Beltone AP-14 Combo

I don't technically have a Beltone AP-14- I have the same amp under the Melody nameplate. Teisco made both of them in Japan in the '60s, and I think I read the Beltone was more common in Canada.

It is somewhere around 5 watts, one power tube (6AR5 which I have substituted a 6AQ6 for) and has tremelo. It also had multiple jacks for different instruments- I find the jack closest to the tremelo control gives me the best sound on my single coil guitars.

I use this amp at home so far, and the power is perfect for that. I might use in in church someday too. It has great tube tone. Someone replaced the original 8" speaker with a 12" Electrovoice Wolverine that gave it a cool crystalline sound, but had done a mickeymouse job mounting it which caused weird buzzes.
In the process of remounting it properly, I tore a hole in the cone!
Now I'm running it through a 10" Eminence Alnico, and it sounds very good through that, nice bluesy sound.

One thing I found is that in it's present condition, the amp can get very bright, I keep the tone dialed down low, maybe about 1, if there were numbers.

One trick I found is to turn the tremelo control on, but keep it low, so the tremelo isn't audible. This give it a rich mellowing effect which counteracts some of the treble, and since it has a footswitch jack, it could be used as a mild "channel switch".

Some previous owner put an external speaker jack in it, which has been handy, and would be especially handy if you were using the original 8" speaker.

I'm using it with:
1. MIM Strat with Callaham trem block and Mighty Mite Alnico single coils, and a split Duncan Invader in the bridge. I always use the Invader split, and it sounds like a Tele bridge pup that way.
But I actually use the neck pickup more.
2. Hamer branded superstrat with wood mounted pickups and a Strat trem.
I mostly use a DiMarzio virtual vintage pickup (DP408 I think) in the neck position
3. Hardtail Strat- a Tom Delonge model I converted to a normal Strat pickguard setup with GFS Tele-sounding pickups in the neck and bridge.
I've intentionally tried to move it towards a more Tele-ish sound, with some success.
4. Parts Strat with a mahogany body and an ebony fingerboard, DiMarzio virtual vintage DP402 Blues in the neck and an HS-3 in the bridge.
The amp sounds good with all the guitars and allows their individual characters to shine through.
It suits my bluesy style perfectly. It seems to also like my T-Rex Alberta and Danelectro Cool Cat Drive (the silver one) pedals.

It is somewhat noisy at present. The back cover is missing, and I suspect that had some foil shielding, and a pic I found of the Beltone AP-14
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11903466@N08/2517699094/in/set-72157604666386985/
shows a shielding plate on the left underneath the jacks that is missing on mine. If a guitar has good shielding the hum is mild, if the guitar has any hum, it's super loud on this amp, don't know why.
I do have hope that some of the hum is solvable, since there is very little in the way of shielding at present.

Well, a contributing factor might be that I do like both the tone and volume level with the volume knob on 10- it's not very loud that way. The tone quality at that point is what I call "verge clean"- it's clean, but on the verge of breakup.
Double stops have a smeared quality without going into real distortion, and everything sounds a bit mellower than a regular clean.
So regular clean and verge clean (especially with the tremelo set low trick) are the only sounds you will get without a pedal.
That suits me fine, though.

The tubes are a bit unusual- they aren't in production.
Luckily I found a tube chart right next to the photo above:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11903466@N08/2516416605/in/set-72157604666386985/
I bought some NOS tubes to replace the old tubes, and that improved the sound. I got them at hamtubes.com in Ohio.
They weren't expensive at all and are pretty common; evidently 6AV6 tubes are common in old radios, so were 6AR5s, and their 6AQ5 substitutes. The 6X4 tube rectifier is a little unusual, but hamtubes.com has it.
With the old tubes the sound was good, but with the NOS tubes it's exquisite... except for the hum, which I'll deduct a point for!

It's point to point wiring, and the jacks are solid, if a bit sticky.
The cabinet is super light, great for carrying, but don't sit on it!
The handle needs to be replaced.

The Teisco company is long gone.
It looks like it would be pretty easy to repair though.

