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Weird Amps Nobody Remembers
- Thread starter Pablo504
- Start date
What years were those? Acoustic seemed to have pioneered that concept with the 360, then Sunn followed suit with the failed Orion series soon after, ‘68-ish. Some of those Ovations listed above where based on that concept, I believe. But if GBX was on it first, very interesting.
That reminds me, anyone remember the Sound City [This invalid link has been removed] Tour Series amp? Designed to "withstand the rigors of touring" indeed, these things were built like the proverbial brick outhouse...I remember their very early promotional material mentioned something about loaning prototypes to a world famous rock band so they could road-test them, and the band wound up throwing the amps out of a hotel window! Naturally, the amps survived. My bandmates and I always used to argue about who the lucky band was...
- Feb 12, 2006
- 61,050
- 5
- 221,006
- Disclosures
- Development Engineer-Mesa Boogie, Development Engineer-Genzler (pedals), Product Support-Genz Benz
Link Removed
I only bring these up as they had massive headroom (a steel is a real handful) and the best 'not tube' warmth I ever heard.
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IF I had one of these 80's wonders in fighting shape . . .
. . . . and this keeping it company:
I'd never ever look at amps again. As clean and smooth as I ever heard. They DON'T make them like that any more. I could get real silly and pack a REV 7 on top of them !
Always wanted me one of them there digit-all reverber-ators!
. . . . and this keeping it company:
I'd never ever look at amps again. As clean and smooth as I ever heard. They DON'T make them like that any more. I could get real silly and pack a REV 7 on top of them !
Always wanted me one of them there digit-all reverber-ators!
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I remember SWTPC as one of the earliest entrants into the microcomputer market. I never saw one in person, but they advertised in computer magazines.
Here's an archive with many of their catalogs, etc. Many of their products were written up as articles in hobby magazines.
Southwest Technical Products Archive
You’d need to sit it all on a pile of natural wood Bag End speaker cabs, preferably a mix of 18” and 12” drivers. Yeah!!
All my older friends who played out in the east bay used Fender heads with Webb cabinets. They were tight with Mr. Webb, he did repairs and stuff for them, he was like an uncle to these guys. I was a Leo's guy myself, 16th & Clay, Oakland, CA. He, too, was like an uncle - a mean uncle!
Maybe not too weird, maybe some people remember them, I think these are great, better even than the small GK's I've had over the years:
Wow, Lookit that! I played guitar for several years through a pair of 1 x 10 Valcos that looked like that, but slightly narrower (three inputs, volume, tone, pilot light, switch). The tweed was more of a tan-gray instead of just gray. One had a flocked screen grill and the other had a cane grill, like an old Mesa-Boogie. Same chassis, except one was gold with a black stripe and the other was black with a white stripe.
Pretty cool little amps, with (2) 12AX7, (2) 6973 and (1) 5Y3 rectifier.
If you scroll down to post #35, I believe, there's a great description of Leo's Music and more mention of Webb Music. I do not know the poster:
What were music stores like in the '50s & '60s?
- Feb 12, 2006
- 61,050
- 5
- 221,006
- Disclosures
- Development Engineer-Mesa Boogie, Development Engineer-Genzler (pedals), Product Support-Genz Benz
I serviced that line when working at a Yamaha service shop back in the late 1970's, very well designed and executed. The only challenge was that they used a wire wrap style attachment for many of the interconnects which were a giant pain in the butt.
Actually, many of the later pro audio power amps used a similar architecture, but the execution was not quite so robust. P-2200's (and 2201's) were a mainstay of some of the pro touring companies back then, especially in the theatrical reinforcement world. We used some at the sound company as well, and we were almost exclusively Yamaha for consoles and processing with a couple of SDE-1000's tossed in.
I also worked on the processing, owned a couple of Rev 7's, Rev 90-II's, Rev-900's, Rev-990's, lots of eq's, crossovers, a dozen M-406 rack mixers, etc. It was an expensive way to go in the short term but saved a ton in the long haul. The gear lasted forever. I still have some rack mixers that are 25 years old and still work perfectly with a lot of hours on them. Never had to "re-cap" anything and they still meet the original spec.
They were an attempt to beat Heathkit at their own game, but the sheet metal was pretty poor and the designs weren't all that stable. When they failed, it was generally pretty spectacular. I worked on a bunch, but stopped because I couldn't warranty the repairs with any confidence.
I remember my friends whole band played through a Vadis amp...
And I had a mighty Dynacord Imperator in the early 70s. Guitar player put a bag on top of it and it caught fire. It was a nice amp, mine was covered in red vinyl, looked very flamboyant!
And I had a mighty Dynacord Imperator in the early 70s. Guitar player put a bag on top of it and it caught fire. It was a nice amp, mine was covered in red vinyl, looked very flamboyant!
And vice-versa! I have this Sunn 200S 60W bass head, but have used it primarily as a guitar amp, to the point where I don't even know what it would sound like in its originally-intended use for bass.
