Quote:
Originally Posted by teleharmonium  Personally when I think of an amp with mojo, that means an old amp with a saggy tube rectifier, or a single ended amp with negligible sag, and a vintage speaker that distorts a fair amount when then amp is turned up. Preferably the amp should have between one and three knobs total and 50's cosmetics with frayed covering at the edges and a leather handle that is falling or fallen apart. You need an amp that is displaying entropy in order to get the implication of infinity and natural decay into the guitar sound. Wabi-sabi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I don't think you get it from fabulously expensive new amps, boutique or otherwise. Maybe dollars are inversely proportional to mojo. You might have it within yourself and your music and channel it through such an amp, but those amps themselves leave me cold compared to the old stuff.
Whereas, everybody that plugs into my old Watkins Dominator or Selmer Zodiac or Noble Super or Grampian Vibromajor or Stentor Super 12 or Vox 710 or AC15 or Gibson GA-8 (parallel single ended dual 6V6 version), has wide eyes, and shuts up and plays for a while, differently than they normally play. Then they talk about the experience the next several times I see them.
I'm not saying everybody should feel this way. YMMV and it's no problem for either of us if it does. My main point is that depending on what it is that you like about old amps, new reproduction or tribute versions may in fact be completely missing the point. |
The old Selmers are gold for mojo from everything I've heard and really hard to find.
It took a while for me hunt down the amps I've gathered so far, but each one
is special in it's own way .
We may hear these amp in less than ideal conditions and not realise how great
they can sound with a proper studio signal chain, the right mic, the right guitar
and the right speaker, all variables that can make you sound great or downright
awful.
When I first tried out my '64 R12R, the original low efficiency CTS speaker made
this 21 watt amp sound like a very cool 10 watt amp, underpowered but still
offering all kinds of mojo when recorded.
Drop in a good high efficiency driver and the amp was perfectly capable of
holding it's own in a live club setting.
Some amps also simply sound better with Single Coils vs HB's and the reverse,
so though shalt not judge an amp by just one guitar.
The best advice I can offer is to locate a well respected local amp tech, so that any vintage amp you consider is nothing to worry about, because you know your tech can
correct any problems it may have.