I have purchased the best amp I have ever heard. This is a 2006 Gibson GA 20 RVT. It’s not perfect, I might have to mod it, but I am definitely in love. My strategies about building the Songbird and other things are all up in the air now.
Let see why..
Once again.. this is the best amp I have ever heard. I suspect that other people get better tone (T-Bone Burnett playing for Plant/Krause comes to mind) but I have never heard anything personally that even comes close. In the first 20 minutes after starting this amp for the first time, I got a bit concerned. It is voiced very dark and I’ve backed my Strat pickups off thestrings already to moderate Fender shrillness. However, I very quickly came upon settings that were just magnificent.
Specs
Here are the specs from Gibson (with comments):
15W Class A - 12AX7 pre-amps, 6V6 x 2 Output
The circuit really looks like it’s Class A. No phase splitter. 12AX7 to 6V6, just like the old 50′s Champs and Skylarks. The two output tubes are in parallel, but not push-pull (very rare .. last seen in the BR-9 I beleive), so I wonder if you couldn’t disable a tube for even more low volume fun. I haven’t really pushed it very hard yet, so I don’t know how clean it would stay in a club situation yet. Rumor is they use Sovtek or Chinese tubes in production. I’ll replace with quality when the time comes. It can only help.
Do I still need the Songbird? Hmm..
Hand Built, Point to Point
I’m really not a purist when it comes to these things. The Fender Hot Rod / Blue Deluxes are circuit board and they sound great. My concern was that I would not be able to repair them myself. Any fool can beleive he can repair a PTP amp.
2 channels plus mix input
Looking forward to trying the other channels someday :-)
Tube Reverb, Tube Tremolo
The reverb is the most un-Fenderish reverb you can imagine. It’s got a deep reasonant hall sound to it.. not bright and springy, but very very filling. Hard to describe.. I’ll work on sound samples this weekend. It’s a great sound and it’s nice to not be making the same sound everyone else does.
There is a tremolo but it could not really suck more. This, to me, is amazing because the 50′s and 60′s Gibson Tremolos sound fantastic. They had an oscillator varying the power tube bias and were great.
Because of the fact that this has both reverb and tremolo, I’ll bet a lot of people bought it for either surf or very bayou swampy sounds and they were probably very disappointed in that. Too bad for all concerned. Gibson loses some luster with such a crappy tremolo (taking up two knobs and a full tube).
Again, the reverb is different but outstanding.
Pentode/Triode Switch
This is nice. Cuts power and lets you reach a higher level of preamp saturation before you wake the kids. Some tone change, but nothing untoward.
12??? Eminence Legend Speaker, Asymmetrically Placed
I am very interested in how this responds to other speakers. It has various outputs so I’m wondering how it will sound against a classic Jensen Ultrasonic or the new Weber Alnico. I’ve heard that this is a good first mod as these are probably not the made in Britain speakers.
Metal Film Resistors
Note : How is that a feature? Metal film is widely believed to cause sterility in amps. This is balanced against the fact that the amp is silent even when dimed if you don’t play something.
DC Powered Filaments
No hum.. it must be working but it seems to be AC to the power tube filaments. I wonder why.
Hand Wired Turret Board
Again, I’m not a purist, but this should make repairs/mods easier.
Two-Tone Vintage Brown and Tan Tolex
It does look good, but you can’t use right angle cables because the case is too thick and too close.
Comments
This thing streeted for 1k in 2006 when it was made. Honestly, I wasn’t even shopping for an amp, but I saw that come up on ebay for 300 to start, I bid 300 and until the last few hours, I was the only bidder. I got it for $406.01. For a hand built PTP amp, that is a phenomenal deal.
So far I have only barely touched the “crunch” and mix channels and really haven’t taken it out of Triode mode much either. I literally stop the backing tracks all the time now and just listen to the amp play the notes. I’ve never enjoyed hearing a guitar more!
As I said, it is voiced very dark. You have to shape your tone a fair bit (which I am not really used to doing) but it’s glorious once you get there.
Drawbacks
- Tremolo is completely useless to me.
- Very loud pop when switching to standby.
- No master volume.
- Only one control for reverb.
- The channels share pre-amp tubes, so you cannot swap tubes in a channel
Nothing end of the world here but unsurprisingly, I am starting to think about some …
Mods
- Yank the Tremolo and add a master volume. You could get one per channel since the Trem takes two knobs.
- See if there is a place in the reverb circuit to adjust the dwell. Pop a pot in there and bring to front if I only use one master volume.
- revamp the pre-amp topology so that I can use a 12A?7 to fiddle with the sound on channels
Truth be told.. I might never do any of those mods. Maybe I’ll just leave this pristine and wrap up the McTube and the Songbird.
Bought it last week on Craigslist. Heck of deal compared to some of the boutique amps out there…being that it does the chimey Matchless/Bad Cat tone so well. Agree with writer that it could use a master volume. The mod I did, was pay the extra at purchase from a local studio musician, who gave me the choice, the factory speaker or a Celestion Blue
Alnico, never having one, I popped for it! Pissed that the tremolo is actually non functional from the factory it would seem, in that I can’t really sell it like that, should I decide to. Huge sound! I did a A-B comparison with my SF Princeton, there was none, the Gibson was double the volume, reminded me of the Fender Deluxe Reverb II I sold last year, probably because both have a cabinet much larger than they need, but that contributes to the resonance, and ultimately the volume. The mix channel is very sweet. Only mod I will end up doing is getting a stomp box to switch between the three imputs for different tone and volumes.
