Vintage Gibson Amps

[ruger9]

The advice to look into Vintage 47 amps is good, they still use octal tubes.

There's also this... the only GA-50 "tribute" I've ever heard of...

SeQuel TRIBUTE™ archtop tube amp [to Jim Hall] | Reverb

[mickmac]

Having played and owned all the "holy grail" amps there is one absolute standout 58 to 61 GA-200. This amp beats them all. They are heavy and difficult to repair. Wish I could still carry one lol. mickmac

[powerwagonjohn]

Another way to get into the octal pre sound for short money, is to find an early 60's Ampeg Reverberocket. These are great sounding amps and were used by many old jazzers.
Thanks John

[sir-vector]

Thanks for the replies guys. I‘m not a fan of buying vintage Gibson/Ampeg amps due to reliability issues plus the fact that I‘d need to import them without having tried them before as they are not available where I live.

So, speaking about modern alternatives (especially builders who will do a one channel head version without tremolo/reverb to keep it as small as possible): which one would you guys recommend to get as close to the GA-20/50 as possible? Victoria Electro King does not have the Octal tube, Kingsley basically doesn‘t build amps anymore (he told me the waiting time is over two years if he ever builds one anymore)…what do you guys think of the Sequel tribute amp? Otherwise, how close do the EH-185 clones get to the GA-20/50 sound?

I‘d love to try an Ampeg amp, but same issues as above apply plus there doesn‘t seem to be a modern alternative (apart from two clones of the B-15 from Trinity Amps and Ceriatone)!