 2×12 hi-gain 100w all-tube combo with two channels and reverb.  I played a Telecaster through it and was never quite happy with the sound.  I think it was a mis-match.  I wanted some twang and soul and this amp was all modern hi-gain mayhem.

5.       Fender Super Reverb (I still own this one) –I was browsing a music store around 1995 looking for a decent practice amp to keep at home for writing songs on as my Marshall amp lived at the rehearsal space, and was a pain to cart around.  I was thinking a nice Princeton Reverb, which silver-faced varieties at this time could be had for less than $400 (I should have bought ten of them).  I saw this fairly battered blackface (1965, code OJ on the tube label inside the cabinet) Super Reverb with what looked like Ampeg grille cloth, but it called out to me to try it out.  It was a funky amp with an odd mod done to it where the vibrato was disengaged and a fat boost and master volume now lived.  The fat boost was controlled by a six-position rotary knob (looks stock) and can be operated by the footswitch control that would normally turn the vibrato on/off.  The master volume only works on the vibrato channel.  And a couple of the knobs push/pull to do odd things and there is a mystery mini-switch on the back too.  lastly, the tube rectifier has been switched over to a solid-state rectifier and one of the original ceramic speakers was replaced with an older AlNiCo Fender speaker.  My reaction was that this thing is a mess and I should just walk away, but it had something.  A vibe?  I played it and loved it.  I picked it up for $400 (high side of my budget for my home amp) and took it home.  This thing was so great.  Loud.  Proud.  Vibey.  Unique.  I loved it.  I ended up using the Fender for the band and brought the Marshall home for noodling.  Over the years, I put Fender grille cloth back on.  Then the speakers started to sound a little tired, so I found a set of somewhat-vintage JBLs which I installed on a new baffle board with aged grille cloth made by Rodgers Amps in Naples, FL.  Finally, this amp failed me at rehearsal one night.  I took it to Danny Russell at Blitz Amps, and what guy Danny is.  He is the best amp guy I have ever known.  He got me back up and running, explained a lot of the what was going on with the mod, and fine-tuned the sound quite a bit.  New tubes and Danny’s touch made this Super better than ever.  This year I sold off the JBLs and installed some Weber signature AlNiCo 10’s that are really sweet.  Nice, vintage tone with smooth break-up.  I’m very happy.  This amp remains my #1 main amp even after all of these years.  A photo while it still had the JBLs in it:

6.       Seymour Duncan 84-40 –An anemic little 1×12 combo that didn’t do anything particularly well.  Supposed to have classic, Vox-like Class A tone, but I’ve never heard four EL-84s sound so non-interesting.  I thought this might be a nice, lightweight home practice amp with channel switching and reverb.  I was wrong.  I simply got frustrated turning the knobs and wondering why I could not get an inspiring sound.  I bought it cheap (now I know why) and sold if at a slight loss if I remember correctly.  And I was glad to be rid of it.  I know, so negative… but that amp really sucked.

7.       Ampeg Gemini I – So, the Marshall was worth a lot of dough, and I really was not in to it at all.  So I sold it on consignment and put most of the money towards a guitar I think.  But while visiting East Lansing with my pal Flounder, we swung in to a pawn shop/music store that we know of in Lansing and I fell in love with this Ampeg.  It was a bit tattered, but not too bad.  Just right for my tastes.  And for the $175 price tag, a great deal.  It was basically original except someone had replaced the 12-inch speaker with a ‘60s Jenson 15-inch speaker.  At the time, I didn’t even really know that it was not the correct speaker, but I did a little research down the road and got schooled.  Whoever installed that speaker did a great job as it required cutting through the separator between the electronics area and the speaker cabinet area.  This could have been a real hack job, but this was real artistry.  A smooth arch that form fit the top bit of the speaker was cut out and looked great.  This started as my at-home amp, but pretty soon I was using it with the Super in my band.  By this time, I was playing Gretsch guitars, and the sound of the Super and the Gemini together, both with reverb, tubes and all that goodness, was just what I was after.  I blew a tube, and at this time, these were not easy tubes to come by.  Danny Russell found a single tube in his tool box, and miraculously it matched up well to my one good power tube, so I was back in business.  In a moment of weakness, I sold this amp along with some others while I was living in Raleigh.  I think I only got $300 for it.  Why, why, why did I sell it.  I’m on the lookout for another, but I think this one was special.  If you have never tried one of these under-appreciated amps, check them out.  Great tone that really opens up over 75% on the volume, especially when using the Accordion input jack.  The reverb is rich, and the vibrato is cool in the way that it interacts with the reverb.  And the reverb has this “click” position where it becomes very staccato.  Just bitchin’.  Now I really want another one.

