Acoustic Control Corporation 164

See below...

I payed 50 Euros for this amp (in quite good condition)! O.K. it needed new valves (+ 150 Euros). All in all that makes 200 Euros - and I love the sound. The amp in general is very, very loud which makes me use the 60 Watt mode. First of all: I don't like the 2nd channel! This "California-Drive" fuzzy sound is not my buisness(it somehow reminds me of Frank Zappa's sound)! The clean channel is very warm, smooth and quite "fenderesque". Lots of headroom. Together with my H&K TubeFactor it sounds wonderful!!! I love it!!! You can do everything from Blues to Hardrock with this amp - honestly, since I own it, I don't use my Marshall halfstack anymore! Really!
It can deal with all kinds of guitars - my Tele, Strat or Les Paul. It also sounded quite nice with a friend's ESP with very hot PUs.
By the way: It's a very good sounding Bass-amp, too!

...built like a tank and twice as heavy! 40kg - every roadie's nightmare...

The "Acoustic Control Corporation" doesn't exist anymore!

For me this amp definetely is the "Holy Grail"!!! Try to get one - usually they're quite cheap...

Mine's from 1980, I bought it from a recording studio that went bankrupt in 1986 and had it in their stable of in-house amps.

It's a two-channel combo amp (FET or Tube preamp!) & has four 6L6 poweramp tubes that can be run at 60 or 100 volts with a foot-switchable reverb, bass boost, clean & over-drive channels, FX loop & 12' EV 200W speaker, which I have replaced to improve the tone and cut the weight by about 25 pounds! I currently have an Eminence Red Coat that is the best speaker I have tried with this lil' monster yet!

I use this amp both in the studio & live as I love the cleans and with a killer over-drive in the FX loop (I prefer the FullDrive II) the Model 164 has VERY unique and cool tube saturation/harmonic response that will cut through the thickest rhythym section.

Some people have referred to this amp as the "Poor Man's Boogie". I think that's because they don't have very much experience with multiple amps - As a studio player that's used just about every amp ever made I'd say the Model 164/165 is the "Poor Man's Dumble"!

I use this guitar mostly with Les Pauls and 335s as it really likes humbuckers! Don't get me wrong, it sounds pristine with single-coils/P90s and is very clean and loud like a Fender Twin in Channel 1, but it gives humbuckers chime & clarity that rivels ANY single-coil! Channel 2 grinds into a harmonically rich/thick saturated tube overdrive but falls short of distortion, but when the FX loop is pushed with gain it will go into a warm clipped distortion like no other...

This amp has never failed me and delivers consistant tone at the same settings night after night.

The amp was gone-thru after it developed a leaky cap in 1991 by a well-known amp tech who pulled-out the diodes (a well known mod for this amp), dropped some bigger caps in the power-amp section which was beefed-up with some point-to-point wiring.

After that not only did it seem to have more headroom, it now as the tech put it, "Has an over-drive tone that reminds me of Dumble Overdrive Specials I've worked on!".

The company is gone but certainly not forgotten!

I also have an unmodified Acoustic Model 165 I picked-up a couple of years ago as a backup, but have never needed it. I actually prefer my modded 164, even though the 165 looks nice with the oak/walnut stained cabinet. The tech did tell me he suspected my 164 had a oak cabinent, so perhaps someday I'll have it stripped & stained.

If you play rock, blues or jazz and come across one of these amps I'd suggest you pick it up quick! as the only amps that can rival the 164/165 generally cost $3000+ and none have the options that Acoustic Corp. put into the 164/165s...

I bought this amp new 1980 directly from Acoustic Control Corporation (ACC) in Ventura, CA and still own it to this day. I used the 164 amp to A/B with my Marshall 2203 so I would have clean-tones that equalled the awesome crunch/punch & power of my JCM - it did that & much more. Zappa used this amp & the 165 for many of his recordings in the 1980s, so if you want to hear it in action check out his catalog from that period.

The ACC 164 is identical to the ACC 165, I have owned both - The 165 was just a fancier version with a stained cabinet instead of being covered in brown tolex.

