Reviews
“A Briefcase Full of Blues” – The World’s First All Solid-State Guitar Amp Quick Info Summary: 1965 5-watt solid-state combo amp with built-in vibrato effect; 8-inch Alnico speaker; seven Germanium transistors and five Germanium diodes. Point-to-point hand soldered. Perfect little amp for practice or recording. Pros: Vintage 60′s tone. Extremely compact Read more…
At first glance the Sears 5XL guitar amp would be easy to disrespect, even considering it’s legacy in the line of original Danelectro/Silvertone guitars and amplifiers. And why not, it’s a Sears, right? Well, that’s where you’d be wrong.
[This is an update to an earlier post. Since then we have done some more testing of this unit with different instruments and amplifiers.] I was looking for a good analog pedal to overdrive my tube amp without loosing that “great Gretsch sound” of my Electromatic. The DOD FX10 was Read more…
1965 Kay 704 Vanguard Vibrato Find the full review here: Kay 704 Review The Kay 704 Vanguard with Vibrato was the world’s first all transistor solid-state guitar amp, introduced by Kay Musical Instruments in 1962. Based on traditional tube amp design of that period, the vacuum tubes were replaced in Read more…