Anyone Looking For An S-200 ?

Wowser! I'll be contacting them 8)

Fabulous - Matsickma, what can you tell us about this monster?

Good one Don !

Don't know a darned thing about Guild amps. - just happened to notice this while browsing Gbase.

Hi Guys,

The 200-S is pretty rare. It must have just come up on GBase the last few days because I check the site quite often. I've seen around a half dozen over the years on the internet. The one on GBase is the third and final style version of the amp. It was origionally introduced around 1957 and is the only Guild amp that uses EL-34 power tubes.

I currently have a 200-S "head". The amp I picked was chopped down into a head only and the tube rectifier was replaced with a hard-wired set of rectifier diodes. My amp works well but it does not have a very bright output. I have never heard an other in person so I am not sure if mine has the factory tone or not.

The amp is pretty cool with the stereo option. The amp has multiple inputs. Inputs can be made directly to each channel, Stereo input, or dual fed mono input. The tremelo can be selected to either of the channels but not both at the same time. The amp is moderately loud but not what you might expect from 4 EL-34's.

I am curious what this amp sounds like. I remember a LTG member from Spain commented about his 200-S indicating it was "dark sounding" and needed to be refreshed with tubes, caps, etc. I assumed he was describing amp tone that did not have much brightness or upper frequency response.

matsickma

Well.....I'll use the same reaction I had with Hans in the SF wiring thread......what a turd! :lol:

Emailed for a shipping quote yesterday, just got off the phone with Phillipe moments ago. When he told me it sold already, I didn't even have to ask. Couldn't tell if he was surprised when I said "sold it M.M In PA didn't you?"

Anyway, I expect a full report, & maybe even some sound clips when you have it home!

[quote="matsickma]He said I should not have to pay import fee because it was originally made in the USA[/quote]

He's right, you should not pay an import charge. Just make sure he puts "USA" on the "country of origin" slot on the customs label, and you'll be fine.

Don't feel bad about it....great deal for you! 8)
I emailed New Years day not expecting to have a response until today. To my surprise, there was his response when I got online last night.

I did have second thoughts when discovering it was EL34 powered. So far, I haven't played an amp that did much for me with EL34's. Only description I can come up with is 'lacking character'. Still very interested in hearing about it when you get it dialed in.

I've had an amp project in the back of my mind all year & was thinking it was about time to make the final cut & start buying parts. This amp would've eaten up that project fund for awhile.

Anyway, I sent Phillipe a link to the forum & asked him to keep me in the loop anytime he has anything Guild come through the shop.

It looks like my message from yesterday which explained the events around purchasing the 200-S was abbreviated or deleted. How does that occur?

That's a very good question! Kinda makes my response post look pretty out of place. :?

It appears as though one of the other moderators attempted to quote & respond to you about customs, but accidently clicked the "edit" button instead of the "quote". That would explain why it looks like you're responding to yourself in the same window.

Matsickma:

That deletion was entirely my fault - I wanted to quote you on the import fee question, and ended up editing the post instead - please pardon my ham-handedness. I, and others, would appreciate it if you could take the time to get the information back up for future reference.

And now that I recall it, was the the S-200 head you have the subject of an earlier thread (on the old board)? I seem to remember inquiring about it there?

Apologies again,
John

john_kidder said:

And now that I recall it, was the the S-200 head you have the subject of an earlier thread (on the old board)? I seem to remember inquiring about it there?

Click to expand...

As a matter of fact it was. This was one of the threads that was saved from the old forum, here's the text:

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Date Posted: 10/22/2004 1:28 PM
Posted By: john_kidder


" Guild Stereo Tube Guitar Amp 200S made by Ampeg 1960's"


http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 07611&rd=1

I find very little information about this amp in a quick cruise around the web. Does anyone have particulars?



Thanks

John Kidder


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Date Posted: 10/28/2004 7:58 PM
Posted By: john_kidder


Sold - last (legitimate) bid $367 - someone knows what it is!



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Date Posted: 10/28/2004 9:35 PM
Posted By: dklsplace


Wow! Too bad it had been cut down...wonder what it would've gone for had it been original?

I'm not sure if they farmed those out back then...seems I remember reading that they actually made some "in house" for awhile.



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Date Posted: 11/19/2004 8:33 AM
Posted By: john_kidder

Reply to : dklsplace

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 76207&rd=1

It's back - does no-one know what this is?



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Date Posted: 01/08/2005 8:49 PM
Posted By: matsickma

Reply to : john_kidder


Hi John,

I was the guy who finally purchased the chopped Guild 200-S head. I lost the initial auction and when it was relisted the seller told me an oversees buyer tried to scam him. So it was re-listed. I was reluctant to buy this amp but I am sure glad I picked it up. The chopped amp is in excellent electrical condition. It turns out the way the amp was cut down you can flip the head around and mount it on a cabinet in a way that the head looks a Marshall Plexi style head. I haven't finished the packaging modification yet but it will be very cool when finished.