The 164 has two channels with pre/master controls for each and when both channels are engaged both pre/master controls are active, which offers many different levels of light to medium over-drive and offers a very unique and useful tone pallette to any blues/jazz player. Stick a treble boost/fuzz/distortion in the effects loop (it works better there as well as being buffered) and you can get into some killer higher gain territory that also is one-of-a-kind for a 60s/70s rock vibe. It does NOT sound like a Mesa MK.I...The 164 has its own thing going on - It was designed (by a former pre-CBS Fender amp employee) to compete with Dumble, Mesa, Jim Kelley and others as a totally different offering.

Here's the total spec: Four 6L6 groove-tubes (cathode biased) - Three 12AX7 preamp tubes - One 12AT7 rectifier - Two channels with bass + boost, mid, treble + boost and a 5-band EQ - 60/100 watts select - 4 or 8 ohms out through two speaker jacks Tube/FET preamp select - Effects loops - Tube driven spring reverb - 200w EV 12" (I switched to a Celestion G12T-100 for a more british twist on the tone).

The 164/165's clean sound is "CRYSTAL" clear and luscious. It specifically designed the maintain maximum dynamics and headroom, so even with the preamp cranked it doesn't compress the signal, which puts this HUGE roundness to the actual signal it receives from your guitar - If your guitar's tone is great you'll get GREAT BIG tone - If your guitar's tone sucks, well you'll pretty much sound like crapola. The amp is very neutral in that regard and doesn't color your sound, which most people are used to, thus it is VERY different and misunderstood accordingly.

The 164/165's over-drive is VERY subtle and unaggressive (low-gain) and doesn't become a high-gain screamer by sticking boosts into the instrument input. It can respond in a high-gain manner if you use "right" type of gain-box into the preamp-out/amp-in effects loop. Again this amp is VERY unique and responds VERY differently. I find most cheaper overdrive/distortion units just give you a crappy sound when used with the 164/165 - Putting a WELL-DESIGNED effect into the 164/165's effects loop though will give you killer tones with dynamics /headroom I have never found in any other amplifier.

Oh yeah, this amp is VERY loud, so be careful turning it up ;-)

Only failed once when it was a year old - a resisitor connection shook loose and a ACC tech diagnosed/repaired it in less than an hour.

100% original (expect the speaker) and sounds the same today as the day I got it!

Unfortunately the company is no more, even though currently a family member is trying to restart the operation. Like many other instrument/amplifier companies they suffered economic troubles and went under, but when they offered exceptional support.

Unlike the previous moronic reviewer, I have not modded my amp because I understand what this amp excels at - clean, warm cleans with HUGE headroom. I have no doubt the reason his amp sounds like crap is because he made it so.

Moreover, making a blanket statement about ACC failing economically thus their amps must suck, is about as moronic as implying that since companies like Ampeg, Jim Kelley, etc. also went out-of-business for similar reasons, their amps blow too...

I've been playing 30+ years and have owned so much equipment I'd have a tough time remembering it all, but I still own the 164 - It gives me cleans other amps only can dream of. If it was stolen I'd be bummed as I haven't seen another one, for sale or not, in at least 15 years. MANY people (including studio engineers/producers) have beeged me to sell them this amp, but I just won't do it...everytime I think I've replaced it a track I'm working on will pop-up with a need that the 164 just nails. I layer clean-tracks with it all the time.

The only other amp I've owned as long as the 164 is my Marshall 2203...

The 164/165 was listed as one of the four best tube amps of 1980 by a famous music gear magazine. The Dumble Overdrive, Mesa Boogie Mk. I and Jim Kelley's 30/60 were the other amps...I think that says it all.

Each one of those amps is VERY different and does its own thing, but none of them sound like the ACC model 164/165.

Good luck finding one!

I'm going to keep this short. I traded in my Twin Reverb for this amp because I couldn't afford a MKII Boogie. On paper it seemed like the same amp but cheaper. Well it certainly had more gain then the Twin Reverb.

