Yamaha T50-C

Two channel, all-tube amp with separate Gain, Bass, Mid, Treble, Master, & Reverb controls. There is also a master presence control & a series effects loop. The speaker is a Celestion G12M70 modern lead, which is no longer made.

I wish this amp had separate presence controls. I like the presence between 7 & 8 on the clean channel for a nice sparkly sound, but this makes the overdrive channel sound harsh & shrill.

I wish the effects loop send level was adjustable. It is set up for (+4dBu) rack gear level, so it overloads most pedals - especially when the overdrive channel is selected.

I wish the overdrive channel didn't bleed over to the clean channel (more below).

I have a 2003 Fender USA Deluxe Strat, Ibanez RG570 MIJ, and Ibanez USA custom mohagony body guitar with Dimarzio Tone Zone & PAF Pro pickups (my favorite ax). I also have a VHT Pittbull 45 1x12 combo, and a Mesa Boogie DC3 head that I play through a Fender Tonemaster 2x12 cab loaded with Celestion V30s. I purchased the Yamaha T50C on a whim about five years ago. I got a great deal on it ($499 new), as it had sat in the Music Shop for several years with no takers. I even received a new set of tubes on the house from the shop owner who is also a friend.

I like the clean channel sound of the T50C. It can cover jazz, country, and pop very well. This is the reason why I bought it. However, if you set the overdrive channel's gain above 3 then it bleeds onto the clean channel. You can hear a frizzy buzzing sound in the background, which gets louder as you increase the overdrive gain. The problem is that the channel switching (vactrol) circuits do not provide adequate padding to the overdrive channel. Better designed amplifiers use military-grade relays to switch channels.

Also, I can't dial up a useable overdrive sound without compromising the clean presence. In general the overdrive is very buzzy sounding. You need to pad the highs quite a bit to get a useable sound. Perhaps a different speaker could help, but I wouldn't want to mess with the clean tone.

The reverb sounds pretty harsh. I emailed Mike Soldano about this and he sent me a schematic of his original prototype design, suggesting that Yamaha changed some things after the first production run. It turns out that my amp is an early one with the "good" reverb circuit. After further examination, (I am also an Electrical Engineer), the problem is quite clear: a single 12ax7 triode stage is used as a reverb driver. It cannot provide the current required by the spring tank. The best solution is to use a 12at7 tube, as it can provide much more current than the 12ax7. It definitely sounds much better IMHO. However, I also noticed that over 340Vdc is applied to the reverb driver tube plate!!! This will undoubtedly cause premature tube wear out. So be prepared to replace the reverb tube often no matter what 12a_7 tube you have in there.

The cabinet seems durable, and the 6L6 power amp tubes are socketed to the metal chasis. However, as I mentioned above the reverb driver stage has a plate voltage applied that exceeds the specs of any 12a_7 tube. There is also a pretty high voltage on the 6L6 plates. So tube life is a definite concern. I don't use this amp much as I have acquired two other amps that vastly outperform it.

No support from Yamaha, but Mike Soldano seems eager to help. He provided his original prototype design schematic & suggested that he could do a few modifications. However, the price is too high to bother.

You can also find a set of Yamaha schematics online if you browse around, which is more accurate to the production models.

I wouldn't recommend the T50C to anyone because it has too many drawbacks. My VHT Pittbull 45 combo and Mesa DC3 head are far superior overall. However, the T50C clean channel is very useable with pedals up front. Just be sure to replace the reverb tube with a 12at7 if you plan to use the built in reverb. You may also want to replace the speaker as it tends to sound pretty harsh with overdrive applied.

As recommended by Mike Soldano, I replaced the T50C's stock Celestion G12M70 speaker with a Celestion Vintage 30. WHAT A DIFFERENCE!!!!!! The clean sound is much fatter & the distortion is clear and sweet.

It's still working great after 13 years. The tubes seem to last a long time in this amp.

No support from Yamaha really. The best place to get service is from Mike Soldano. He isn't cheap, but he designed this beast so he knows what he's doing.

If you have one of these amps & aren't completely satisfied with the tone then I highly recommend that you try a different speaker. Mike Soldano really dislikes the G12M70. He recommends his own signature 12" speaker, which is a Celestion Vintage 30 clone. Stock I would rate this amp an 8. It's a 10 with the Vintage 30.

I bought mine on ebay I think I am the third maybe fourth owner of this wonderful amp, made in 91' two indendent channels. clean, and gain gain gain!. It came with a Celestion G12T 75 speaker.. as others have said, the clean side isnt as big a you would like, but the slight break up is kind of cool ! I have not done any Soldano mods yet, who knows maybe this amp as all ready been there with the other owners. I'm not sure if this speaker was the orginal, but I think it is. Its got all the features you need in a completely portable combo amp. (easy to carry) footswich out, 4,8,16 ohm switch, variable out level control. slave out. ect. 7-12ax7 preamp tubes, 2 6L6 power tubes, very quiet.. mine are groove tube brand.