8.       Fender Super Reverb – I found this amp at a music store in ridiculously great condition.  Almost looked like a new amp, like maybe a reissue or something.  It was a 1968 with silverface but blackface circuit.  It had the aluminum trim around the grille cloth and four pristine AlNiCo speakers.  Just a beauty.  But it sounded really, really crappy.  Farty and dead.  Just a lemon is what the salesman said.  Apparently the original owner bought it and never liked it, so it was rarely ever played and lived in a hall closet.  After all these years, the son of the original owner wants to play guitar, thus needs an amp.  Dad trades it in for whatever, and there I am walking in the door.  I would have walked once I heard it except the guy said I could have it for $300.  Sheesh, I bought it on the spot just for the speakers.  For the hell of it, I took it in to old Danny Russel who messed around with this thing for several days.  He checked the guts and everything was fine.  Tried different power tubes and pre-amp tubes, still sucksville.  Then he tested the rectifier tube and it was out of spec.  He figured out that it was miss-marked at the factory and was indeed the wrong tube.  When he put in the correct rectifier tube, this amp lept to life.  It was like Stevie Ray Vaughn was being channeled through this thing when Danny plugged his Strat in to it.  I was floored.  I didn’t need it, and knew it had value, so I took it to the Michigan Guitar Show.  I spotted just the Gretsch 6120 that I wanted and offered a trade.  They guy said that my amp looked great, but no deal.  I said “play it”.  He was not interested, but I said again “Just play it.”  So he did.  For like 20 minutes.  He said it was the best sounding Super Reverb, maybe even amp, he had ever heard and he would do the trade for the Gretsch.  So, for $300 for the amp and another $100 with Danny, I had a beautiful, mint 1967 Gretsch Nashville.  If only I could do this all the time!

9.       Fender Concert – I bought this mainly because it was really old and I thought it a great deal at $500.  This was a 1962 Concert which had been brought back from the grave with new tolex, baffle board, grille cloth, speakers (MojoTone), etc.  It looked a little to new for my liking, but it sounded really nice.  This thing really screamed and was a bit more vintage rock and roll sounding than my Super – more lo-fi.  I liked it a lot, but alas, no reverb.  And I don’t think it had tilt-back legs.  It just wasn’t needed and I sold it at a guitar show for about what I paid.  Seems like I missed the chance to make a few bucks.

10.   Magnatone M-10A– These are soooo cool, you need to try one.  Mine was a ‘60s model, but I don’t remember the exact year.  It had the original 12-inch Jenson speaker and the original vinyl cover with the cool, understated MAGNATONE type on it.  Mine was really clean.  Not quite mint, but very good.  The M-10A is better than the M-10 because it has an extra bit of tone circuitry that gives the amp a bit more life, and it usually has a 12-inch speaker instead of a single 10-inch speaker.  I would go in to the first channel, and then jump the first to the second.  I would use the bright boost on the first channel and the bass boost on the second.  The tone was clean and beautiful.  Not a real rock and roll tone like the Ampeg, but gorgeous.  But the real reason this amp is so amazing is the tremolo. True tremolo that sounds like a Leslie rotating speaker.  Lush and thick and wow.  Just makes you want to strum big, fat open chords all day.  I don’t remember where I bought it, but I sold it for about $350 when I was living in Raleigh and selling off tons of gear.  I shipped it back to Michigan to a friend of a friend.  Should have kept it.’

