4 years ago

Part 1
Sharing the same circuit as the blackface era amplifiers, the exact same circuit, this amplifier can still be found today relatively cheaply and is worth buying on sight.

It has a single 6V6GT, a single ECC83/12AX7 and a 5Y3GT rectifier and a small 8" speaker. Not the greatest speaker it has to be said but it works fine and the amplifier sounds full. It can get ragged quickly at volume with a humbucker equipped guitar and the speaker can start ripping and sounding quite bad if pushed really hard but at lower volumes it's fine.

The first clip is with a Les Paul and I have the bass at 5 as it rapidly gets farty at higher volume levels as the wee speaker just can't take it. The second clip is with a Telecaster style single coil and the bass is at 8. I alternate volumes and try the two inputs. Input 1 is un-attenuated whereas input 2 has a fixed pad on it to reduce the input level and best suits a humbucker guitar.

It's not a quiet amplifier really and puts out some volume in my room. Really when using a Les Paul, anything past 7 just results in a farty crackling with the 8" speaker. If I took the signal into an external cabinet, that wouldn't be a problem.

It's not a high gain amp and simple in design with a single ECC83/12AX7A pre-amp valve and single ended 6V6GT. I switch on a JHS Spring Tank reverb pedal during the video for some space around the notes.

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