Guild Thunderbass all-tube almplifier - $399

capnjuan

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Guild amps don't get any respect; there's probably an argument that says they don't deserve any. Regardless of condition, this one is about maxed out at $400. They weren't considered 'hot' back in the day and unless one of our Boardistas hits it big with his Guild amp, chances are they're going to remain a 1960s footnote.

They handicapped themselves with self-destructing particleboard cabinets, stick-em-on wood-grain shelf paper on the sides, and kooky 6GW8 output tubes in the combo amps. At least (what's left of) John K's Thunderbird has 7591s; many of the T1 RVTs (including mine) have Euro radio tubes for outputs. As an aside, there are 1960s Univoxs out there that run on the 6GW8.

Based on some pics that matsickma posted, his late 50s/early 60s J Models look considerably better made than the mid-60s Thunder 1s and RVTs. Can't say about the bass amps but one of the reasons it's hard to get pumped about G combo amps is that, due to their crappy cabinets, not many functional copies have survived for people to refurbish, show off, and thereby regenerate interest.

BTW: the mid-60s T1 RVTs have the fuse in a clip inside the chassis. If you blow one, you have to take the chassis out. Fair enough - what the hell, something's wrong that another fuse probably won't fix anyway.

However, to remove the chassis, you have to remove one of the 'faux' handle fasteners that isn't a screw, it's a bolt. For the sake of design symmetry, there's another bolt there but it's a dummy that doesn't do anything.

The real bolt passes through the handle base and down into the chassis space, threads into a hole in a metal cross-member, and provides dead-weight support because the chassis isn't stiff enough to support it own weight; an after-the-fact manufacturing band-aid if there ever was one.

Now that I'm done venting, the fact is a T1 RVT puts out a very pleasing clean signal; smooth, deep, articulated, and sweet highs. Because it doesn't break up, it does acoustic and jazz tones very well. The reverb, as Jay Pilzer said, is lush, deep and nicely variable - as much or little as you want and the trem is as nice as any. Putting a Celestion Greenback in it won't hurt it either.

At the end of the day, the T1 RVT was well-designed but poorly made. I don't know if any of that stink got on the bass amps or not; even if they didn't deserve it, it wouldn't be the first time that one part of a product line got smoked by another.

cj
 

matsickma

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I believe the Guild bass amps were more popular than the guitar amps. At one time the Quantum with a pair of 15" JBL D140's was considered a serious rig.

The Beige tolex era was Guilds worst in regards to cabinet construction. The later black tolex cabinets are quite good. In particular the Dual D140 folded port cabinet was on par with Sunn cabinets of the day.

M
 

capnjuan

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Agree that the G bass amps were justifiably more highly regarded.

I know one of your combos was better built than my copy; yours has the fuse post coming out of the exposed vertical panel of the chassis, like this one, no?
[IMG:233:175]http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r106/capnjuan/GuildT1RVTbackview.jpg[/img]
In the earlier versions like mine, the back of the chassis offers only a lip and the area was covered by the upper back panel. The vertical panel also acts as a stiffener for the back edge of the chassis; note that the chassis doesn't reach the left and right inner edges of the cabinet proving again that slotting a piece of brittle wood for support is cheaper than widening or thickening the chassis. If this one is like yours, does it have top-down bolts?

I drilled a hole in the bottom of the chassis and put the fuse post where I could at it without tugging the chassis out. I'd rather take a chance that it was a crappy fuse and risk another one before going through the headache of dragging the chassis out.

In fairness to G, easy chassis in-and-out probably wasn't a major consideration to their engineers. I have reason to believe they drank the same kool-ade as the guys who manufacture boats. Their motto is: "Why should we make easy on them?"

Why indeed.

I'll post the serial # of mine; it's running and sounds pretty good.

cj
 
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