11.   Gretsch ???? – I bought this off of a classified ad hoping to find a rocking little combo.  All I knew from the ad was it was an old Gretsch combo with on speaker, a volume knob, tone knob and a cord, and that it worked.  All of that was true.  What I didn’t know was that it was a AC/DC amp that could be run off batteries if need be.  It had a tiny speaker that sounded like a pocket AM radio.  I couldn’t even get the lo-fi sound I was hopping for, it just sounded crappy.  And I love Gretsch stuff, so that was a hard pill to swallow.  Sold off at a guitar show for a small profit.  Almost kept it because it looked cool on my bookshelf, but I just didn’t have that kind of dough.

12.   Ampeg Gemini I (I still own this one, for the second time) – I picked this one up for cheap because the baffle board and speaker where missing.  I have no idea where they went, but for $100 and assurance that it worked fine, I was up for the challenge.  I picked up a vintage 12-inch Jenson that was period-correct and sounded good.  It might have been re-coned, but it looked and sounded good and the price was right at about $25.  I made the baffle board my self using my other Ampeg as a template.  I put it together and it sounded pretty good.  I still liked my original Gemini more, but this was cool too.  I never got the chance to put grille cloth on it as I sold it to Flounder before I moved to NC.  I think he only gave me about $150 for it.  I believe he still has it, and it still has no grille cloth.  Poor thing.  UPDATE: I spoke with Flo, and he said he had not fire this amp up in three or four years, so we work a deal and next thing you know, that amp is heading back my way.  It basically looked the same when it arrived.  Maybe a bit more aged, but nothing shockingly different.  I may have remembered the speaker differently, or may Flo changed it out at some point in the last 11 years, but it had a generic-looking ceramic magnet 12″ speaker in place, probably an Eminence.  I changed it out for an AlNiCo Weber 12″ and installed some Ampeg grille cloth.  Then had a local amp repair tech restore the tremelo (wasn’t working) and give it a general once-over.  Now it’s looking good (like a road-warn rock and roll machine) and sounding even better.  These are great amps, you should have one.

13.   Fender Princeton Reverb – I had wanted one of these ever since my pal Matt Zacharias has lent me his for a while.  Pound for pound, maybe the best sounding amps ever.  18-watts of Fender tone.  No master volumes or even a mid tone control, just the basics.  I do think they sound best when you unplug the 10-inch speaker and plug in to a 2×12 cabinet with some vintage Jensons in it, but that is only when you need a  bit more volume with a band.  So, I bought this in 1999 for $400.  It had the original 10-inch speaker replaced with a vintage Jenson 12-inch speaker, which sounded great and explained why the price was not at least $600 or more (at that time).  This amp hung around my house and got only moderate use as it was sitting next to the Super, the Gemini and the a.  Then I sold them all off except for the Super.  My buddy Dick Luxury (Richard Fisher) got this one for what I had paid for it.  I could have made a few bucks, but Dicky needed a new amp badly and is a really good friend.  He lives in Brooklyn now and still plays this amp.  He loves it.  Who wouldn’t?

14.   Line 6 Flextone III – I normally don’t go in for this kind of thing, but I wanted a fun amp for home with a bunch of sounds and effects.  This does that really well.  I don’t think it works with a band at all, but it is fun for home and home recording.  The amp / cabinet sounds are interesting, especially the Vox AC-30 setting.  The effects are especially fun to mess with.  And for quiet recording, I use the headphone jack direct-in (this mutes the speaker) and it sounds like a mic’d up amp played at volume.  Also, an added bonus that I didn’t think of when I bought it is that you can use the reverb on any amp, even amps that didn’t come with reverb.  A perk for me, a reverb addict.

