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This amp was fugly from birth. I was handed this amp from my former band to mess around with but their intent is for me to get rid of it. I had never seen one before nor do I remember them. After some research it turns out they weren't made long in the 80's. It has a half power setting 60/100 watts. (4) 6L6's. Ugly brown leather covering. Anyone here owned or played one? I have yet to fire it up but I'm expecting classic rock/blues tones to sing out of it. I wonder if they're good candidates for mods or just a healthy platform to use with a pedal board setup. Is there any collector value in them? I have a feeling that most guys will not be interested and it's a "beauty in the eyes of the beholder" item.
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I had one of those heads ages ago in the 80's, got it used for a little over $100. Now I wish I'd spent the $250 on the smallbox 50W Marshall the guy was selling...but the amp wasn't bad for what I was doing at the time. Pretty loud, and the EQ was cool. I can't speak for the quality of the components used, that was long ago and I never opened it up.
I'm sure someone could do something with it. Collector value? Who knows...a guy was selling a combo here in Austin recently.
I think Mesa sued them. -
It does have a familiar Mesa looking front panel.Comment
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I finally plugged into this. I ran it through my 5150 4x12 @ 60 watts. I ran all EQ straight up and kept the additional 5-band EQ disabled. Two things were immediately noticable: It was LOUD and full of bass, it was very clean. The guitar player who bought it is a sound engineer and is very picky about clean sounding equipment. He refused to play a 5150 combo live in favor of the Acoustic. The reverb was weak and had to be cranked to get any noticeable effect. It will never pass for a surf rock amp. I had to back down on the bass to 10 o'clock, mids to 9, and bumped high to 1. From there I just jacked with the presence. The pull/boost function which I'm assuming is the OD was awful. No amount of tweaking made it usable unless you were Les Claypool. So I stuck with using it as a clean amp.
I put all EQ'ing back to straight up and reverb to 0. I ran my Rockmaster pre through it. With your tone of choice running in front of this ugly brown leather amp, it will do the job well. As a clean poweramp with control of EQ, it is a capable platform.
Next stop - going over to a buddies house who has a pedal setup but no power. I think he's going to be surprised.Comment
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