Anyone has experience with old, weird cool amps?

[Joeytpg]

I'm looking into buying a cool vintage type of amp. something simple and straight up like a Silvertone or something like that. Specially for cheap (less than $1,000).

What experience do you have on this matter?


cheers.

 

[bonedarrell]

From the 80's, so not quite vintage yet, but the Fender Champ 12 is one of the best kept secrets out there IMO!! I can't tell you how many times I snubbed my nose at these in pawn shops over the years thinking that they were just ugly solid state amps. They are class A 6v6 2 channel amps. The overdrive channel is usually the downfall to this amp as it is "all or nothing". I had my local amp dude do a simple mod to fix that, changed the speaker, added a speaker ext jack(sounds even better pushing a 2x12 or 4x12)and this thing sounds great IMO! You can pick them up for around $250-$350. Some have the uglier red knobs, but they all sound the same. The clean channel is the biggest surprise....clean to nice class A breakup ala tweed!!! I think these were made during the Paul Rivera days at Fender, but somebody might clarify.

 

[Aristocat]

I had a Bedrock Lead 50 and it was wicked cool. Looked like a Hiwatt, but had an 800 type of gain structure. It was tight and responsive although it was insanely loud.

You can find Lead 50/1000/1200/600 Series heads easily under $700. GC blows out Bedrock cabs for $200 and they're typically loaded with Fang speakers or G12-75 speakers.

 

[londaxe]

I'm looking into buying a cool vintage type of amp. something simple and straight up like a Silvertone or something like that. Specially for cheap (less than $1,000).

What experience do you have on this matter?


cheers.

If you specifically mean the silvertone/danelectro/etc ones from the 60's, then yes.

The silvertone stuff is pretty nice, but cheaply made. the cabinets are made of particle board and they basically have wallpaper for tolex.

The 1484 I used to have had some really nice cleans, and the overdriven tones were good - sounded very raw. The tremolo was decent at best, and the less said about the reverb, the better! I'm convinced that poltergeists were inside the reverb tank...

I also had a 1481 for a short time which was pretty cool. I think it was basically their take on a fender champ.

Haven't owned many off brand amps from the 60's otherwise. If we're talking about old and weird amps in general, I've currently got two of these amps from the 70's made by mitchell which were mesa mark 1 knock offs. They were supposedly very inconsistent though - I've played through one which sounded horrible, but the one I have now sounds amazing. the other one I have was modded to IIC+ specs by jerrydyer. these amps can usually be had for well under $500, which is a steal in my opinion

 

[1big1]

my sister-in-law has a lectrolab r 200 b that she will sell to me. it's basically their champ type amp. it was gone over by someone in the 80's who replaced the original speaker with a ceramic.. re-tubed it and did a cap job on it. odd tube compliment. 2x12bf6 (single triode) 1 35z4 rectifier.. 1 50l6 power tube. yes the heaters are series.. but it has an iso tranny on the input already.. so i just need to check the circuit and add a three prong plug. it sounds pretty good when close miked. it's a very good sounding tweed champ type amp. i also have an r 700 b head. 2x12ax7's and a pair of 7189's (6bq5's). the difference being that the 7189 can take the 400 plates volts that the tranny puts out. the 6bq5 is good to about 360 volts.. so they can go through them quickly. with a pair of alnico's it's a very smooth overdrive when cranked and quite chimey clean.
if you're looking for something that's a tad more bluesy.. you could check out some vintage magnatone amps. those are pretty cool sounding.. imho.