Ampeg SJ-12R Super Jet

The EQ's on the this amp sound great and are quite versitle.
I play everything from indie-pop to classic rock, and I can get crisp cleans and some nice growl out of it. But the growl only comes w/ at loader volumes (up over 5), which is rare for me it get up to in most gigs or rehearsals. I do not use the distotion channel, instead I use a pedal (Sansamp California), as the distortion is kinda thin for my tates. Plenty of power at the size and wieght of this amp.

The sound quality on this amp w/ the original speaker was an 7-8 for me (still great at the price). But after I put in a Jensen C12N speaker and Svetlana EL34 Matched Duet power tubes, the one on this amp became handds down amazing!!! The ampeg speaker that is stock in these amps, really don't do it justice, it simply way to think and trebely, w/ my Les Paul double cut away w/ P90's I had to roll off all the treble. Now w. the new Jensen speaker i can shape my highs.

SO far so good, owned it for bout 4 months, it's a rockin' w./ no problems. The previous owner had no known issues either.

N/A
Never had tpo contact them

Love this amp, w/ speaker replacement and the right tubes, you can't beat how great this amp sounds for the price, actually if it were 2 X the price I I would still be lovin' the tone.
Ampegs are great, I've played ampeg gear in my bass rigs in the past, and their Gtr. amps are awesome.

This amp plays through americana stylse, low volume jazz, and real vintage rock sound.
One channel. Footswitch to add the reverb ad trem.
Lots of power at 50 watts. I use this at home in a studio. It's lound and would be nice in a full band. There is enough headroom.

1960 Jazzmaster
1964 Gibson SG
I run a handful of good pedals with good cords and it is quite (no hums).
Amp breaks up around 7 and gets warm and thick as you dial it up.

might be the best built object I own

Seems good. Although I emailed and called Ampeg about a different issue with another and they decided to neot get back to me. So they get 5 for giving me a warranty card (hope that means something)

Love it. Strong, dependable. Classic sounds.

2001 SJ12R. Two-switch foot pedal which switches normal/lead and reverb on/off. 2 input, one unattenuated and one padded at 15db. Simple controls, Volume, bass mids, treble and reverb. Stock 12" vintage Ampeg Speaker. Originally came with Groove tubes 6l6b's, and 12ax7's, but i have since swapped for a duet of GTKT66HP, and a pair of GT12ax7m (*update now sovtek ECC83's in preamp).

IMHO, i give this a 9. It has everything i need to sound the way i want to. I feel that the more circuits you add to an amp, the more effected your tone is. I understand this amp is a circuit board based tube amp, not a P-T-P hand wired.... but the tone i get out of this puppy is nothing short of amazing. I wouldnt trade this amp for anything. Seriously.

I have only one guitar, i have very many pedals, but only use one pedal with this amp, if EVER. My guitar is a 1989 Eric Clapton Stratocaster. The pedal is a Re-Issue TS808 MODDED by Analogman, with the Silver Mod (original TS808 JRC chip and special high end caps and resistors for more hi-fi audio output, etc.) Playing the guitar straight through the amp is like steping into some kind of tube amp bliss. SO FAT, round, woody, and dynamic. If you use a Clapton, you know all about the versitility of this guitar.....thats for another review, but for those who still dont have one, rolling on the controls yield MANY desired AUTHENTIC blues and rock tones. No pedal necessary. We all know how big this 50 watts can get. I dont care if you believe me or not, but there are SRV moments in this set up, ESPECIALLY with fatter strings. Dont believe me? FTW. I hear wood tones riding on glass bells. YOu know the sound im talking about.

Kicking in the reverb gives you a nice reverb. Surreal, and spacy. I like it. Just enough. Another thing i like about this amp is it is quiet. Ive had it for 5 years, and never a crack, pop, or hum out of her. Nice blues distortion happens at volume number 2. LOL. I know. Its so aweosme. This is partly due to the GT66HP duets i chose. They are rated at GT rating #2, which breaks up VERY early. Scale is 1-10, one bieng very early breakup, 10 bieng VERY-VERY-VERY high headroom. So quick summary, this guitar and amp combo of mine sounds like a dream. My search for my blues sound is happily over. There is nothing i want more than to get home from work, and play through this amp.

*update* Looking back, i didnt say my peace about the Analogman ts-808 silver mod through this amp. There are few words than can discribe the absolute tonal bliss you can achieve with this set up. If you like blues rock, this is the Grail. Ive had several friends dismiss all their lifes effort in achiving "their" sound to convert to my setup, mine. HOw many of you can say that? :) Listen to some Trey Anastassio from Phish to hear what im talking about. You dont need a pedal to over drive this amp, but with one, you can get a more controlled overdrive (before the amp). I dont recommend cranking the pedal and then cranking the amp. if your gonna crank the amp, there is no need for pedal.