The sound is the best part of this great lil' amp.. I use a Yamaha SBG-1200 (old Santana Model) and a new Yamaha SA2200 semi-hollow body.. both are awesome! I might have to get another T-50 or T100 so I can keep both of them plugged in.. Mine is very quiet, except when bring the guitar up close to the amp which results in a mild hum. as I said and so have others the clean breaks up a little on high levels. , but the gain channel is where this puppy cooks.. It rings forever.. and loud loud, an more loud.. I'm going to add another 112 cab and make a mini stack, maybe put in an Eminnence Legend 121 speaker. I play mostly wedding gigs, and this amp does everything that I need. for the bigger rooms, just hang a mic in front of it and your good to go. add a pedal, digi-delay, chorus, thats all..

I have not had mine that long, read other s review of this amp, it seems to be buildt like a tank. For the size of the box, and weight you cant beat it. When I have owned this one for a number of years I'll be able to comment further.

Have only tried to order a factory amp cover for this one, no luck! they dont act like they even acknowledge these amps, too bad.. LISTEN>>>YAMAHA...if your smart youll re-issue these amps, they are that good...

I have played nearly 30 years now, If I lost this amp, I Would replace it, as a matter of fact, I'm going to be trying to buy a
T100 head and combo if I can find one at the right price. I have a Fender Blues DeVille 4x10 and a Princeton Chorus 2x10 and the Yamaha Blows away the DeVille. Only thing I wish that I could get the amp cover from Yamaha.

i got this amp used late last year 2003 .i remembered a review ofthis amp in a 1992 issue of guitar world that i still had.it was agreat review.so iplugged in my les paul and i was sold by the lead chanel alone.amazing;better than the best marshall i ever played.i bough the amp on the spot for 600 can.mine is a 1992 so it must be of the later model .i dont have the problem with the reverb that some guys mentioned.i was told that only 100 of these amps made it to canada

i play a les paul classic with dimarzio pick ups.i play in a classic rock band that plays clubs corporate events and festivals.the t50c isamazing for what i do.i do however have a major complaint.and im hoping somebody can help me with this.the clean channel has about half the power than the dirty channel.with both preamp vol at 5 i have to put the clean master at 9 to equal the dirty channel at 5. this cant be normal.i went to a tech in montreal and he cant find nothing wrong.he phoned yamaha and of course they dont know much about these amps .ive read here that i could send it to mike soldano but that would cost me a fortune.if i could find the diagram ; maybe my tech could fix it

ive had the amp for only 3 months so i cant comment on reliability.itlooks like its really well built

ive read here that yamaha dont know much .so iguess they wont service these amps.these are very specially designed amp so i think only mike soldano knows what to do with them

ive been playing for 30years .i have 2 other amps a marshall2554 jubilly series great amp and a yamaha dg60 amazing clean amp one of the best modeling amps out there.i presently play both yamahas dg60 and t50c in stereo from a boss gt6 floor multieffecs. iget the best of both world digital and tubes awsome.if i play in a very small place ill use the t50c the reverb is great and it sounds amazing.exept for the clean channel that seems to have only about 15watts .if anyone can help me with this problem please e mail me at the adress below . this is agreat sounding amp and can only be compare to very expensive boutique amps .thanks for listening

I know this is supposed to be about the t-50c but I've owned both and I'll be writing about the one I've got now, the t-100c. I bought this amp in 2000 from a guy in Canada. It has a manufacture date of 1991 on it and came with both Users Guide and Shop Manual.
The gent I got it from said it had been to Soldano's shop for refitting. The mods made where replacement of the pots, transformers and tubes as well as that previously mentioned filter resistor. Also the techs reworked the reverb and turned the presence control into a cab emulator.

I've gig'd this amp now for the last 4 years playing punk/jazz/rock strangeness at over 70 shows. I've used every feature this amp has so far. I'm playing with a couple of Ibanez rg570's and it sounds awesome. I highly recommend sending your amps to Mike for mods, they do an unbelievable job! The controls are silent throughout their range, there is no buzzing or hums, just a quiet hiss at the highest settings. The clean channel is hard to get a clean sound from, but I really don't play anything that requires a crystal clear clean sound anyway. The gain channel on the other hand, what a dream! Blazing 16th's clear as a bell with super gain, I can hear every note no matter how much gain I give it (and I LOVE gain).

I always use it on gig's and never had to use my backup amp ever.
The only problems I've ever had were when I pulled it off of my Boogie Thiel cab at a show and shorted 1 power tube out internally. The amp took it and I was able to finish up by pulling both tubes in that section with no damage to the amp. This thing is tough!