Unfortunately it wasn't till I tried a Mark III Boogie that I realised just how terrible this amps drive channel was. Basically there were at least two main flaws with the design. 1) The tone controls were post gain. WTF - the Graphic was post gain too! Why??????? 2) When I compared the insides of the 164 with a photo of the MKIII I could see clearly that the power supply had very small capacitors. I checked this by putting huge capacitors in parallel with the on board ones and it was like adding a gain boost. I also moved the tone control circuit by crudely cutting tracks and re routing the signal. This helped but with my limited skill in amp design I probably produced a less than optimum circuit. The cabinet also, I realised after getting a Boogie was very under damped and had some one note resonances. For me this amp was terrible. If people want to evaluate it as an amp in its own right then by all means make your judgement but there is absolutely no comparison between this ill conceived design and a Boogie.

The construction quality was very good and the pots felt solid, even the silly dual concentric ones.

Mesa is still making Mark IVs. Acoustic is.....

Graet features that rival those of today's amps minus the three channls+ and multipule tubes selection.

Sounds so much better with a Celesion GT-12-80watt 8-ohms and JJ tubes from Eurotubes. Call Bob Pletka and tell him the sound your looking for and he will send you the tubes that will make it happen.
He's the best in the Industry (BAR NONE).

Never had a problem since 1983, it a work horse.

Didn't need any, have no Opinion

Great amp with new tubes & Speaker, can hold it's own in today's market, I have a Bogner Shiva 1-12 Combo that I purchased at Wild West Guitars that is the pinnacle of all amps, especially with the right combination of JJ Tubes from Eurotubes.

I had to work 6 weeks on construction in order to afford this sucker in 1982. All the features it has (see other reviews) were sheer luxury at this time: 2 switchable channels, reverb, EQ. The great thing ist that it works with basically 7 knobs!!! By this time (20 f... years ago, man, am I gettin' old!)there were only a few brands of one-channel-no-master-amps on the market which we all hated, they weren't cool enough (we were young hotrods by this time). Fender? Yuk! For grandpas. Vox? Hell no!!! Who on earth wanted to sound like Queen??? Marshall? Good deal, but who wanted to be a Blackmore clone? German amps? Shure-just get the Polka-tie out! So what was left for a good tube tone? Boogie!!! Yesyesyes, drooldrooldrool!!! But: the dollar to the Deutschmark at this time was 4:1, and it would have taken at least 6 months to get one. Darn! Deliverance came under the name "Acoustic", that was it!!! The Boogie for the poor, high gain, etc.! NOW THAT WAS A REAL COOL AMP!!! And there were at least three stores in town who had the whole line sittin' there. O.k., run down, deposit a prepay, promise to pay in time, grab the sun of a b...., and run home with it-great. It was exactly at this point where the first surprise occurred: that darn thing must have been bolt to the floor. The reason: a strange "speaker" which must have been engineered from an overstock of heavy industrial magnets for shipbuilding or truck junkyards, plus there were some transformers in there which were originally designed to send 500 megawatts over the Atlantic without a loss. But hey-that thing had 100 watts and there was a PA-speaker built into. Cool! In the course of the last 20 years I went through quite a number of other amps, but none of these, I really do mean NONE, could stand up to the acoustic by means of tone combined with verstility and reliability. Duringthewhile I have accumulated a family of five (164, 165, G 100T + 4x12). Just yesterday I traded back a Fender Blackface Super Reverb which I've had for maybe 2 weeks. No way! Nice amp for one sound only, but I still prefer the round, smooth sound of my heavyweight champions. Why do I write "very versatile"? - Add one or two pedals (tube screamer, another EQ, or a Boogie V-Twin), and you do have an array of four to six different sounds. Great!!!

This is what justifies the ungodly insane weight! I play Les Paul, Strat, Dreadnought. All of these instruments do sound awesome through the amp. Clean: dynamic, fenderesque (but more round, doesn't have the high end shrillness), seadeep, lush reverb (doesn't enter the surf zone), with some tweaking you'll find the right sound and do the rest with the guitar's tone controls. Gain? - Have some, more ore even plenty. Wanna have Marshallesque: add some bass, crank the mids. Wanna have Boogiesque: gain up, mids down, bass and treble up. Not enough? Stomp your distortin/booster pedal. My personal favorite is bass on 4, mid on 6, treble on 7, presence on 7, that's somewhere between Marshall and Boogie with some Acoustic-grind. Wanna go for som poweramp distortion: get a powersoak, a treble booster and crank up! The amp will take it, and you can go from clean to distortion with your axe's volume knob. Nice! DO NOT DO THAT WITHOUT A POWER SOAK!!! This harmless looking amp is as loud as a Boogie MK I cranked - and the E-Voice will deliver this volume mercilessly. It easily blows away a Marshall halfstack. Oh - it's a superb bassamp, too. Just add a cabinet and unplug the internal speaker. Another important and often neglected factor to a good sound is a tube swap + rebias every two years (do yourself a favour and put in good quality NOS tubes). Anyhow, that tone will please you for a lifetime. Forget about emulation amps.