Hi Tom,
I’m glad I’m not the only one who scored with this thing. I think that this amp is the steal of the century and it wouldn’t be without the tremolo f$#% up
I would guess that selling it would not be that big a deal since you didn’t break the tremolo. It just sucks by design. I think that’s why I got the deal I did, and Gibson’s loss is my gain. I don’t really like Trem anyway. You should at least hold value, if not jump as people realize what an amazing amp that is for the money.
I would love to go side by side with the Celestion, but I don’t actually know much about the speaker I have. I tend to prefer the sound of ceramic magnet speakers.
Keep checking back. I will surely mod this thing at least for master volume and thanks for reading.
Dilapidus,
Yea, I agree on the ceramic speaker, you can drive them harder and not ruin a $200+ speaker, I have a Weber Chicago in my Tweed Blues Jr. and a Weber Ferro-Max in my Peavey Classic 30, which all do the job just fine. I think Weber speakers does it right, they offer ceramic versions of their higher end Alnicos, again allowing you to push em harder without the anxiety. I have not tried any pedals in front of it yet, thought my Fulltone Fulldrive might be good, at least the boost portion of it. I still can’t get over how big the sound is on this amp! PTP tag board construction is the way to go, usually, and in this case it it.
Interesting to read some other experiences with this amp. I’m embarrassed to say how much I paid for mine off ebay- but let’s just say I’m extremely happy with what I paid for an amp of this quality.
I think that the Eminence Legend speaker sounded good, but being the tinkerer I am, I went ahead and swapped it out for a 25 watt Weber 12F150 (I even got the gold frame version to match the amp- and no, I don’t have OCD). The speaker seems completely broken in now, and I consider it a significant upgrade. Slightly brighter (which is not such a bad thing for this amp), and better note definition with chord work when the amp is driven. Maybe a little less punchy than the Eminence, but still packs a wallop. The Weber has a smoother quality than the Eminence, which I really like.
Also put in some NOS tubes which changed the sound for the better, but not as much as the speaker change did. I have some matching Mazda 12ax7 tubes in V1 and V2, some Phillips and GE rounding out V3-V5. Matching Ken Rad (RCA made?) military version 6v6 in the power section.
I agree that the reverb sounds fairly good, but the tremolo is a bad joke. I generally don’t use either much, although low volume finger picking type stuff sounds pretty sweet with just a little verb on it.
I also wasn’t planning on buying another amp, but stumbled on a good deal and I’m glad I didn’t pass on the opportunity. This amp produces some very impressive sounds (when I hit the right notes) and is extremely versitile. I’ll be using the Gibson GA20RVT for some recording that is ongoing- seems like it’s perfectly suited for this application.
Nice to see your still posting good stuff on your site Dilapidus…
Heya! How you doing? We seem to have a lot in common amp wise.
Very excited to hear you liked the change in speaker… I might get a ceramic in there just to keep it as smooth as possible. I’ll jack into one of the skylarks first and report back.
I’ve got a lot of new stuff to post so come back in the next week or so.
I actually bought this amp new thinking it would be a little quieter than it is (everything sounds quieter in the amp booth), but i still LOVE IT!!!!! I mosty play at church, and it’s really too loud of an amp for that setting, and i really didn’t care for the sound quite as much as i thought i would. It sat in the corner for about a year and a half. But, unlike most people here, i took out the eminence and left it out using the speaker space to carry cables ect. I decided to try it through a Traynor 1×12 cab with a Celestion V-30. I frickin Fell in love!!!!
I decided to buy a Hot Plate to Help with the volume, but the Same day bought a 1951 Gibson GA-20. It sounds exactly like the new one, only at about 1/5 the volume and 1/3 the weight. So, i use it mainly now, but i mainly use the New one for gigging (what little i do of it). So now i have the option of either the Vintage or using the Hot Plate on the new one.
Oh well, some of you may hate that idea, but it works for me. I do, however, agree about the trem. I never use it, and would much rather mod it. If any of you do that, let me know
holly sh*t. i will stay away from this amp. if you think the hotrod fenders sound good then holly sh*t.
this is both a terrible and a GREAT review!
the comparison to the horrible fender hotrods, the “dark” sound, the poor tremolo and the boast about getting such a good deal off ebay… all very very helpful.
i would never consider this amp based on the review and the comments that followed it.
if there is a Gibson amp out there for me then it will the name plate will say, “Victoria” and not gibson.
Thank you Victoria amps for doing it right!
Shame on Gibson for not knowing when they had it right.
As you like, but you seem to have missed the point. This is the best sounding amp I’ve ever owned by far and one of the best I’ve ever heard. Yeah it’s got warts, but at 400 bucks you aren’t going to come close anywhere. I’m sure Victoria’s are great amps, but they start at 4x what I paid. If I had that kinda money, I’d buy a TopHat, Jaguar or Matchless (and would definitely try a Victoria). My amp is not worth the 1k it originally retailed for because of the faults mentioned, but the sound is magnificent. Yes, darker than Fenders ( a definite plus in my book ).
So to recap:
Cons :
Loud Pop going to standby
Tremelo sound sucks
Pros :
Unbelievably beautiful sound, rich and complex
Very distinctive reverb. Great sound and you don’t sound like everyone else
Best of luck out there, I’m still very happy with my amp.
And by the way, if you don’t think the Hot Rod/Blues Deluxes can sound great, maybe you are doing it wrong. :-)
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