What was your first amp?

Some cheap catalog special. It was a solid state combo that was tall and not very deep. Made out of laminated MDF, I think.
I can't even recall the brand let alone the model.

It was more than enough for my bedroom in our apartment, though and it had a head phone jack.
My Dad made certain it had a headphone jack. :)

I have no idea where it is now. It most likely went to my nephew along with the catalog Les Paul copy that was originally my oldest brother's. It's likely been tossed.
 
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Harmony H400. The three inputs allowed us to plug two guitars and a Radio Shack mic into that things whopping 3 watts. There was a small problem with electrical shock. No grounds. It did have an 8" Jensen but then again I think alot of things did in those days. Sounded like shit if you cranked it but with only 3 watts and 2 guitars and a mic going through it we had to crank it. Somewhere over the years it went away. Where I have no idea. I just hope nobody who had it after me got electrocuted.
 
My first amp was a Holmes Tech series amp—either the 15 or 20 watt model. My Dad bought it for me at a pawn shop, I think it was $40. It was a nice sold-state practice amp for the time, but the distortion tones were awful. Once day the speaker started rattling when I played so I eventually dumped it at a Goodwill store along with my Epiphone Strat knockoff. Neither one was worth the money it would have taken to fix them. Haven’t seen another one anywhere since.
 
Mine was a Sano amp, almost like this one:

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60w I believe, solid state, had those wheels, but I'm pretty sure mine only had one row of knobs, as I know mine was a single-channel amp. Mine had the polarity switch, which was great when your mic zapped you back in those old houses in the '80s, had a tremolo knob, and two inputs, low & high.

It got an excellent clean sound, but since I liked hard rock I went and bought a Boss distortion pedal for it. There wasn't any gain or distortion knob. It was a clean only amp.

I bet it would've made a nice pedal platform amp today, maybe I should've kept it :embarrassed:
 
sunvalleylaw said:
Second time in this thread someone has done the 8 Track thing. Was it a Carpenter's album? Burt Bacharach? Maybe Herb Albert and the Tijuana Jazz? Soundtrack to Jesus Christ Superstar? Could have been if I had done that at my house.
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I can't remember the brand of my first amp...but I can attest to the fact I would have played it to all of those..and Glen Campbell. Vinyl.
 
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My first amp was a strange Radio Shack phonograph preamp for distortion into a Radio Shack sa-10 (I still have it somewhere) which had 1 watt per channel output into plastic Montgomery Wards speakers from a stereo system I once owned. That was eminently non-usable so I ended up buying a used Montgomery Wards 12 watt practice amp from a guy nearby with just volume and tone controls. That was bad too.

The amp I used for maybe 4-5 years was a Pignose 30/60 that blew up when two hot girls were dancing near it once night and it spewed hot liquid pcbs all over the amp and girls. That was way too sexual and I needed an amp that would calm down when hot girls were dancing near it.

This setup mutated into the "Yamahog" which was the loudspeaker of the pignose and the amplifier section of a solid state Yamaha amp and it was literally the worst guitar sound I ever had - thin, spindly, harsh - yecch. I had to use that for a while before I could get a better amp and ended up borrowing a friend's Peavey for a while (which wasn't too bad until the friend blew it up trying to impress a hot girl with how loud it could get).

After that I settled into a borrowed Silverface Twin (which sounded really good but wasn't mine and weighed way too damned much).
After that I ended up buying a JC120. I still have it. I have found multiple ways of getting good distorted sounds out of it in addition to
the insane clean sound it's known for.

I've been tempted to get an AC15 or AC30 setup to get a real tube amp in the house but I'm not gigging much with actual bands these days so it would just annoy the wife. I would like to get a decent amp for just normal rock and roll playing instead of my overly affected post-rock weird ambient stuff.
 
aliensporebomb said:
My first amp was a strange Radio Shack phonograph preamp for distortion into a Radio Shack sa-10 (I still have it somewhere) which had 1 watt per channel output into plastic Montgomery Wards speakers from a stereo system I once owned. That was eminently non-usable so I ended up buying a used Montgomery Wards 12 watt practice amp from a guy nearby with just volume and tone controls. That was bad too.

The amp I used for maybe 4-5 years was a Pignose 30/60 that blew up when two hot girls were dancing near it once night and it spewed hot liquid pcbs all over the amp and girls. That was way too sexual and I needed an amp that would calm down when hot girls were dancing near it.

This setup mutated into the "Yamahog" which was the loudspeaker of the pignose and the amplifier section of a solid state Yamaha amp and it was literally the worst guitar sound I ever had - thin, spindly, harsh - yecch. I had to use that for a while before I could get a better amp and ended up borrowing a friend's Peavey for a while (which wasn't too bad until the friend blew it up trying to impress a hot girl with how loud it could get).

After that I settled into a borrowed Silverface Twin (which sounded really good but wasn't mine and weighed way too damned much).
After that I ended up buying a JC120. I still have it. I have found multiple ways of getting good distorted sounds out of it in addition to
the insane clean sound it's known for.

I've been tempted to get an AC15 or AC30 setup to get a real tube amp in the house but I'm not gigging much with actual bands these days so it would just annoy the wife. I would like to get a decent amp for just normal rock and roll playing instead of my overly affected post-rock weird ambient stuff.
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:grin:
 
Pine Apple Slim said:
Crappy little Yamaha practice amp.
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Ditto, Bought it used for ~$40 played it for about 6 months...stopped playing it when my friend moved to LA (I was borrowing his GL at the time and had no other electric). Didn't use it for another 10 or so years until I bought my first electric and found it was horrible sounding so I bought a Vox AD15VT and sold the Yammy...for $50 :grin:
 
Tralfaz said:
Peavy Backstage 30.
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Me too! I bought it used for $100 in '82 or so, and sold it for $100 about 12 years later. It was OK as a practice amp and had a master volume along with treble, bass and mid, but very solid-state sounding and flat due to lack of reverb. I remember it being pretty loud too for such a small amp.
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