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Weird Amps Nobody Remembers

#201
I know we all know SUNN amps but I've only seen one of these in person.




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Bought one used back in '82ish. Sealed cab combo amp.

With the drive cranked and the right mid frequency dialed in it could sound much like the beginning of Neil Young's " Hey Hey, My My".
 
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#204
jamro217 said:
The Guess Who used to use Garnet amps from Canada. Kurt Winter and Bill Wallace even wore their promo shirts. Never saw one close enough to check out (the amps, not the shirts). They sounded good on the records. The Herzog was what made Randy Bachman's "American Woman" guitar tone.
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My Garnet Deputy bass combo, ~50 watts.

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#206
bassman10096 said:
Heathkit had a long, successful run producing everything from stereo amps to (later on) music amplification for a very active DIY market. Few here will recall that high quality/low cost Japanese gear had yet to make a dent in the US market. Even iconic US brands were just upstarts.
Heathkit gear, particularly stereo and mono hifi amps were often used for PA and instrument applications. My understanding is that the Sundbergs (who founded Sunn) played around with Heathkit amps when they were looking for a way to a higher-powered bass amp that could hold its own against the ridiculously loud Fender Twin Reverbs that completely drowned the early Bassman models. Heathkit was sort of a very low priced, generic amp that filled all sorts of needs before being made obsolete by comparatively cheaper, higher quality Japanese products.
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The Sundholm brothers played with Dynaco kits or power amps. In fact, in the 60´s, almost every hifi company had a « kit » line: Harman Kardon, Knight, Scott, Fisher, Dynaco, …
 
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#207
GretschWretch said:
I used half of one for a head. By the time I had graduated high school I was playing a "Bogder" -- Bogen/Fender hybrid my Dad had custom hand-wired; scratch built the thing. A cabinet maker from the church I attended at the time hand-built me what basically was a Dual Showman cabinet loaded with two 15" Misco Red Line speakers.

My first "rig" was a Macintosh hi-fi amp, part of a tandem used to power some Paul Klipsch (not Klipschorn) stereo speakers. Probably no more than twenty-five watts, but it sure seemed loud at the time.

I still have all of these. I'm keeping the Bogder and its cab, although the cab likely will never leave my house prior to my death. The Macs need a new home. @agedhorse , are you paying attention?
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Tubed MacIntosh’s?
 
#209
pie_man_25 said:
I'm going to leave this here. Old company from Montreal. Made some stencil brands and cheap 1*8 combos. I've seen a head and cab but never heard them. Bargain basement things, I've got a "Ford" combo and it'll basically need some modification to accommodate a three prong plug with grounding for safety. As a bedroom amp it's fun, though. Or at least it was, it's been ages.

Pepco tube amps: History
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Guilty of having two Pepco amps: a Paul and a Trend. The two amps have at least three inputs and a whopping 3-4 watts from one 6V6. Someone explained to me that the bands probably plugged one mic, a guitar and … a bass on the multiple inputs. At least, it was intended for… optimistically!
 
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#211
Patrice B said:
Guilty of having two Pepco amps: a Paul and a Trend. The two amps have at least three inputs and a whopping 3-4 watts from one 6V6. Someone explained to me that the bands probably plugged one mic, a guitar and … a bass on the multiple inputs. At least, it was intended for… optimistically!
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I did briefly put a Titan "subwoofer" into the Ford amp and it handled bass nicely with that. Otherwise, that stock speaker isn't going to handle bass to save it's life.

So yeah, optimistically.
 
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#220
Steven Ayres said:
I built a little Heathkit AM radio in like '68 that I kept glued to my head right up to high school.

My first decent bass amp is one I don't think I ever saw anyone else playing, a Yamaha B100 with 215 cabinet that I bought in '75, iirc, and took with me on the move to California. It took up just about all the space available in the car. But it sounded pretty good and was loud enough for anything I'd want to take on at the time. Some years ago my keyboard player was cleaning out his gear closet, and now I have another one in storage, sentimental I guess. (Not the cab, though, I'm long since through schlepping a fridge around.)

With distortion circuit!

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My high school in the 90s had a single 15 combo with that head in it. We used it for the pit keyboards for marching band.
 
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