Alamo Jet

This amp is from 1968. It is working for me for a practice amp right now. It tends to overdrive a little early for my playing. I play mostly jazz, and blues. It has 3 inputs for some reason heehee. The reverb sounds really nice, deep and springy. The tremelo is kind of lame though.. I use this amp as a bedroom amp. There was a jam at my house and I could barely hear it over a SMALL drum kit and another guitar player. The overdrive that was comming out was really nice, smooth and creamy and compressed, but not loud enough for the situation. It has one power tube 6V6GTA, a rectifier tube, a 12 AX7, and another tiny little tube i forget what kind. I replaced all the tubes when I got the amp and there was a huge improvment in sound quaility. I talked to an amp tech and he said this amp has about the same power as a fender champ. The advertisment said 15 watts, but this amp is NOT putting out close to 15.

I am using an epiphone les paul with seymour duncan 59's. The amp doesnt really fit my music style. If I played straight up rock n roll this amp you be a great practice amp. I am playing jazz, and my preferance is a full clean tubey sound. This amp gives this when i am fingerpicking only. Otherwise its a screemin rock amp. Oh yeah It can scream and I dont mean that chirpy ear shattering scream that alot of amps get when you bend and hold a note I mean creamy smooth overdrive scream. It really only does clean when the volume is all the way up and my pickup is turned down. The 59's seem a little hot for this little guy. I thought about changing the speaker, but I have no idea the ohm rating and i dont think i could find a low watt 12" without special order. Its not worth it to me, I would rather save my $ for an amp I can gig with. For 120 dollars its a great practice amp and serves its purpose.

I might have to gig with this amp this weekend, looks like I dont have much of a choice. I was playing with a Reggae/ Funk band and was using a Fender Twin Reverb 65' reissue. I quit the band a few months ago and had to sell the twin to pay for plane tickets. They asked me to play a gig this weekend tho So it looks like its the Alamo Jet micced up. Maybe I can Eq it through the board and get a cleaner punchier sound who knows. I will probally borrow another small solid state amp for backup in case the alamo blows up or something.

haha

I have been playing this amp for about 2 months now. I own an RMS practice amp. That thing SUCKS. If it were stolen or lost I would buy another cheap tube amp. Maybe save up for a blues junior. I love that it looks so friggin wierd! It looks like it was owned by one of the Bradys or something and just happened to show up in my room by accident. And the footswitch is a little wodden block! the reverb also is quite nice. plus its light. I dont like that The guy told me it was 15 watts and it turns out to be a 6 watter. I wish It had a little more clean headroom before it starts grinding. I guess you always play before you pay. but It was a good deal and i had someone pick it up for me that lived in the area so i couldnt.

anything i wish it had? I wish it had come with a blackface deluxe reverb. for free ( :

I think this is around a 1971-2-just not sure-its a bit hard to find out-bought it on ebay, from someone who had it for ten years, and knows nothing about amps.
Its about 10-15 watts, tops, with a 12" speaker. It has tremelo and reverb, but neither work- going to try to have fixed.
Three inputs, which is a joke, because on ten, its only loud, not LOUD, and it into distortion territory. Sounds good.
Three tubes, not sure what kind.

Sounds are good-nice crunch when pushed. Doesn't like my Tele( too harsh ), but loves humbuckers. Not too much variety, but does what it does well.

Still kicking after thirty years. Reverb and trem don't work, but maybe they can be rescued.

Alamo has been out of business since 1975

Playing thirty eight years- still play every day. Have 2001 Tele, 1966 Gibson ES 125TC, new Dano 12, 1990 PRS, Heritage 535. 1965 Fender DRw/ JBL, 1959 Gibson Skylark (5 watts, 8" speaker), new Hot Rod Deluxe, POD 2.3, etc...
Try to replace? maybe, if price was right.
I might feel differently after I have it serviced.

I submitted as review yesterday, forgot a few things this is an add on the review. The model number on the AMP is 2564. Below is a written piece from vintage Guitar Magazine that describes the marketing poistioning for this amp.

****Tube/Solidstate Hybrids (1973)
"By 1973, at least, Alamo had changed its all-tube design to one with a solidstate front end and tube output. This change was made, in part, because RCA sold its tube manufacturing business to a Japanese company, leaving only Sylvania and GE as sources for tubes here.

