NAD: Garnet Lil' Rocker 30W head

[Wooly Fox]

Just arrived from Quebec to me here in Vancouver, not plugged in yet and letting it acclimatize before testing evening.

Had the two 6V6 tubes (look original, one RCA and one Westinghouse), looks like two preamp tubes but no third tube as others seem to have so I guess this is a later model? I guess it's a mid 70s one as they only made the heads between '71 and '76. No idea how loud it'll be as there are no demos of this amp on YouTube so I may make a video once I get used to it.

It's a dead simple schematic so I imagine it'll be pretty raw, all the knobs work and are very smooth.

Plan to have as my dry amp in my wet dry rig and possibly main amp for rehearsals depending on the volume and clean headroom. It's 8 ohm speaker output I believe (I hope so as I only have 8 ohm cabs!) so testing will happen later.

 

[brookdalebill]

Cool!

 

[JustABluesGuy]

Sweet! Congrats!

 

[Snfoilhat]

Is it this one? One 12AX7, one 6SN7, two 6V6s. The design looks cool. Looking forward to hearing what you think of the sound

 

[Short on cash]

'Bout as basic as you can get.

 

[Dan German]

Oh yeah…

 

[black_doug]

Jealous.

 

[Wooly Fox]

Turned it on, sounds ace!

Tone controls actually work (and give a good volume boost when maxed out).

Bright pull pot works though into my JBL cabinet and using a Tele, I don't need more brightness.

There is enough room to mod it for a stinger circuit or maybe a reverb tank in the future.

Will need my landlord out to test at volume

 

[SnidelyWhiplash]

Very nice. Lucky dogg!

 

[Wooly Fox]

It has that DR thing of "opening up" at a certain volume. Sounds thin at low volume then seems to fill out and become glorious but then you're into small gig territory.

An attenuator might be needed to keep it in that zone for home practicr or I just get used to it sounding thin at bedroom levels.

 

[black_doug]

Turned it on, sounds ace!

Tone controls actually work (and give a good volume boost when maxed out).

Bright pull pot works though into my JBL cabinet and using a Tele, I don't need more brightness.

There is enough room to mod it for a stinger circuit or maybe a reverb tank in the future.

Will need my landlord out to test at volume

What size speakers in your cab?

 

[Wooly Fox]

What size speakers in your cab?

JBL D120F, 12" Alnico loudspeakers, good for 60W RMS.

 

[loopfinding]

neat!

if you want more gain (and to repurpose the pull-bright switch) you can short across that 100k that feeds C4, the upper bass pot cap.

result is a flat response (no mid scoop) when the bass and treble are maxed. the treble control will function as normal, but the bass control will become like a variable mid scoop + bass control.

 

[24 track]

excellant score ! congrats

 

[ScatteredSeeds]

Love Garnet and Traynor amps. Had the pleasure of having Gar Gilles (Garnet founder) make me an amp in the 90s totally out of NOS 60s and 70s parts. His passing was a great loss to our community. He was an approachable and knowledgeable man and helped out more than a few down on their luck musicians in Winnipeg. A true legend.

 

[ScatteredSeeds]

Love Garnet and Traynor amps. Had the pleasure of having Gar Gilles (Garnet founder) make me an amp in the 90s totally out of NOS 60s and 70s parts. His passing was a great loss to our community. He was an approachable and knowledgeable man and helped out more than a few down on their luck musicians in Winnipeg. A true legend.

Ha! The newbie just realized he posted under the wrong thread.

 

[James Knox]

I remember reading about Garnet Amps in a Guitar Player Magazine (remember those, lol) back in the 70’s. The article revealed that the guitar player in the band “the Guess Who” used these amps.

So that’s how to get that sound, I thought. My context was the sound of the opening riff of this song…