Cranking this baby up, anywhere past two gives you honest-to-God blues overdrive (with these GT rating "2" tubes).

IMHO im giving this a 10, in stock trim i would give it an 8, it sounded AWESOME back with the 6l6b's dont get me wrong, but with the KT66's .......you couldnt pay me to give it a 9.

Amp doesnt go ANYWHERE. It stays home. But still, ive never had a reliability issue.

Ive contacted SLM Several times for schematics and biasing information when i did my tube swap. They ansewred me on the spot when i called, and got instant emails of schematics when i asked for it. AWESOME service for me. And i live in Hawaii, so its MUCH appreciated. Bieng that ive never had to get a repair, or any hting like that, i cant really give this too high a number...so ......i think 7 is a fair shake.

Ive been playing for 11 years. Ive had very amny amps and have only kept two. A 1973 Fender VIBRO-Champ, and this Ampeg. If it were stolen i would snatch up another one ASAP and do the same mods to it. We are very fortunate to have these available to us for around 400$ brand new. The sound far exceeds the price tag. Im usually very reserved about giving prduct reviews, but i sincerely encourage all blues and some rock players out there to give this amp a try. You can thank me later........IMHO i give My overall rating as a 9. Because nothing in this life is perfect, there is always room for improvement (i.e. my tube choices). But other than that, this box is such an awesome value.

In addition to the great tube tone, the simplicity of this amp was one of the reasons why it interested me. I bought it used for $300 from a friend of my cousin's who is still depressed because he sold it and got disappointed when he bought one of those Cybertwins. The guy I purchased it from replaced the 6L6's with EL34's and gigged with the amp regularly. He told me the tubes were balanced and he had just had the amp re-biased prior to selling it to me. I use it to jam with friends and play backyard parties and such. The tone is awesome and it has enough power to cut through the mix.
I checked out quite a few tube amps including the Fender Blues Jr, Hot Rod Deluxe,Peavey 30, some low end Mesa's and Marshalls. All of these amps had more features and channels that I probably wouldn't use, so they would be wasted. I got only what I needed in the Ampeg. If you want something super fancy with footswitches and XLR output, and multiple channels, you may want to get something else.

I play mostly blues and jazzy stuff and usually don't use very many effects. I have one of those Boss ME-50's, but usually just plug the damn guitar in and start playing. I usually play rhythm and with minimal effort I can get great clean tones for blues, jazzy rhythm or scratchy funk. I play an Ibanez SZ520QM with the Duncan JH2/JH4 pups, but I also have a stock Ibanez AR250 and both of these axes sound spectacular when played through the Ampeg.
In most settings, I don't need to turn it up past 3, but it starts to break up nicely around 4-5 if you start spanking the axe. Never tried the gain boost. If I want specific effects or lots of overdrive or distortion, I use the ME-50. This amp is a great platform if you have an effects processor.

Had the amp for 2 years and no problems.

I've been playing guitar on and off for about 25 years. Never professionally, but in many a garage jam session or backyard party. I've owned a Fender Princeton chorus which had insufficient volume, upgraded to a Stage 100, which was loud, but lacked tonal character. I love this amp because of it's simplicity and ease of use. No effects loops, no multiple channels, Just great tone. It's so easy to sound good. I frequently go to the music stores and check out the Mesa's, and the Marshalls, and the Fender tube amps, which all have more features, but no more tone. I couldn't pass it up for the $300 price tag.

1996 SJ12R W/ EH tubes. Pretty straight ahead amp.I looked around alot before buying this amp, but the price was right and the tone was great.

I use it with my Hamer(2 HB Duncans), Peavy Strat, and soon w/my new Eric Brown thinline.A Toneworks AX1000G lives between the guitars and the SJ. I play anything from Jazz to blues/Rock to childrens tunes and this amp does the job without a fuss.

Only had it a couple of months but all seems well.

HAvent needed it yet.

As I mentioned before I try to play a little of all generes and have always loved tube tone. Ampeg is underrated in the 6 string world. Before I found this amp I tried a bunch of the new fender Dynatouch amps and the roland cube 60. No match for the Superjet.Price,tubes and portability AND it stands out from the sea of fenders,marshalls and peavy tube amps everyone else up here plays.
I'm not waiting for it to get stolen,I'm looking for more right now:). It's only a matter of time before the price of these little blue beasts starts going up.

Update of an older review... Updated the Amp. Made a big difference.

