I was writing up an entry for my blog and thought a few of you here might be interested in it.
About 15 years ago, I was given an old Valco amp with a Tower label in exchange for some web development work. Here are a couple of photos of the amp.
Since, it appeared original, I decided that it should probably be looked at. I took it to Skip Simmons Amp Repair. Skip checked it out and touched up some solder joints and pronounced it good to go. When I asked him about it, he said that it was likely made by Valco, but he had never seen one before.
A few years later, I was curious about the amp. After doing some research on the Internet, I couldn't find any information about the amp. I posted some questions on the Valco Amp site. I received no response. At this point, I was content knowing that it was a Valco-made mystery amp.
A while ago, I was considering trading it when I received an e-mail from Terry Dobbs (a.k.a. Mr Valco):
"This amp is the same circuit as the first Valco made Supreme amps, however, it was made before WW2 by the same company that made the National Dobro amps, in other words, before Valco was Valco. It has a 10" 4 ohm field coil speaker, 5y3, 2-6V6's, 6sc7 and a 6J7. Single volume and no tone control and two inputs. It is a nice little amp and they sound great when serviced and working right."
Okay, enough talk... How does it sound? Let's take a listen...
Its the camera, but the amp doesn't have gobs of low end. Here is a link to some audio recorded with a Zoom H2 ---------- The Blues Photo Gallery
Last Edited by on May 14, 2012 8:02 PM
Good demo, Joe. Nice playing as well. That's the kind of amp that you really have to question taking into a barroom to play live, as much as you want to. ---------- Todd L. Greene
Todd - I don't really like taking that amp out of the house. I might use it to record, but it's not really an amp that would work well in a band situation. It is quite touchy and feedback does set in quite easily. The speaker appears to be original. I fear that it may need a re-cone down the line. It isn't very loud, but it has helped me work on my technique.
It could be useful in a duo, but I would probably use my tweed Champ clone. I may do a video/blog entry of that amp down the road.
The seeming "lack of low end", touchy feedback are all somewhat related. Amps like this with "no tone control" can't attenuate any highs, it's not so much that low end is "missing" more that the high end that you can't dial out overrides it. In this respect it strikes me as not sounding a million miles from a 5F1 Champ (or one of the myriad similar amps) but the Valco/Tower is smoother with the brightness, less "barky/raspy" than a 5F1 Champ/SE amp, sweeter envelope of compression.
I'd love to hear a similar clip of your champ...go on, go on...you know you want to Joe...:-) ---------- www.myspace.com/markburness
http://www.facebook.com/markburness
Last Edited by on May 15, 2012 12:15 PM
Mark raises a really good point. I have dialed in the Champ clone to kill off some of the high end. I suppose I could do that to this amp, but I don't want to mess with an old amp that appears to be all original.
Nice amp and harpin Joe...As far as low end,it looks like your not playing with a tight cup which will make the tone and sound a lot brighter of course.
I have an old PA amp I bought for $100.00 back in the 90's, I put a new cord on it and a little red light on the front so I could see when it was on or off. I added the blue cloth too, the other stuff was worn out.