15.   Vox AC-15 – My most recent amp purchase which I picked up in 2007 here in Austin from a guy off of Craigslist.  It is a mid-‘90s model when they were still made in England.  It has a Vox 12-inch speaker, but not the coveted Vox Blue (Celestion).  I will put a better speaker in here when the right deal presents itself to me.  The reverb and vibrato are very nice, and the overall tone is sweet.  I usually keep the tone knobs all the way up as well as the master volume.  I control the volume with the input volume control.  This thing really barks, but sounds better with some guitars than it does others.  This one is at my house right now but I have used it with my band.  I’m favoring the Super (again) with its new speakers.  But man, if you got two arms in which to carry one guitar and one amp, this is the amp to have.  Here she is:

16.   Tweed (5E7) Bandmaster Clone – I traded a Fender Jazzmaster reissue for this one.  I just never could make friends with that guitar.  This amp is cool, and a real rock and roll machine.  It’s a Weber kit that has some upgrades, but basically a two 6L6, 3×10 tone box.  The tranformer is some kind of multi-tap thingamajigger, so I was able to have it tweaked so that I can run 6V6 tubes.  I love 6V6 power tubes, and it takes the volume down a little so that I can turn it up over “1″ during rehearsal.  The guy I did the trade with is a killer guitarist and has a sweet hand-wired Deluxe Reverb which screams.  He was cool and threw in a Electro Harmonix Holy Grail reverb pedal, becuase I cannot live without reverb.  the pedal actually works well.  He also threw in a second baffle board set up for a 12″ and a 10″.  Prety nice, it has grill cloth and bolts and matches perfectly.  Currently, the speakers are all Weber 10″ with two AlNiCos and one Ferromax.  I would have put three AlNiCos in, but this sounds really nice so I’ll leave it (for now).  The only thing I didn’t like was how pale and new the tweed looked, so I hit it three coats of Honey Pine poly and now it has a nice vintage look.  Check it out:

17.   Gibson GA-20 – I picked this one up off of eBay for $200 in January 2009.  It has been recovered and the speaker has been replaced with some no-name ceramic 12-incher.  I knew it was old and that it worked, but that was about all.  I took it Buffalo Amplifiers in Plano where Rob dated it to 1958 or 1959.  He’s going to restore it to it’s past glory.  The cabinet will be black and burnt orange two-tone with dark grill cloth, and the speaker will either be a 50’s Jensen or a new Weber.  He’ll put the right handle and logo on it too.  And, of course, he’ll go through all of the guts and sort all of it out.  It’s really a cool amp – kind of Gibson’s version of a Tweed Deluxe.  Two 6V6 power tubes, three pre-amp tubes, two channels, two volumes and a tone knob and that is it.  It’s going to be a badass little 12-watt killer.  FYI, these are consider to be absolutely awesome harp amps too.  Here is the before shot:

What does the future hold for me and guitar amps?  Who knows, but maybe an Ampeg Gemini, Magnatone M10-A or Fender Princeton Reverb as I really miss the ones I let go.  Or maybe a project of some type?  Possibly a Silvertone or Gretsch amp?  And for sure, at some point in my life, a Vox AC-30 Top Boost.  But I do guarantee one thing: The Super Reverb is not going anywhere.

Leave me a comment with your favorite amps, interesting amp stories, questions, insights, etc.

 

UPDATE 2/18/08— Not really an update as much as a correction; I forgot two amps.  Neither is particularly impressive or had much of an impact on me, which is probably why I forgot them when I was writing the post.  In case you are wondering, #6 and #11 where the two I missed the first time around.  Cheers.

UPDATE 4/24/08— See amp #12, the Ampeg Gemini I.  I re-aquired this amp from my pal Flound, and have gotten it back up to spec.  What a great amp.  If you have never owned one of these, find one now as the price seems to be climbing quickly.  They are very unique, and when cranked, you will: 1. be amazed that 20 watts can get that loud, and 2. the break-up starts to sound amazing.  Enjoy.

UPDATE 2/2/09— Amp #15, the Vox AC-15, is gone.  Sold it to some guy on Craigslist – the circle remains unbroken.  Great amp.  Why sell it?  Just got borred.  Didn’t play it very much and wanted to fund some other stuff.  Don’t be suprised if I’m pining for one these little amps again some day.  Oh, and I added Amps #16 and #17 too.  The addiction continues!