Wednesday, August 25, 2010

The Blue Amp Lives!

Looky what I brought back from Keota. It still works! I'd forgotten it was an Epiphone. I just knew it was blue. Dad had the speaker detached from the amp and had a long speaker wire soldered to the speaker that ran over to where a small TV used to be. The larger speaker helped them hear the TV when they were on the treadmill. Plugged the Strat in, turned it on, and slowly touched knobs and strings to make sure there wasn't some short or something (it has no ground). Gently turned it up after it warmed up and was greeted with some nice distortion when it got to full blast. I shot a short video so you can hear what it sounds like. YouTube is currently doing something with it; it's not there yet. I'll add the video here when it finally gets there.

I also got Bob's old Marantz 1060 integrated amp, which is newer than the Epi by just a few years. I played his 2 Rush albums (Fly by Night and All the World's a Stage) countless times through that stereo. It too still works, although the power switch doesn't stay depressed when I turn it on. Feels like there could be some gummy lubricants in there. I found a place online that rebuilds vintage stereo equipment and asked him about it. I have it down in the shop hooked up to a CD player and my old MCS bookshelf speakers. I tried 3 tape decks before the CD player. None of them managed to play a tape. Probably more gummy lube and/or dried out rubber belts.





4 comments:

Brass Pear said...

Wow...that's a relic!!! I didn't realize it was an Epi, either. And it sounds great. Is that a tube amp or is it solid state? I'm guessing the latter, but it sounds good.

Armpit Studios said...

Tubes!

Brass Pear said...

Wow. You should replace the them!
Any idea how many watts that thing is? It'd be great for recording.

Armpit Studios said...

The wiring diagram inside says it uses 0.35 amps, which works out to 38.5 watts of input power used. I'd say that would give an output of maybe 10-12 watts. And that's just perfect.