The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    i recently posted in another thread that the heritage factory is now making harmony solidbody guitars...under the direction of their huge parent company- bandlab...well they have added a vintage styled amp to the mix...asian made...hand-wired...octal preamp tube...6v6 power tube...5 watts into a 6" alnico jensen...priced 399$...




    more info @-

    8418
    – Harmony Guitars


    cheers
    Last edited by neatomic; 11-12-2019 at 07:53 PM.

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    Looks great, as does that guitar.

  4. #3

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
    Looks great, as does that guitar.
    unfortunately, as of now the heritage factory made harmony guitars available are rather mundane looking solidbodies...and not cheap!

    harmony once produced tons of cool guitars & basses..so hopefully some of the semi-hollow & hollow styled good stuff will be forthcoming...

    keith used a harmony meteor on satisfaction!! and late great ronnie lane pumped a harmony h22 bass in the small faces


    cheers

  5. #4

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    Holy sh@t, I want two!!!


    That thing looks great. I LOVE octal tubes. In the right circuit, they sound amazing.

  6. #5

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    Thanks for posting! I’ve never heard about that amp before.

  7. #6

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    I've always had a soft spot in my heart (and head, if you listen to some people) for Harmony guitars. I'd take a Rocket with more knobs and switches than a Jaguar in a new York minute! In red. Sheer whimsy. A Silvertone 1446 in black would be welcome as well.

  8. #7

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    Oh man, that looks super cool!!!

    I wish they would have used an archtop in the demo... but I want one! I looks and sounds like everything I wanted the little Champion 600 to be, but wasn't!

  9. #8

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    Before I pull the trigger on this, tell me if I'm missing anything? Downside?

    Looks cool, demo sounds good, handwired, yes only a 6" speaker but it's an ALNICO Jensen, and I'd only be using this at home, not gigging with it... (of course I still need an ES-125 type to go with it... )

    The closest other octal amp in price is the V47 Oahu Suitcase, and it's twice the price...

    Unless I'm missing something, this seems like a great, reasonably-affordable and classy-looking way to get into some octal tube goodness....

  10. #9

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    Oh wow, looks great!

    Practical use on stage will be very limited, if you desire a clean tone while playing with drums......


    *edit: oh 5 watts, that’s Champ-territory, so it stays clean only for living room practice and (drum-less) studio jamming, as the website states. And perhaps quiet coffee-houses for solo gigs? Hence the demo with only dirty tones. Not really suitable as a jazz amp imho......

    Still cool though!

  11. #10

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    It would be cool if they took this same concept and did a 12 watt amp with 10 or 12 inch speaker. If they could keep the price under $500 bucks and include a line out on the back that would be a decent amp for jazz. I've been using a vox pathfinder 15R with lineout on the back with my selmer style guitar and a stimer type pickup. Perfect combo for those late 40's type tones. It would be fun to have and actual tube amp tho. Honestly the vox sounds great and I am able to dial in just a little bit of grit, kinda like the barnyard pedal. The amp only cost me $70 bucks used. So far I've only got positive feedback from all my django buddy players who are quite picky.

  12. #11

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    Theres almost no way I won't buy one of these.

  13. #12

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    Quote Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
    Theres almost no way I won't buy one of these.
    That vote of confidence was all I needed... ordered!

    And if for some reason I decide it's not something for me, I'll give you suchadeal....

    Old-school, new production, octal amps are as rare as hen's teeth (well, affordable ones are...), so this really seems to be a special thing... Nothing wrong with Vintage 47 or Nocturne, and if I were gigging and needed the volume that would be different... but for my own personal use, this sexy thing seems perfect.

    I tried and tried to get the Champion 600 Reissue "there", with mods and a new speaker (Vintage 47 alnico), but it never "arrived"... I think the tiny cab was holding it back (and the 12A_7 tube, of course)... the original C600s WERE Octal, and sounded amazing.

  14. #13

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    glad you guys think it cool too...should be great home amp..congrats r9...just remember its asian made..the v47s are truly handmade in cali!! v47 pricing is actually pretty great for usa boutique quality!

    alnico jensen is nice touch!!

    hep to the jive was usin a low watt v47 in band situation..before he got the big boy v47..hope he sees this and chimes in

    bigger things may be comin from harmony..esp if this one does well


    cheers

  15. #14

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    Won't be here until thursday

    I got the shipping notice, it's coming from California.... not Kalamazoo, which is where the company is located. Right off the boat? LOL

  16. #15

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    This would be the perfect living room amp!

    definitely adding this to my Christmas list

  17. #16

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    Just read that there will only be 150 of these built...

    i really don”t need this (just bought a Loar LH700, blew the gear budget for the year)

    But I have one on the way now!