Have had this one (now even some more) for 20 years, played about 3000+ gigs in this time, and it NEVER EVER has let me down even once! Show one of these modern cheapoamps doing this, and I will believe in Santa again. Just give it the regular carepack, and you won't experience any problem. Neveretheless, I always take a spare head to gigs, just in case (after all it's a 20 year old tube amp).

Sadly enough, the old acoustic company went out of business. Just imagine what they would have engineered during the last 20 years!

Been playing for almost 30 years. Before the Acoustic I had an AC 30 which I hated, a Marshall (serial# 165 - sniff!) which I loved, but then I found tonal enlightenment. I had the following amps during the last ten years, and they all did not stay with me longer than 3 weeks: Boogie MK 3 + MK 4 (too many knobs, Boogie-only distortion, clean channel poor in comparison, too many knobs), several Marshalls (only one good sound), Silver- and Blackface Fenders (very, very nice sound, but not versatile enough). The Acoustic was always the clear winner in direct comparison. I wish it wouldn't be soooooo heavy. But - there is a trick: get a Celestion 60 W + and swap it with the E-Voice, that'll save you about 6 kg. Take the EV, build a matching cabinet (half opoen, closed, vented, whatever, I built a Thiele-Small vented cabinet, then you do have some serious bottom end and a nice little stack). I do not think that it will ever get stolen, since it is way too heavy (except the potential thief wants to commit suihernia). Even if-I still got four more to go, and if I run out of these, I will build some for myself, basta! Another good thing is the fact that this amp is not sought after, I found my other four amps used and in mint condition for $ 150 (cheapest) and 400 (the 165 with the hardwood cabinet). Anything els to desire - hell, no! I'm happy with them, they bring out the best in my playing. If you don't have one: go, get one and forget about all the overprized boutique/vintage/10.000 channel/wannabe/simulation/Pure-shit-tone/drugged up asshole artist signature/ cartboard "amps". This chick will deliver tons of tone gig after gig and put a lot of other crap to shame. But watch out: a good amp will mercilessly reproduce your little flaws in guitar playing.

I purchased this amp new in 1982 and used it for jazz/blues. Everything still functions perfectly, and I've never even replaced a tube! With a five band graphic equalizer, reverb, treble and bass pull-boost knobs and dual volume controls, it is very versatile. The 100 watts of tube power offers plenty of power.

This amp has proven most versatile when it comes to sound and tone control. The power is where this amp really shines. The additional external speaker jack powers a Marshall 4X12 1960A cabinet beautifully. What is nice here, is that you can face the Marshall cabinet towards an audience and turn the combo towards the stage as a monitor. The clean sound is holds true even to high settings. And, the typical warm and fat Marshall sound is present under high gain settings.

19 years and no problems!

Never needed.

Whether playing a Gibson, Fender, Kramer or PRS, this amp is a true performer. Does anyone know if parts for this thing are generic and readily available? When I originally purchased this amp, I was specifically looking for a combo amp that offered a high volume clean sound with versatile tone control. I looked at Fender Twin Reverb, Ampeg, Kustom and Sun. Money was not the object when choosing. I chose the Acoustic 164 for sound and versatility. I did not go wrong!

Single 12 inch EV Speaker with 2 channel 100W/60W power level. This amp is capable of Tube or FET which makes it extremely versatile for studio work. Built-in EQ Reverb with Boost for both Treble and Bass which will blow you out if you're not careful. Cranks pretty well, but does seem to be a fairly misunderstood amp based on what I've read. I bought this amp new back in 80-81 and it is very nice albeit kind of heavy to lug around despite it's 2 FT x 2FT size.

