Here is little time capsule amplifier from 1967 complete with copper plated control panel and chassis along with genuine simulated wood grain front panel!
She's a 15W cathode biased little amp with a pair of 7591's sporting built-in reverb and tremolo circuits. Along with the original Jensen Vibranto 12" speaker with bell cover it includes the original full sized reverb tank. Not to mention one of my favorite tubes, any compactron, a 6U10 triple triode handling the tone control and reverb sections of the preamp. The rectifier is a solid state diode full wave bridge. The tremolo circuit uses an photoresistive device and lamp assembly. I know this because the device assembly covering is torn a bit and I can watch the bulb flash. It may not be high tech but is fun to watch. One other cool feature that may also show my age is a lighted VU output meter (decibel meter the manual says?) on the control panel! I love analog meters and gages on old electronic equipment and in cars. I could record with an old Tascam 244 or Porta-Two for hours just to watch the meters dance.
The amp is in pretty good shape for an over 50 year old piece of electronics. All the tubes are original with exception of one ECC-83 (12AX7). All the preamp tubes test strong as do the 7591 power tubes on my old recently calibrated Hickok 539C. Good quality tubes last a long, long, long time. Especially pre-amp tubes! I did a re-cap of the amp as a first order of business. At some point in it's life a grounded line cord was installed, correctly(which you can't always count on).
Even though it's a low wattage amp and you may expect it, there was almost no hum to be heard even at 10. This amp's forte is "clean". You will not get a lot of power amp distortion from this little amp. The tone of this amp can get very thin very quickly so I keep the tone control dialed down around 3 and use the "accordion" input to get a very usable clean tone.
This was apparently Ampeg's last iteration of the low power Jet amplifier. The model I have is the first year configuration of the J-12R Reverbojet with the Ampeg logo on the speaker grill. Later they moved it to the simulated wood grain from panel. This last Jet series amplifier lasted until 1970 and that ended a 12 year run of the smallest of the Ampeg "space age" amplifiers started in the late 50's.
She's a 15W cathode biased little amp with a pair of 7591's sporting built-in reverb and tremolo circuits. Along with the original Jensen Vibranto 12" speaker with bell cover it includes the original full sized reverb tank. Not to mention one of my favorite tubes, any compactron, a 6U10 triple triode handling the tone control and reverb sections of the preamp. The rectifier is a solid state diode full wave bridge. The tremolo circuit uses an photoresistive device and lamp assembly. I know this because the device assembly covering is torn a bit and I can watch the bulb flash. It may not be high tech but is fun to watch. One other cool feature that may also show my age is a lighted VU output meter (decibel meter the manual says?) on the control panel! I love analog meters and gages on old electronic equipment and in cars. I could record with an old Tascam 244 or Porta-Two for hours just to watch the meters dance.
The amp is in pretty good shape for an over 50 year old piece of electronics. All the tubes are original with exception of one ECC-83 (12AX7). All the preamp tubes test strong as do the 7591 power tubes on my old recently calibrated Hickok 539C. Good quality tubes last a long, long, long time. Especially pre-amp tubes! I did a re-cap of the amp as a first order of business. At some point in it's life a grounded line cord was installed, correctly(which you can't always count on).
Even though it's a low wattage amp and you may expect it, there was almost no hum to be heard even at 10. This amp's forte is "clean". You will not get a lot of power amp distortion from this little amp. The tone of this amp can get very thin very quickly so I keep the tone control dialed down around 3 and use the "accordion" input to get a very usable clean tone.
This was apparently Ampeg's last iteration of the low power Jet amplifier. The model I have is the first year configuration of the J-12R Reverbojet with the Ampeg logo on the speaker grill. Later they moved it to the simulated wood grain from panel. This last Jet series amplifier lasted until 1970 and that ended a 12 year run of the smallest of the Ampeg "space age" amplifiers started in the late 50's.