  18. #17

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    I didn't have the money either.... having just bought a Roland Blues Cube Artist (lighter weight for gigging), and a Bad Cat Hot Cat (one of my holy grail amps, a 50th bday gift to myself), I had already blown the gear budget x2. But an OCTAL, NEW, at this price? I couldn't say no. Funny how gear stuff seems to happen all at once... apparently Fender is also making more of the Knotty Pine Princeton Reverbs with the 12" Alnico Cream, another amp I've been wanting... limited edition of course.. but I just can't. Not right now.

  19. #18

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    It's here.

    Very quick review:

    It definitely has that old-school tone I have heard out of amps like Vintage 47, where they are going for that old amp thing. IDK if that's the 6SJ7 specifically, or the circuit, but it does not, for example, sound like the Champion 600 Reissue.

    It does not get dirty... in the demo video, Andy is pushing it with clean boost to get those tones. This amp, by itself, is capable of no more than what I would call "Charlie Christian breakup"... which is fine with me, that's what I'm after. The Champion 600 Reissue got MUCH dirtier... you had to put a 12AU7 in it to get it down to the clean levels this Harmony 8418 is putting out.

    It has to be up at 7 or higher to do this (10 is best). And at 10....

    1) it hums. This is not abnormal, every tube amp I own, when cranked, hums. It's the nature of the beast. It hums less as you turn the volume down, which is of course normal. The Champion 600 hummed. My Bad Cat hums. My Supersonics both hum.

    2) even on 10, it's not loud. At all. Nowhere near as loud as the demo makes it out to be. This is TRULY a "home amp"... even on 10, you won't be disturbing anyone. Which-again- is OK with me... that's MY purpose for this amp: old-school tones at home volumes. Actually, anything below 5 on the dial is so quiet it's not even usable for me... no idea if the original ones were this quiet...?
    [interestingly, the Champion 600 Reissue: out of the box, with it's 12AX7 and Fender tone stack, was much louder and dirtier and brighter. But I disabled the tone stack for more mids, put a V47 hemp cone in for darker tone, and a 12AU7 in for cleaner tone.... and that MODDED C600 did sound a lot like this Harmony, in both volume (lack of) and tone.]

    I only wish I had a proper P90 archtop to play through it, that would be the ultimate test for me. I have a tele, a P90 thinline tele, and my Grestch with Filtertrons. Oh- that's another observation: this amp is not capable of that "Gretsch sparkly" sound... at least not with Filtertrons... the high end is simply not available.

    If you have any questions, fire away. But I'll say that for old-school tones, at low volumes for home use, and cool looks to boot, they done good.

    OH- and there doesn't appear to be a HI and LO input like we are used to; both inputs are the same. As if to plug 2 instruments into the same amp... I assume the originals were like this as well.

  20. #19

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    quick addendum:

    I put a Spark Booster in front of it, and was able to achieve more blackface-y/Gretschy tones (the full-size Spark Booster is an EQ as well as a booster). I guess this is the reverse of say, putting a Junior Barnyard in front of a PRRI.

  21. #20

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    Good to hear.

    Are they really only making 150?

  22. #21

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    That's what the Reverb listing says. The truth probably is: yes, the FIRST RUN is only 150. And if they sell like crazy, they'll make more. If they don't, then yeah it'll be 150.

    It's definitely a niche amp; most players are not looking for something like this; most (newer) players are listening to John Mayer, not Charlie Christian lol.

  23. #22

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    So far, they seem to be selling them exclusively from that Reverb listing. Bookmark it, and keep checking... if the "available" goes down below "10+", you'll know...

  24. #23

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    Don’t forget, this through a bigger cabinet would be a very different amp.

    A 6 inch speaker is like putting a governor on a Ferrari. You really don’t know what it can do until you remove that bottleneck.

    That being said the six inch speaker, while being a one trick pony, is a cool trick.

  25. #24

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    From what I can tell, the originals had either 6" or 8" speakers. Remember- this was a "student/practice" amp, not a performance amp like the EH-185...

  26. #25

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    Cool, exactly what I'm after. I want something my wife will let me keep in the living room