After owning this amp for a while, I began to find the sound a bit too trebbly... a bit too thin. Found I was using some of my other amps and not this one. Eventually at a jam session while using this amp, the amp cut out on me. I went to my local Ampeg dealer, and after some trouble shooting, it was determined that the speaker had an intermittent short in it. So the tech sent off to SLM for new one. They were very good, and the replacement speaker came quickly. However, in the meantime, the tech gave me a good deal on an Emmenance Delta 400 watt model. this is a really big and heavy speaker, and barely fit in the amp, but it radically changed the sound. The amp now was bold and fat, and did not break up nearly as early in the range of the volumne knob. But, that was not the sound I was looking for. So I purchased as Vintage Reissue Jensen C12N 50 watt speaker. This did the trick. Now the amp sounded fatter and bolder, and now I got my early breakup back, but with much better tone and definition than the stock speaker. A very good upgrade... Next I tried a variety of new tubes in both the preamp and power amp. my unit came stock with EL-34s. After trying several sets of tubes (svetlana, winged C, Grove Tube) I finally tried a complete set of Electro Harmonix Tubes in box the 12ax7 and the EL34. Awesome sound. Now i have a totally killer tube amp, that sounds like a million bucks. My advice is to take a small amount of the money you saved by buying this very inexpensive awesome value amp, and try some experimentation with tubes and speakers. it will be worth the effort... :-)

This amp rocks... Mine is about 10 years old. the stock speaker will let you down. Mine did.

Excellent. When my amp started having problems, it was a tough to find intermittent speaker short. The authorized dealer did great service. Then SLM send out replacment parts very quickly with no questions asked. 5 year warantee is also good.

Killer value, awesome potential with some easy part swapping... can sound like a boutique amp with some simple experimenting.

Im an admited ampeg addict-I have an older gemini 2 and needed a more portable amp,so I thought it be great to have a new ampeg due to the reliable fact that it was built a couple years ago as opposed to the sixties-a decent amp,however the reverb is a total let down and sounds like modern fender reverb(yuk!)-its got nice bass n mid n treble dials for tweaking,and a cool 15db boost,but the reverb sucks

This isnt a bad amp,it has a great bass presense considering its a 12 inch speaker-and its really cool that this amp puts out 50 watts-but the speaker is kinda of thin sounding,the reverb is terrible and it lacks the old ampeg sound-It breaks up at about 5 and the overdrive isnt very pleasent for me(blues rock jazz)-sounds almost like a bad overdrive pedal-Ampeg is now owned by the same company that owns crate amps,and it shows-Id look elsewhere if you have to have a reissue tube amp

dont know,didnt gig with it

Theres better out there,its not terrible but a fender delux sounds better than this amp and generally I really dislike new fender amps-my favorite are older ampegs,and this one doesnt come close at all-I must stress again how bad the reverb is-old ampegs reverb leave off notes sounding harmonic,this amp leaves them off sounding dissonant,like any other bad reverb in an amp-THe break up overdrive sounds almost 80's metalish sounding,and thats really not my thing

Built in 2000. Very versatile amp, but of course you need effects (good ones!). One great clean channel. Has all of the features I need (3 band EQ and reverb). I use this amp for rehearsal, live playing. It's 50 watts, class AB, etc. amp. Oh yeah, 1X12" speaker - more on this below...

I use this with a Les Paul Standard and a Tube Screamer. Let's discuss the speaker. I've alway loved the sound of this amp at low to medium volumes (1-3 on vlume knob), but there was a slightly nagging problem with the tone at higher volumes - a bit of a shrill treble sound. I've always had to put the treble at about 3 to avoid this. Also, the speaker would get a bit flubby on the bass end in live situations (bass was typically EQ'd at 4 or 5). These problems were solved with a speaker replacement. The original speaker in this amp is an Eminence Legend 125 (75Watts, 1.5" voice coil, 34 oz magnet). The speaker is voiced for vintage rock and roll tone with an emphasis on the top end (see their web site for complete specs). Because I wanted a fuller tone with more headroom, I went with the Eminence Legend 121 (150 Watts, 2" voice coil, 38oz magnet). The tone change floored me. The new speaker doesn't get flubby at high volumes and I've lost the ice pick trebles. Now it has a warm, clear sound that stands up to the amps power (which is considerable). I now set the treble EQ at about 5 or 6 and the high end is very smooth and pleasant sounding. The added warmth makes this sound like a 2X12" cabinet. Also, the new speaker has increased the volume a bit - not bad. Other folks' reviews have slammed the stock speaker in this amp as crappy, but its really in the design intent of the speaker and what you want from it. This is something to consider when choosing this amp. As far as distortion goes, I didn't want this early in the volume range from the speaker, because I use a Tube Screamer for that. The net - I'm very pleased with this amp's performance and have learned a lesson on how much the speaker impacts the tone of an amp. By the way, avoid the gain boost on this amp - not very musical to my ears anyway - maybe this worked when this amp used to come with EL-34 tubes...with the 6L6's - it sounds harsh.