I play this amp with LPaul/RD Artist and 6 string Taylor on occasion. Soemtimes I feel nasty and sometimes I want crisp and clean and this amp does both really well. You need to learn how to play the two channel input master/slave knobs corectly to achieve the distortion or fuzz, but contrary to popular opinion tha amp is quite capable of getting great controlled distortion and various volume levels. The trick is to pick one of the two channels, set the master to zero and set the slave volume to full throttle, then bring the master up to the volume level you seek with bass boost on for extra kick. For awesome clean you simply do the opposite. The cool thing is that you can set each of the two channels up separately and switch between them on the fly...very cool and with no effects. Reverb is awesome.

I bought it new in 80 and it has never needed any work. Original tubes still kicking and screaming. Cool feature that meant a lot to me at the time was the fact that if I ever lost a tube during a session, I could simply reach behind and kick in to solid state mode...now that's back up! This is a studio amplifier in every way.

No opinion here. Never needed any support. Don't think they're around any more sadly.

Long time player. Own a Lab Series L-11 8x12 double stack, this guy. I wouldn't slit my wrists if it were to leave me, but it is a real work horse. It would be cool if it were just a little bit lighter...I can't say that I've ever been wanting anything that another amp could give me that is not present in this 164.

I picked this amp up used. It had been through a fire, hosed with water and everything. It had been heavily modified so that the presence knob was actually another pre-amp volume. I don't remember any other outstanding features other than the graphic EQ that worked well, and a half power switch.

At the time that I owned it, I was using an old G&L Skyhawk, and a Fender Bullet (mini Strat style with 3 PU's). On it's own the distortion was too buzzy for my liking. I hooked up a Natec power attenuator between the amp and it's speakers, and ran it wide open. I was told by some guitar playing buddies that it was the best tone that they ever heard me get! I don't know about that, but it did sound pretty good like that.

Running it with an attenuator caused me to blow power tubes left and right. I eventually bought a Mesa/Boogie MkI combo and sold the Acoustic.

They were long gone by the time that I bought this thing (in about 1990).

I've been playing for over 30 years, and it's definately the strangest amp that I've ever owned. Being that it was so heavily modified, I've declined to give any kind of numbers rating. I think that the basic amp, before mods, had potential. I've read wonderful things about them, which influenced my decision to buy this.

Small but heavy all tube 1x12 combo. The speaker is an EV with a monster of a magnet. Two channels, tone controls, graphic EQ, mid and bass boost, brightness and presence controls. Switchable between 100 and 60 watts, also switchable between tube and FET pre-amp. Has reverb, although the one in mine is broken.
The cabinet is a beautiful, solid wood cabinet with a natural finish. Not sure what the wood is - it appears to be some sort of maple perhaps. Looks great, but surely contributes to the amps gagantuan weight (by comparison, it easily outweighs my 2x12 Roland JC-120)

I love the sound of this amp clean. Very VERY loud for a 1x12 - think small Mesa/Boogie here. Can go either very clean with lots of headroom, or by tweaking volume and master settings, you can get a nice sounding tube overdrive.
It doesn't produce very good distortion sounds on it's own, but with a good pedal (I have both a Tube Driver, and a Tech21 Tri-OD), you can acheive a wide variety of tones, from bluesy to death metal. All the sounds are quite smooth, responsive, and big for an amp this size.

Well, it's an older (70s?) amp, and who knows what it went through before I got it. It seems well constructed, but recently I blew the transformer which melted the fuse into the holder in the process. This made me aware of a nice touch, which is a spare fuse holder that can be wired into the live fuse socket as a replacement.
The reverb is also non-functional in my amp.

Acoustic is no longer in business so.....

Overall, until it blew up (and I intend to get it fixed soon), I loved it. Great clean sounds, and great distortion sounds with a decent stomp box, plenty of volume for live gigging, in a small (albeit REALLY HEAVY) package. Not many of these around, but they tend to be dirt cheap. If you want a respectable tube amp, with power and good looks, don't pass one of these up.