-
So my 67 Reverberocket 2 GS 12R was just delivered yesterday so I thought I would do a quick review.
It has the following tubes:
2 x 7591
2 12AX7
1 6U10
I would say this is perfect for jazz. Its a bit of a one trick pony in that it will only really do cleans unless you crank the hell out of the volume. There is no gain dial. It seems to stay clean until you reach the crazy end of the dial.
The reverb, Ampeg calls this Echo, is very nice. Although if you crank the reverb up it seems to add a ton of treble and the highs get really accentuated. But at normal levels it sounds really nice and like a good spring reverb should. The tremolo, though not much of a tremolo guy, sounds as good as everyone says. It really is a nice deep tremolo.
The single jensen 12" speaker sounds nice and warm and round but can get "crystal" clear if you dial back the bass and up the treble.
Overall I would say this is a great amp and would work well for anyone playing clean tones from nice warm jazz(can easily dial in a darker Wes Montgomery or Jim Hall tone) to clean country chicken pickin. A great and versitile clean amp. I would not ever recomend this for distortion unless you heavy into pedals.
I will try to get a playing sample together sooner rather than later.
Hope this helps and thanks for all the information in the various other amp threads.
'Mike
-
12-14-2011 02:58 PM
-
I had a Reverberocket 2 but it was destroyed in a hurricane. I've since replaced it with a 65 Gemini 1 which works extremely well with my D'Armond pickups. The Ampeg amps were oribinally made for jazz type music which is why it sounds so good. The big problem is the low availability of the 7591 tubes. If you can find them, they're really expensive. The solution is to find a really good amp tech and have him/her convert the 7591s to the 6L6 type of tubes. Will it change the sound? Probably but how noticeable will it be? At least if the 6L6s go out, the amp becomes a lot more fixable. Enjoy the amp. It's one of the greats.
-
I found a full tube set on ebay for about $85 shipped. Seems like a decent deal. I think the amp still has the original Ampeg tubes.
It does sound really good for jazz. I wonder how those 7591 tubes compare to the 6L6
'Mike
-
I think the 7591 tubes may have been a little warmer in sound but I wouldn't bet on it. I think I read that the 6L6s may make the amp sound a little brighter. With some creative adjusting, I'm sure you could dial that brightness out.
-
The big problem is the low availability of the 7591 tubes. If you can find them, they're really expensive
EH make a reissue 7591A tube which I just saw listed for $39 a pair.
They fall in between the 6L6 and 6V6 in terms of output.
-
JJ, Sovtek, and Groove Tubes also make a 7591 as well as the previously mentioned Electro Harmonix tubes. I would stick with the 7591's they are an excellent sounding tube. Ampegs are great amps. Congrats.
-
I had no idea thay reissued those tubes. Do they make enough of them so they're not too difficult to find or are the reissues just as hard to get?
-
They are even listed on Amazon.......although, yes, there won't be much of a demand for them. Cheap enough, though.
-
You can get them from most of the tube places like Antique Electronics Supply, Tube Depot, The Tube Store etc...
-
Wow, you're right Franz, JJ does indeed make 7591's! That's excellent! I wouldn't have even bothered to search Amazon, I just figured that they didn't make those tubes anymore.
(I just acquired a 1962 vintage Reverberocket 1x12 combo — I'm pretty stoked!)
-
Great amp find. I'd be stoked all over the place myself. Happy NAD.
Originally Posted by Nighthawkish
-
Glad it worked out! I had a 60s ampeg superbreverb amp ( yes, superb...reverb) before these RI 7591s came out, and did the 6L6 conversion because there was no alternative. It did not improve the sound at all. The tone stack is ideal for jazz sounds IMO. I also love the look of ampegs. The wiring can be a bit of a challenge on these, and you might at some point want to have the electrolytic caps checked for leakage, but it's the same for any older amp.
Enjoy!
-
Whe I go out to play, I use some of the Ampeg Blue Diamond series reissues from the mid 90s. In addition to my 60s Gemini 1 which I don't take out (now that I know I can get the 7591s, I can take it out again) I have a Reverberocket, a Jet, a Jet-20 and the solid state BR 100 bass amp. I would have gotten one of the reissue B-15s but the dang thing was way too heavy, about 80 pounds.
-
Does anybody else on here have any idea as to whether Ken Fischer (of later Trainwreck fame) may have been behind any of these 60's Ampeg designs?
Trainwreck Circuits - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
As an aside, did anybody else know that guitar patch cords were DIRECTIONAL???
That sort of blows my mind. (Although I hate the Gibson article's vapid, uninformed pronouncement that super-high-fidelity patch cords carry "too much tone". IMHO, more like: "a stronger signal which overdrives the pre-amp too hard, resulting in unwanted distortion"...)
-
This could take a while... Originally Posted by Nighthawkish
As an aside, did anybody else know that guitar patch cords were DIRECTIONAL??? That sort of blows my mind. (Although I hate the Gibson article's vapid, uninformed pronouncement that super-high-fidelity patch cords carry "too much tone". IMHO, more like: "a stronger signal which overdrives the pre-amp too hard, resulting in unwanted distortion"...)
I will say however that SRV prefered the cheaper Coily cables because quality cables (like belden at the time) "let too much tone through" so I am guessing the Gibson comment is a tip of the hat to SRV
-
Sam I think he used the word electricity instead of tone. There's a very interesting interview by his tech online where he tells that story.
-
That makes a lot of sense to me — Originally Posted by SamBooka
I have a tweed deluxe 5E3 clone that really doesn't sound right with "non-vintage" pickups because they overdrive the pre-amp too easily and cause unwanted breakup.
The solution I found there is some combination of 1) using vintage-spec/lower-output pickups and/or 2) employing an active EQ in front of the amp and cutting the entire signal down a few decibels (this really works wonders!). Cutting the volume down using the guitar's volume knob seems to "suck" tone and muddy things up. Following SRV's logic, maybe I should also consider 3) getting an electrically "inferior" cable!
-
Does anybody else on here have any idea as to whether Ken Fischer (of later Trainwreck fame) may have been behind any of these 60's Ampeg designs?
Apparently he worked at Ampeg during that period as a tester.
Of course, it was the wasp=striped foil-in-beer caps that made those amps sound so special......
Reply With Quote
$8500 - 2010 Moffa Maestro Virtuoso Archtop Black...
Today, 03:35 AM in For Sale