The foot switch for this amp developed problems (Crackling with sudden volume drops). This is important since you need the footswitch hooked in to NOT have the gain boost on. If you unplug the footswitch, its on all of the time! Kind of the reverse of what you'd expect. No problem, I just use the footswitch from my crate and it works fine. This happened after the five year warranty period so I eventually have to buy another one. The amp itself has done countless playing sessions without a problem.

Awesome. Had an issue with my Crate (Ampeg and Crate both are SLM Electronic and have same warranty) and it was serviced promptly under warranty.

I've been playing 25 years and have been through many amps (some very good). I think this amps strikes a great balance of power, portability and tone. I don't want any other effects on board this amp since I like having that stuff separate from the amp (less complexity and stuff to break). Generally speaking, SLM Electronics provides a good product and stands behind it for a reasonable price.

My Ampeg was made in 2000. The amp is versatile enough for playing different styles of music, mainly blues, classic rock, country, jazz. If you want to rock out, get a distortion pedal. It has two channels- clean and overdrive with a footswitch. This is a tube amp, how many features do you need or expect? It does have a nice reverb, which is footswitchable. Bass, middle, and treble as well. I use this amp for jamming at home and jamming with the guys. It certainly has the tone and volume to play a pretty big gig at 50 watts. But if you are a stadium player you better mic it up and run it through a P.A. system.

I play a Fender MIM Standard Strat and a Les Paul Studio. They both sound awesome through this amp! They both have the stock pickups in them. This amp suits my music styles very well. It has great clean, round tube tone. When I want distortion I don't use the overdrive channel because it just dosen't have enough distortion for me. So I use stompboxes. They do great! I play everything from Willie Nelson to the Deftones. Great for all styles of music. It is not very noisy. There is some noise, but no more than any other tube amp. If you are concerned about that, go buy a solidstate!!They just hum a little, depending on where you are standing. When you turn the volume to 4 it really starts to break up and get distorted. But again, if I want distortion I plug in my Metal Zone and I can adjust the distortion level from nothing to brutal assult.

I used to own an Ampeg Reverberocket 212r. I had it for three or four years and never had a problem with it. I suspect this Ampeg SuperJet will be just as reliable. I certainly would use this for a live gig, no hesitation. Very reliable!!

I have not had to deal with Ampeg or St. Louis Music Co., but a friend of mine has. Something was wrong with his Crate tube amp and St. Louis Music services both Ampeg and Crate. He had no problems with them and his amp came back in tip-top shape.

I love my SuperJet 12R. I got rid of the Reverberocket because it was too big and heavy for what I do. Plus I got the flavor for a Marshall. I bought a Marshall VS230r and was rather unimpressed--no real "tube sound". So I sold it and went back to all tube and I could not be happier. Once you go tube, you can't go back! I have been playing for about 20 years. I own an Alvarez RD20S acoustic guitar, a Les Paul Studio, a MIM Fender Strat, a Boss MT-2 Metal Zone, DOD chorus pedal, and a small solidstate Jordan amp. I love the tube sound this little amp produces. Every Ampeg I have ever heard has sounded great. If it were stolen I would put a claim in to my insurance company and have it replaced. I did compare it to other tube amps. I tested a Fender Blues Junior, a V Series V1512, and an Epiphone Galaxy 25. If I did not have a good friend who owns a music store, allowing me to get this Ampeg at a BELOW cost price, I would have gone out and bought the Epiphone Galaxy 25. It was not-as-much as the Fender or the V Series and it sounded better plus had more wattage. So if you want a nice tube amp and cannot afford the $600.00 price on this Ampeg, I say go for the Epiphone Galaxy 25 at $350.00. But truely the Ampeg is supreme!

1998. Versatile enough with effects in front. One channel. Feature desired - ext. cabinet jack and line out. More than enough power - I use it for gigs at parties, weddings, etc. We cover rock, jazz and blues stuff. Typical EQ (low mid high) and reverb.

Use with LP Standard, Strat Deluxe and Super 400. This amp is simple but its tone is incredible. I use the much maligned Roland GT-3 pedal through it and get essentially any sound I want. Very quiet. Covers all the bases (with effects). Clean channel starts to clip at about 5 -6 with a nice added punch with the Gain boost on the pedal. Distortion definitely not brutal, more classic.

So far - no problems. I do keep spare tubes in case. Same type so no rebiasing needed.

St. Louis Music Parent Company for SLM which makes Crate and Ampeg generally very friendly and helpful when you call.

I need to get another one of these amps for a backup (as a matter of policy when gigging - not because I don't trust this amp in particular). I ran it side by side with my Fender Custom Shop Dual Pro - The Ampeg comes out on top with tone complexity and tube spank. 100watts from the DP is just too aggressive even at low volumes. Been playing 25 years and would definitely replace if lost or stolen. What do I love about it - the tone, portability and volume. What do I hate? That I love it so much! Seriously - this amp is a no brainer - just hop on the Chord network and purchase it even if you've never heard it - you can't lose.