Gallien-Krueger 1200SEB Official Club

[CLPalacio]

Does anyone else on the forums own one of these rare amps? It was manufactured for just a few years in the late 80s and was their top dog at the time. I believe it listed at $1100 or so new when I bought mine in 1989. It utilises switching MOSFETs which was it greatest and weakest asset (unlike today's Class D amps). Great tone and light weight but at the time the technology was expensive and the original runs had some issues, some having to do with getting the FETs from overseas suppliers. I had to send mine back twice within a 2 yr period after blowing the FETs and they had to do some rework on the board the second time. It has been solid since. Before I bought it, I played through that and a Trace Elliot head both through a Hartke 410XL at the store and the GK blew the Trace out of the water. I went home with the GK/Hartke combo that day and have used the same setup since (until last week when I got the SBXs). I have searched the threads/posts but only found a few people (including my old sn-"justluis") that make a mention of this amp.



Stereo
Switching MOSFET amp (class D)
Compressor, Voice Filters, Active EQ, Chorus, Limiter
LEFT and RIGHT Balanced outputs (mono switchable)
Direct Output (clean signal)
200W @ 4ohms speaker outputs x2
EFX loop
Optional Effects foot switch
Headphone output

I will update with more pics of rear panel and perhaps the internals.

[winston]

My teacher back in the 80s had one of these, he bought it after hearing my 200MB combo. He ran it through a couple of Hartke 4x10s and it sounded excellent.

It looks like this is based on the 200MB preamp, with the compressor/chorus and lack of Boost control. IIRC GK made a line of rackmountable metal 1x15 and 4x8 cabinets for these.

[anotherlin]

By "Switching MOSFET amp", you mean a class D amp ?

In one issue of Bass gear mag, there's an interview of Rob Gallien, and I remember well. He stated that he already worked on class D amp at the beginning of the 80s. But the technology wasn't ready at that time.

If it's possible, can you make a picture of the inside, please ?

[will33]

I've never seen this GK, interesting though.

[CLPalacio]

Originally Posted by anotherlin

By "Switching MOSFET amp", you mean a class D amp ?

In one issue of Bass gear mag, there's an interview of Rob Gallien, and I remember well. He stated that he already worked on class D amp at the beginning of the 80s. But the technology wasn't ready at that time.

If it's possible, can you make a picture of the inside, please ?

Yes, it is a class D amp. "Switching MOSFET" is silk screened on the front under 1200SEB which is why I included it in the description. Sounds more "high tech" than say Class D. Kinda like dihydrogen monoxide. I believe this is the amp of which RG spoke. They only made it a few years and at the time it was expensive and they hadn't gotten the reliability quite right. They were also plagued with FET shortages from overseas. (made with unobtanium, perhaps?) The second time I sent it to GK, they reworked the board. But I fell in love with the tone. I guess you could characterise it as a clean digital tone, like Alex Lifeson's guitar tone in the late 80s when he was also using GK. Geddy also used them for a short time and their clean digital sounds on those CDs were definitely and influence. Had the GK not sounded so good, I was going to get the Trace Elliot head that I had played at the store.

I will try to get some pics of the innards. I need to replace the blown horns on the SBXs and will try to get the pics when I head to the rehearsal room to do that.

[CLPalacio]

Ok, here are the pics:

REAR PANEL


TOP


BOTTOM


TOP LEFT


TOP RIGHT


FETs

[anotherlin]

Nice !