Airline 62-9025A

mine was made in 1965 (check the date code on the back of the controls for the date) This is the same as the Gretsch compact tremelo reverb amp, just differnt cosmetics. This looks very cool and retro with its black sides and tan top and front. These came with a Jensen C10R speaker. Someone had done a poor and dangerous cap job actually replacing only one cap with undersize wire and a clump of caps to do the job. I pulled that out and did all 3 properly for $8.
The rest is stock. This one lived in a closet all its life and is in superb cosmetic and electrical condition. Schematic easy to find online. True point to point wiring, no circuit or tag board at all.
These were made by Valco/Supro company. Later Airlines were made by
Danelectro. Mine came with a nice Mullard tube in the preamp too!

this amp is very quiet at idle. I did not bother to put a 3 wire cord on it since its so quiet. The amp has a nice full sound thanks to the big speaker. This is much louder than any of the Fender Vibrochamps amps I have owned before (about 10 or them) Tremelo is deep and lush but only one intensity, you can control the speed. Reverb is also very nice, but not as nice as a Fender. It only weighs about 23 lbs but is quite sturdy. Warm tube tones with anything you plug into it.
Has a standby switch built in to, thats nice. Heavy chrome plated chassis. Works great with pedals. With single coils you get that natural tube breakup near the top of the volume range, humbuckers would drive it harder and breakup earlier.

$8 in parts after nearly 50 years old is amazing!

Supro/Valco/Airline long out of business.

Features already covered in prev. rev. Since it's all perfectly handwired w/ decent reverb & tremelo, it gets a 9! BTW--this is the exact same amp as the Gretsch Compact Reverb--Valco made both with the exact same features, just different cosmetics & badges.

Great amp for recording, and gigging, though you gotta mic for it for that, which i don't mind. Dimed with 'buckers it serves up tones like on N. Young's Zuma. Tremelo is nice, not the best but functional. Reverb is only ok, but decent-probably limited by whatever is in the cardboard box. Who cares? The main tones are amazing, great harmonic overdrive. A tone I relish & that's hard to find. The reverb actually adds gain at high volumes, which is really not a bad feature. Pretty flexible, though--with single coils I can coax out some sweet glassy honky-tonk tones.

My amp is unspeakable beat. Obviously subjected to considerable road & other abuse for more than 4 decades. Still works perfectly. Clear evidence that it was built to last!

Long live Valco! Oops, that didn't work!

Collectors have driven the price of these up the price of these amps (Dam'em!), but I wouldn't sell mine for what a mint one fetches (I guess around $700?). It only does a couple things, but those coupla things it does amazingly well! Plus this one is still tickin' after havin the s&*t kicked out of it for about 40 yrs. I'm keeping it, great amp.

1965, one channel, reverb, tremolo. Original cardboard reverb tank was replaced with a three spring Accutronics.

Amp came tubed as follows:
1 6v6 power tube (Electroharmonix)
1 5y3 rectifier tube
4 12AX7 tubes (1 sovtek, 1 'silvertone,' 2 'made in USA' (I'm guessing are the originals?)

Has original ten-inch Jensen gold speaker C10R.

I do not know the wattage. It has only 1 6v6 power tube so it can't be a lot. I'm guessing between 6 and 12 at the most.


I haven't weighed the amp but compared to my other ones it is light as a feather. Probably about 20 pounds?

Some people said these amps sounded like Led Zeppelin I, but I took their opinion with a great of salt, but turns out they weren't exagerating. Using my Danelectro DC-59, the sound is totally Led Zeppelin I.

With humbucker guitars the sound (when overdriven) is more like black sabbath.

Reverb is very sensitive, I keep it at like 2.5.

I intend to use it at home for practice and recording or low volume gigs.

Tolex is absolutely filthy from the previous owner, i don't know what he or she did to it. Will have to rectify.

N/A

I have a Traynor YCV-40 and also a JC-120 for gigging and practicing with loud drummers.

My other old amp is a late 60's Ampeg reverberocket II, which sounds great but is a bit too loud for home use.

The Airline is much better suited for home use and recording. It sounds more alive at usable volumes.