Never needed it so I wouldn't know.

I've been playing for 33 years and own a Soldano Hot Rod 50, a Peavey combo of some sort and 2 Ibanez RG series guitars.
If it were lost or stolen I would cry my eye's out and spend all of my time trying to get another so I could send it to Mike for mods.
I love everything about it except that I can't get a clean tone at high volume.
Wish I had a million bucks?
My mom says I have issues sharing.

This amp was made in 1991 by Yamaha and it was designed by Michael Soldano. As for the controls, it is pretty straight forward. Two rows of controls: Preamp, Bass, Middle, Treble, Master, Reverb, and one shared Presence Control. It is a two-channel amp, clean and high gain, with channel switching. It is all tube with tubes for the reverb, and comes with a Celestian 12? 70-watt speaker. I mainly play jazz and pop standards, and what I was looking for was a well built amplifier that would give me a wide pallet of musical expression. I needed a very clean amp, and one that would give me a nice overdrive, or an all the way over the top searing lead tone. With the Yamaha T50C, I am getting all of that. As for power, I cannot turn this amp past 4 without my ears bleeding. This amp is very loud and is well suited for any live playing and recording situation.

I play a wide array of guitars for my performing and recording. My main guitar of choice is a 1968 Gibson ES-335, a Yamaha AES-1500, an American Fender Texas Special Stratocaster, and a Paul Reed Smith Artist III. My guitars sound great through this amp. I did some modifications (that I recommend to everyone-see below) in order to get more clean headroom. I know I can always get the overdrive, but coaxing a clean tone out of a duel channel amp is usually the tricky part. The T50C is very quiet electronically, and the clean channel stays clean even when turned up past levels that I would consider extremely high.

Although I have not had this amp for very long, it is very solid. In fact, it is built like a tank! This thing comes in at 55lbs and is not very big at all. With the new speaker, it now weighs 70 pounds, but it is worth its weight in gold. I plan on gigging with this amp for a very long time.

This amp is long out of warranty. I have heard that Yamaha won?t even talk to people about these amps but Michael Soldano and his team will. They will even do modifications on the amp if you want them to. For all of my amplifier needs I take my amps to Top Pro in La Mesa, California. Ask for Tim.

I have been playing for a number of years now, and I own quite a bit of gear. Although I mainly play through an early Fender Custom Shop Prosonic and amplifiers by Paul Reed Smith, I wanted a smaller amp to gig with that would take the moving from one place to another. And though I could not afford one of the TC amps when they came out in 1991, I had always wanted one.
If you go to this page, which is a question and answer session with Michael Soldano, he speaks of conflicts with Yamaha when building the T50C.
http://www.musicianshotline.com/archive/monthly/soldano/08_02.htm
He states that he wanted a different speaker, and that the original specs were built into the early TC?s, but the later models did not have the original features. The amplifier that I have is number seven in the run. I bought it two weeks ago and it has virtually never been played. It is as new and as MINT as they come and even had the original footswitch (never used) the owners manual and the brochure Yamaha put out in 1991 for the TC series. Interestingly, the cover of the brochure shows a glowing KT-66 tube for the TC, but the amp came with 6L6?s. Soldano amplifiers come with KT-66?s and I think Yamaha went with a less expensive tube. So, I installed KT-66 power tubes which gives the amp a lot more clean headroom, and I switched out the speaker for my speaker of choice, an EVM-12L. The EVM-12L is considered the finest speaker ever to be made by EVM for guitar amps but sadly, it is no longer made. I got mine from a reliable source, but you can find them on Ebay for around $90.00. Since I do play mostly jazz guitar and I did not want to take my Limited Edition Maple Hot Rod Deluxe by Fender out of the house, I A/B?d the Fender and the Yamaha to see if I could duplicate the sound of the Deluxe into the Yamaha. After some tweeking and fooling with the knobs it is a pretty dead on match. And by the way, the reverb in the Yamaha T50C is just great! I don?t know about the later amps but the reverb in the Yamah that I have stands up to the Deluxe and even my Twin Reverb, which I have always considered the king of reverb in an amplifier. When these amps were first released in 1991, the MSRP on the T50C was $1,150.00 . That was alot of money for an amp thirteen years ago, and in truth, it is alot of money now. Because there were not many made, and because the Soldano name was not what it is today, the TC amplifiers never became popular. The Yamaha TC series is a "Sleeper" in the music market. These are incredible amps, and if you are lucky, you can find them in the $400-$500.00 dollar range. This is quite the deal, and a super bargain when you consider the truly terrible amps that are out there today for four hundred bucks.