According to a June 1973 Alamo catalog and price list from a David Wexler jobbers book, Alamo offered no fewer than 16 amplifier models that year, many, if not all, carrying familiar model names from the past. These were now divided into four lineups: the Pro Line-Up, Standard Amplifier Line-Up, Tremolo Line-Up and One-Niters series. These still had squarish plywood cabinets covered in black tolex with a black and silver grillcloth. These mostly had white script Alamo logos on a little black blob of plastic glued on the upper right corner of the grill. If you thought these were Japanese imports, given their appearance, you wouldn? be the first, but you would be wrong."****

**** "There were three Alamo One-Niters combos in 73. The Model 2565 Montclair Tremolo Reverb ($249.95) had 75 watts peak (25 watts RMS), one 12" speaker, one channel, two inputs, volume, treble, bass, treble boost, vibrato and reverb. The Model 2564 Jet Tremolo Reverb ($179.95) offered 36 watts peak (12 watts RMS), one 12" speaker, volume, tone, reverb and tremolo. The Model 2566 Fury Bass ($225.95) was an all-tube unit with 105 watts peak (35 watts RMS), one 15" speaker, volume, bass and treble controls."**** Thought you would be interested.


Cheers
jonpolonez@aol.com

Also few other things, my amp seems to make sounds when the reverb is turned up, and volume down. The tone control works a bit strangly, at 0, the volume seems to drop off. Also seems to only work in 3 positions, low, med., and high at 10 on the knob, althought the knob rotates smoothly? Anyone else see this, please let me know.

I am sure this amp was made in the very early 70's, single channel, with reverb, temelo, foot switch for both. Good featues for an amp this age. They did't have much else back then...:>) Bass control would have been nice. Mine was purchased on ebay for about $100 bucks. Good shape but did not work properly. A cap broke loose (shipping?) and tubes needed to be replaced. This is where a question comes up. Mine came with a 6V6 and 5Y3GT, and a 12 inch Alamo engineered alnico speaker. I have replaced the Tubes, and now works great, also works with a 6L6 tube... slightly different sound. There is another review here which say he got his with a 6L6. And yet another with differnt tubes??? So what are the proper tubes? Mine looked original. Hard to find any info on these amps. Couple of things not mentioned in the other reviews, this bugger is partially solid state! The pre amp, reverb, and temelo are on a very primitve PCB! I am just a hack, love to knock around. A little pop rock, blues, and what ever else I can get my 40 something fingers to do... Will over drive (slightly) at about 7 on the volume knob, nice crisp, clear sound.

Have several guitars, LP, Strat, Tele, Tiesco Hollow body, all sound good. the LP will over drive it a bit more. Like to play rock, blues riffs, just hack around. Has a nice light crunchy sound to it when turned up to full blast. This seems to very quite amp for its type (turn it to 10, almost no hiss) I have other amps including, a Premier model 50 tube (this little guys rocks) Peavey bandit 112 (very loud), Electar acoustic amp. All will make a bit of a hiss when turnned up to full. All have diiffent applications. The Alamo also works well with pedals, Digitec RP3, Dana Electro, pastrami.

Seems to work, have had it on for several hours at a time, no problems. Once in a while a small crackle....

N/A, long long gone...

Been hacking on and off for a long time... If it was lost or stolen , I would be very pissed off. This cool sounding amp which you cannot get in an amp today. This a piece of of amp history. Very Vintage, retro, even looks odd. Love to crank this this up to full blast,(when no one is home) does't seem to break a sweat.... Has a nice crunchy sound to it. If any of the other guys who wrote a review would like to contact me please do, at jonpolonez@aol.com

I wish I knew what year this thing was, but I'm guessing it to be late 60's or early 70's. three inputs (?!?), reverb control, one volume control and one tone control plus frequency and intenstity for tremolo (which is footswitchable). You could dime it and get a nice crunchy sound, but as it is only 10 or 15 watts it's not going to completely blow the house out. I'm a bedroom player, so that wattage is plenty, however, even if I played out I'd probably still use it since I'd probably be micced anyway. Unlike most amps I've seen of that wattage now a days, this one has a 12" speaker. This is a big plus in my opinion, because I just don't think an 8" speaker gives the dynamics needed for a good guitar sound. It is tube, mine has two of them, a 6L6GTA and a 5Y3. It loses a couple points basically because there is no form of line out to hook it up to a cab, that would have really been neat. There's no channel switching (unless you count tremolo on and off), but I don't really need that, I use pedals anyway.

