Just picked up an Alamo Amp-5. Pictures to come. It is a two 6v6 amp with Jensen 12" permanent magnet speaker. 12AX7 and an Octal in the preamp. Pictures to come. No schematic for this one I could find, so I'll have to draw it up myself.
cool..the alamo 5 is also known as the montclair...should be a birch cab..
alamo's could be nice amps...some of the later ones have that silvertone cheap thin cab and tolex vibe...only hinted at with the kitchen cabinet handle on the amp 5!!!
haha
i'd change that 12ax7!!..check the caps as well...
have fun and enjoy..cool amp
cheers
ps- sounds good! well done...hear some david gilmour in those blues
The circuit has some significant differences from the popular 5e3 Tweed Deluxe. Negative feedback comes off the red and black wires on the output transformer (which you can see is attached to the speaker basket).
This is not the exact schematic but it shows how the negative feedback is implemented from the output transformer in this Alamo Amp-5. I followed the black wire to ground and followed the red wire to the cathode of one of the preamp tubes.
I think this is the first used or vintage amp I ever got that actually works. I usually buy 'projects' or people just give me stuff. This one was a gift.
This little Gretsch/Valco was also a gift to me about 20 years ago. It needed just about everything. Bad grid resistor, microphonic preamp tubes, coupling cap leaking lots of DC to the volume pot, etc. I was able to get a muti-unit can-cap that nearly matched the original.
Interesting that now I have more 6V6 amps than 6L6. In the 80s and 90s, I despised 6V6 amps because, at the time, there were no good 6V6 tubes available. So my few 6V6 amps all ran from Used Old Stock tubes.
So, now that I count amps laying around here I see:
Tweed Champ 6V6
Blackface Champ 6V6
Tweed Deluxe 5e3 Replica 6V6 x2
Gibson EH-125 6V6 x2
Mesa Blue Angel 6V6 x 2
and now Alamo 6V6 x 2
Most of those amps still have the original 6V6 except the Tweed Deluxe I built. Maybe the story of those 6V6 tubes will be of entertainment to the 'gear heads' out there.
When I was 9 years old I got an "Ungar" brand soldering iron because I loved taking things apart (couldn't fix anything, though.) So, around 1965 or so I was given an old amplifier chassis which I took apart, mostly to play with the parts.
Fast forward to 2001 and I was in my parents house attic for Christmas, looking for my old toys to give to my kids. Low and behold I found a cardboard box of my old electrical components I used to play with. Now my wife won't let me give that stuff to the kids to play with ("If they lived in California they could get Cancer from that stuff!!") but I did find two GE 6V6 tubes in the box. So those are the tubes in the 5e3.
When I found those GE 6V6 tubes I was so excited about it I even record this about ten years ago. I had not built the 5e3 yet, but I was using the tubes in the Mesa Blue Angel to replace the Chinese tubes with came with that amp. Those tubes really turned that Mesa Blue Angel into a 'keeper.'
Killing some time online and saw your post. I’ve been a fan of Alamo amps from this era for 20 years. They had 5 models, named after the amount of tubes, in the birch cabs, Amp - 6 1x15 (6a had tremolo), 5 1x12, - 4, (an AC/DC version of the 3, never have seen one, so far) 3,1x10 & 2, 1x8 or 6. The 2-3-4 all used 3 tubes
What’s the speaker date code say? I’m guessing 53. Sometime in 54 they started using Oxblood w/ gold stripe grill cloth. Yours appears to have the longer serial 101xxx # also, I couldn’t read it completely.
I get the impression the 5 is the least common, I’d seen only a few early on and never could buy one but bet I’ve seen a 1/2 dozen in the last couple years. I got a super nice one with cover and paperwork off eBay a couple years ago.
I had my tech go thru it, keep your eye on the Sangamos, he tweaked the tone circuit and we swapped the P12R for a P12P. What I ended up with was a cool looking 2-6v6 1x12 amp that sounds great and didn’t have a hefty price tag.
He did a similar hack on my Amp-3 and it kills. I’ve got a couple Alamo steels and they’re great too.
Sometime I’d like to hear the back story on your 5! In the early days of the Company they were mainly sold at military base PX stores or thru Oahu outlets. It took awhile before they got a distributor.
I first looked at your Amp-5 on my phone. On the 27" Mac it looks like it might have the oxblood/gold grille? That would make sense with the longer serial #. The Jensen date code would answer that question. As clean as it is, did it have the cover?
No cover but it originally came with the Lap Steel. In fact, 35 years ago my brother wanted to start Lap Steel, thus the purchase of the amp. I think the material on the grill is the same as your amps.
I'll have to check the date code on the speaker.
Wow!, he had the amp for 35 years and it stayed in that condition! Does he still have the steel? My 5 is a late 1950 or early 51 model. Here's a shot of another clean 6a from 52. I'll find a couple of my 5 for comparison.
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Don't recall that tune but Somewhere Over the Rainbow does that too.
First two notes of Norah Jones "Don't Know Why" are a major 7th and then a descending Maj.7 chord arpeggio (7-5-3-1).
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My 2 cents: I have tried a lot of ear training in different sauces
Ear master pro: good but not great
Complete ear trainer: 5 euro smartphone app that is a game changer. try it.
^ Good God no. I hate tippy taps.
2nd no drummer and proceeding with the gigs as is. If you eventually find a good replacement then cool.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzlYSCiRCqA
ok..the scale/mode thing can be very confusing when your just learning jazz basics.
Strong suggestion:..dont worry about modes for now..
Learn the chords in the major scale and how they work...
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Julian Lage Trio, Amsterdam, April 17 2024
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