Brett Maverick Rides Again (review, sort of)

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Having finally gotten a day without a honeydew list or test scheduled, I buttoned the Maverick chassis back into the cabinet and played (read, "annoyed the neighbors") for about 45 minutes.

It's not terribly loud, maybe twenty watts on a good day with a tailwind.
The reverb is a little more subtle than my Fender. Think waist deep instead of chin deep.
Tremolo is pretty much what you'd expect, it's nice and swampy.

Good:
It's twenty watts on a good day. That means you can crank the volume and get snarl at low sound pressure levels. I had it dimed and the Maverick does the George Thorogood thing quite well. :D The guy who sold it to me wanted it to go to someone who would enjoy it, and boy, do I like this amp. The treble and bass controls are nicely voiced and you can get a variety of tones easily. The three position tone switch is very useful and I was able to switch from an extremely bright setting to a very jazz-like tone. The bass and treble controls seemed to be equally useful no matter what the tone switch was set at. Guild's tone switch isn't a gimmick like Fender's bright switch.
Speakers
The Maverick has it's original cts 10" speakers and they've been reconed. I'm not knowledgeable on the subject of speakers, but the amp sounds good. They are arranged vertically, so the amp projects very well.

Bad:
It's big for it's size, almost the size of a Fender Super. If you are living in a cramped house like I do, you might have a tough time finding a place for it. It's not pretty enough for the living room. :lol:
It's a project amp. I knew that when I bought it. I have replaced the low voltage caps, but the high-voltage ones haven't come in yet. It hums and has a bit of audio trash that needs to be taken care of. In addition, the tremolo has a dstinct "thump" when doing it's thing. I have the same problem in another amp, so I'll have to track that issue down.
I'm going to replace all of the tubes. I may not have to, but I'm fairly sure that the reverb driver (6gw8) is the original tube and that may be why the reverb is mild- sounding. Another reason is the seller told me that the amp had a bad speaker. After messing around with the amp, it sounds like either a loose element in one of the tubes or one may have a socket that needs to be retensioned.

Conclusion:

I like this amp alot. It's a bar/small club sized amp, anything larger would require micing it and running it into the pa- not a bad thing. It's able to handle a variety of musical styles and you don't have to put it on a chair to get the sound out into the audience. It's sister amp, the Maverick bass amp, probably doesn't have enough headroom to be more than a practice bass amp. While I haven't had the pleasure of playing one, I can't imagine that it would have enough clean headroom, based on the output of the 7591 tubes. On the other hand, jazz archtops through the Bass Maverick's 15" speaker probably sound pretty darned good.
 

capnjuan

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Thanks Steve; 'sounds' like money well-spent; FWIW; the Bart (bass) Maverick went off at $325; essentially two people fighting over it. Tone switch; I'll look to see if it's the same as on the Thunderbass (4 tube preamp); John K said he liked the variety that switch on his amp offered.

Sent you another cap to consider although at this point, might matter more to me than you. Congratulations - glad that another Guild amp remained in service and circulation.
 
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