Purchased the amp used - don't know what year the amp was built but it does have original stamped serial number. Amp is very versatile -with switchable clean and lead channels. Clean channel is bright and lead channel has lots of crunch. Amp has seperate reverb for clean and lead channels - a very nice feature for this tube amp.

I currently use a Gibson Les Paul Custom with humbucker pickups and a Ibanez strat with humbuckers. I generally play 80's rock/Heavy Metal - VH, Ratt, Dokken, Scorpions, etc.. This amp really needs to be played loud to really appreciate - the natural distortion will stand up to any Marshall out there.

I've only owned the amp for about a year and haven't had any problems with it yet. I understand that Soldano will do repairs on these babies since his name is on the darn thing.

Have not had the need to service amp.

I played for many years during my teens, but mothballed my rig after going to college. Just restarted playing about a year ago when I bought this amp. I really love this amp and would be very unhappy if I needed to replace it as it's a little bit of a collectors item and hard to find. The only thing that I wish that they could have done on this combo was to have made it as a 2x12 combo.

This amp has all the features you could ever want. It is the most versatile amp I have ever used. Two channels and a bright switch. Each channel has separate controls for everything except presence. Each channel has it's own preamp control and master volume and reverb, so between the two channels, you can get any tone you like. It has an effects loop, impedance control (for setting ohms for different extension cabs) and slave out. I've had no bad experiences with noise when switching channels. Mine works perfectly. Seven preamp tubes and two 6L6 power tubes. What more could you ask for?

I've played strats and a Les Paul through mine. Mostly I play blues, but also some rock. This amp can do anything you want. The clean channel is as good as my Fender and it does Marshall better than a real Marshall does. I know it sounds too good to be true, but this amp is literally able to create any sound you want. I usually crank up the preamp to about 6 or 7, then set the master on about 6. This produces nice clear single notes and sounds likes a JCM800 on chords. The reverb is simply beautiful.

When I bought this amp, someone had ripped all the tolex off it. You could tell it had been abused, but it works perfectly. It's built like a tank and I don't expect any problems from it.

Never needed service. Mine came with an owner's manual, but it's only got generic information in it, so for those of you without one, you aren't missing much. Soldano services these amps and they are the best in the biz, so I don't know why everyone is griping about service.

I owned a Fender Hot Rod DeVille when I bought this amp. I am so impressed with it, that I sold the Fender and ordered another Soldano. There was just no reason to keep the Fender any longer, because as long as I have this amp, I would never use the Fender again. I've also owned a Mesa Boogie Subway Rocket and a Marshall Artist and this amp destroys them both. If this amp were stolen, I would be very upset and I would buy another, even if I had to pay $600. This amp is better than anything I have ever owned or used and that includes a bunch of Fenders, Marshalls, Peaveys and Mesas. The fact that you can pick these little amps up for less than $400 is amazing to me. People assume that because it is a Yamaha, it is no good. Well, it is a wolf in sheep's clothing!!! A Soldano for the price of a Yamaha. I hate to give any item a 10 rating in all categories, but looking at this amp, there is just nothing about it I would change.

Don't go thru Yamaha for CS. Go to Soldano. I emailed them about my T100C and got a very helpful reply in 2 days. They will even still repair or mod it for you if you pay for shipping.

Love the seperate EQ for clean/dirty channels. Others talked of a noise when switching - haven't heard it on mine yet. But you can bet your rear end I will listen next time I plug it up. Plenty of sound to do any small-medium venue. Gain for days! No complaints on features. All that I need til I lose my hearing. Easy to pack up and make space for this amp, especially when traveling in tight quarters.

Our group is a Country/Americana group that does everything from club dates to opening for majors. I play a 90 Fender Tele Custom on this amp. This is a powerhouse of an amp for its size. Big sound from such a small amp. Not the usual "Tele" sound, but suits me fine. We mic this amp, give some in the monitors & in-ears, so I never let the amp get too loud for it to "break up". Distortion is wicked, although I rarely use get to work that channel THAT hard. Clean channel sounds better than any Marshall I've ever heard. IMO, this amp is the best of both worlds.

I know the previous 2 owners of this amp, so I know it's reliable. I baby it compared to the other guys. Not that they abused it, but I just don't need to get that loud on stage anytime soon. High marks for reliability as long as it is maintained properly.

Just emailed them about something. If I have the same luck as some of the others did, you can count me out as a future purchaser of any other Yamaha gear. Yamaha, you can bet your sweet ass on that.

Been playing for 10+ years and this is my favorite amp yet. I play mostly Rhythm guitar with few leads, but this gives a great sound no matter what with very little effects needed(none in my book). The only drawback to this amp is it's weight. It's a bit heavier than I prefer, but as long as it's in a road case, who cares. That's what casters are for!! Definitely a step up from Marshall. But if you don't have casters, get a dolly/two-wheeler & save your back.