The 200S first appeared around 1956. My earliest literature show that Guild released the 66J, 99J 100J and 200S at the same time in a two-tone color style with a trapezoidal fron grill cloth. The earliest amps continued to have the Guild Masteramp logo on the front and then appeared with the flat square letter logo. Some also had the Guild logo inked to a clear plastic label that was mounted to the grill cloth.

By the late 1950's the Guild amp style was changed to the "Grey with white paint drops" tolex and the amp had a traditional rectangular front grill. This version of the amp is my favorite because Guild used two seperate speaker baffel boards, one for each speaker, and they angeleed each about 5 degrees away from each other for improved stereo spacial seperation. On this model the back of the amp has a small divider board to provide some isolation between speakers. The final version of this amp is the "Grey Tolex" version. This is the model of the amp I picked up and was chopped down. In this model the front speaker baffel was straight, no longer angeled, and the divider board was removed.

The 200S is the only Guild amp that was designed around of EL-34 power tubes. The amp is two seperate amplifiers that allows stereo operation, dual mono operation ( i.e., two instruments) and a ganged mono operation. The Guild amps of this era do not have a very high gain in the preamp section so it isn't easy to break them up. I use a tube Copicat or a Guild Brian May treble boost to jack up the front end gain. It sound really good but gets very loud. (When I did this to my 100J using the Brian May boost I toasted the stock Jensen 15". You do have to use a bit of caution as these amps can put out a lot of power if the preamp is pushed hard!) I am now messing around with one channel having the EL-34 tubes replaced with a pair of Yellow Jacket EL 84's and plan to eventually have a friend of mine modify the bias to allow either EL34's or 6L6's to be substituted. This amp may end up being my version of a THD Bi Valve amp.

I almost chased after the re-listed 200S amp that was posted on eBay a few weeks ago but decided I will have more fun with this amp as a Head. I can alternated speakers and cabinets for a wider selection of sound options.

Hope the info was useful,

matsickma


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Date Posted: 01/09/2005 7:35 PM
Posted By: john_kidder

Reply to : matsickma


Thanks for the info - excellent summary, great history. Hope the amp continues to work fine for you. Keep us posted as you mod it.



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Date Posted: 01/19/2005 10:20 AM
Posted By: santfe


Reading that description, I am reminded that I don't know what people are talking about when they use the term "sag" (I know they mean voltage sag). Is this the same thing as having a "compressed" sound (the sense I know compression is in reduced dynamic range).

Can anyone lucidly describe in words what sag sounds like?

What does it sound like? My understanding is that my GA-79, like most Gibson amps, was designed NOT to have any audible sag, and I have heard the new Gibson Super Goldtones (which I also own) described as "stiff."

It doesn't sound like anything I would like for my (Atkins-style) playing, but I am curious as to what we're talking about here.



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Date Posted: 01/19/2005 11:44 AM
Posted By: Walter_Broes

Yes, a kind of compression, and no, not something you'd really want for atkins style picking.

Well? It's been a few weeks....what's the verdict matsickma?

Sorry to take so long in responding. My response has been delayed due to an unusually busy work and family period and a very very bad case of GAS. The 200s amp got an initial checkout but still needs some attention.

First off the amp arrived in good condition and it looks to be all origional. The wheels that appeared in the sellers picture were removed and not in the box. I don't think they were origional and I didn't bother to track them down.

The very first thing I noticed is that the amp control panel is a bit different from the 200-S "head" I currently own. I went back through the literature and sure enough the earlier models (trapozidal grill model and the black tolex with white spots model") have the same controls as the 200-S combo. Interestingly Guild added a feature to the latest revision of the amp that provided switches on the front input to select a) mono input and mono output from each channel, b) stereo input and stereo output and c) mono input to each channel. I had assumed that this switching arrangement was common on all models but it looks like it only was on the latest versions of the amp. The color of the tolex, usually an indicator of versions and features, is not sufficent in this case.

The 200-S combo had a very warm sound to it and was slightly brighter than the 200-S "head". The combo has a tube rectifier and the head has a hardwired diode rectifier. I wasn't sure of the reason for sonic differences so I did a A/B comparison of the 200-S head against the 200-s combo using the speakers of the combo. Sure enough the amps sounded close to alike. Thus the speakers were the primary driver of the amp tone. The speakers are classic Jensens from the 50's. (I need to check model and year but they look origional.) From what I can tell the speakers begin to break up at a pretty modest volume level. I typically don't like when speakers breakup the amp, particularly at modest volume. I need to play around with this a bit and try different speakers to get the best tone.

Overall a decent sounding amp with classic 50's tone. The amp is in very good condition and there is no issues with it. I was using a'59 T00D with Franz PUP's to demo it out. It also sounded great at low volume with a X160/170 with Guild HB's. However the speakers don't handle the volume obtainable with the humbuckers well. I need to play around with this a bit but overall its a pretty nice amp. The lack of reverb on most of the early Guild amps does tend to make the amps a bit dry when played at low level. I plan to hook up an old Guild RC-20 reverb converter to add a bit of depth to the tone.

I'll report more later and try to get a picture of the two different control panels available.

matsickma