For what I'm using it for, it's great. I use an Aria Pro II guitar (not sure what model since I bought it used, but it has two coil tapped humbuckers (Dimarzio Super Distortions) with a switch to put the pups out of phase, also has a varitone switch). The two sound great together, even without any of my effect pedals. Great clean tone that starts to break up into a natural overdrive when you push the volume around 7 and up. Great, nice and bluesy...Actually, I describe it as sounding like the bastard child of a Fender Champ and a Vox AC-30...It kind has both tones there, but different. For a clean tone, it does what I want it to do and does real good too. the overdrive you get from diming it is real nice, again imagine combining a Fender Champ with a Vox AC-30. I usually use pedals for distortion, so I rarely need to crank the volume to use the overdrive, but it's nice when I do use it.

As the amp seems to be at least 30 years old and appears to have all the original parts in it (even the tubes...There's signs that the tubes need changeing, but they are working fine.), I'd say it's extremely reliable. As a general rule I always carry backup to gigs though, but I would trust it.

They don't even exist anymore

I've been playing seriously for a bit over 5 years and have had many amps, but this is my first tube amp...I'm not looking back. I love it, I pray nothing ever happens to it, but if it did, I would search hard to find another, because I have never heard such a tone. My only complaint is that it does not have a line out, but that does not bother me, nor would it keep me off another if I saw it. Considering I got it for $50, I think it deserves the fantastic value marking.

This little amp has amazing tone and headroom. With a small voice coil 12" speaker, one 12AX7A, one 6v6, reverb and tremolo, it provides good sound at moderate volumes. The transformers are tiny. I play blues and this has become my main amp. One channel, one tone nob, but three input jacks? Who knows what they were thinking; but the tones are versatile, sounds good clean or dirty. I think it's from the late sixties or early 70's.

I play about 8 very different guitars through this baby and seems to treat them all very well. Very nice for blues. Noise level is that a typical amps from this time period. Tone is more like a vox than a fender. It gets a good crunch around 7 and a good scream at full throtle. Pretty good for a single stage gain setup.

I recently had the speaker reconed because the voice coil was starting to stick. (30 year old speaker) Otherwise, no problems in 10 years of constant use.

Defunct

Been playing for 30 years, have 72 Hiwatt 100, 65 Ampeg Gemini I, 50's National. This amp is of the same caliber as the others, just lower wattage. If I lost it, I would either buy another or try to find a 15 watt old Vox. I love the tone, love the cheesy look, great 15 watt amp, only thing I wish was better would be the tone control. All the way on or all the way off is cool, in the middle, the volume drops off significantly.

Late 60's I believe, 3inputs, reverb, tremolo w/speed & intensity,1 volume, 1 tone knob.I use this and an ALAMO CAPRI (another great amp) with an a/b box."A" is the jet dimed (main rythym sound)and"A+B" is the jet and capri(more distorted than jet) for soloing.

This is used with a Epiphone Les Paul with a Vox valvetone going thru it.Low wattage 12" speaker sounds great when pushed, and the amp doesnt squash when dimed. Just rough and crunchy.Nice midrange throatiness and really bring out sublties you didnt think your guitar had.To put an image in your mind, think ZZtop's first three records.Amp made in San Antonio! Coincidence?

Only had it a short while, but it had just been serviced, so I hope it will be fine.

N/A This company didnt make it thru the 70's.

I am using this setup because it works well when your band practices in a bedroom next to someones house.Good cranked non-mastervolume tone is what I live for and this does it without drowning out above everyone else like 50watters and above can do.By the way-all you non-master lovers out there-I highly recommend the a+b box with either a small tube amp kicked in for leads or a+b-ing into 2nd channel (set a little higher) for leads. Since I started doing this I have loved it and dont have to comprimise my tone for preamp distorted, channel switching crap.I do this also with a modified Sovtek Mig 50.