I started playing guitar at 14, and I'm 57, but except for a stint in a typically bad high school rock band in 1967-68, my main electric guitar experience is in the last 10 years.
I own a Fender Pro Junior (15 watts) and an Epiphone Valve Junior (5 watts), and also an odd tube amp I bought in the same deal as this one I'm reviewing that was made from an old tube radio and has the same 6AV6 preamp tube and 6X4 rectifier tube, but has an EL 84 power tube.
Since the Pro and Valve Junior amps are EL84 based, that's convenient, and since the Teisco Melody/Beltone has the same preamp and rectifier tubes, that's convenient too.
If it was stolen or lost, I would definitely be on the lookout for another, but it might be a little hard to find.
The outside of the amp is a bit beat up and cheesy looking in a 60's Japanese kind of way- plus mine is RED!!! ;-P
The Beltone in the picture looks nicer!
But I don't really care, it's about the tone.
At the time I bought it, there was also a Blues Junior for a great price on Craigslist- I went for this one because it was half the price and point to point wiring, so I figured it would be more repairable, plus I know the Blues Jr. is heavier than the Pro Junior, but just as loud. So I went for this, and I'm glad I did.
Low volume practice is a priority where I live!
It is also comparable to my Epiphone Valve Junior.
It would also be comparable to a 60's or 70's Champ or a Champion 600.
This is way cheaper than a vintage Champ, and has more room for speaker options than a Champion 600.
The Beltone/Melody has a tube rectifier (the Valve Junior doesn't), and I'm beginning to think I like it.

I will probably replace the speaker with a Jensen MOD 12", since those are highly spoken of and don't have a really strong tonal color- I'm hoping for a sound halfway between the Wolverine it came with and the Alnico Eminence I'm playing it through now.

This amp was made by Teisco in Japan circa 1957 and distributed in Canada under the Beltone name. It has 1 mic and 3 guitar inputs (single channel) and an input jack for a fooswitch for the tremolo circuit. It has a volume, a tone and an off-on-speed control for the tremolo. The tube line-up is: (2) 6AV6 triodes for the preamp stage and another 6AV6 for the trem circuit; a 6X4 rectifier; a 6AR5 for the output, rated at about 3.4 WRMS max, singled-ended output. Mine has (rare) blonde tolex and a 10" alnico speaker with a DIE-CAST aluminum basket! All the wiring is point-to-point. All the original resistors were the "dog-bone" type. Had to change out a couple of those that had gone off value. The tremolo wasn't working either so my tube-techie friend John had to replace a few original (oil-filled?) capacitors with newer "orange" ceramics. That did the trick. The amp is very clean at all volumes until max where it gets a bit of crunch. It has that distinctive "tube" sound and is great as a practice amp and would also work on-stage in a small venue, miced through the mains.
Like I said, the sound is clean. If you want all those "modern" sounds, stick effects pedals between it and your guitar. I use a Zoom 505II and that does the job. I play mostly Blues, Country-rock and vintage R&R. This amp sounds good with all of those.

I use an SX SST strat copy fitted with vintage 70's alnico single-coil pups and a Turser JT-134 jazzbox with dual humbuckers, both played through my Zoom 505II (which I've programmed after scrapping ALL the stock patches). The amp itself is dead quiet when idling (rare for a tube amp) and comes to life when the guitar's signal is applied to it. As mentioned before, the amp doesn't have a whole lot of versatility as far as sound is concerned. It basically has a "clean tube" sound. Well, it's easy to "dirty up" a clean amp but impossible to clean up a dirty one without a lot of re-wiring, etc. So, I'll take a clean amp any day of the week.
This amp was designed as a "practice" amp back in the 50's~60's so don't expect it to be a 100W Marshall stack. But if what you want is a great little practice amp that will perform well without bustin' your ears or your pocketbook, an amp that has withstood the test of time, well, this one fills the bill.

Considering that this amp is almost 50 years old and was all original when I got it and still working (except for the tremolo), well, says a lot for that old point-to-point wired all-tube technology. Sure, a couple of resistors had gone off-value and a couple of capacitors had failed, but nothing that couldn't be diagnosed and fixed by anybody that knows how to do a bit of trouble-shooting, diagnostics, and knows how to use a multimeter, a capacitor-tester and tube-tester. That's the nice thing about the old vintage tube stuff. It's easily repairable as opposed to all the "planned obsolescence" garbage-bin-filling technology that has since taken over the world.

Teisco went out of business a long time ago. But, this "old technology", as stated above, is easily repairable. Change out some resistors, capacitors, tubes, all readily available, and there you go. And it will survive a nuclear holocaust (why do you think the Army, Navy, NSA etc., still use tube tech as backups?)
Fortunately there are still a fair amount of "tube techies" around and a lot of info available on the net so with a little bit of searching, one can find somebody who can still service this stuff, and usually at a reasonable price because those old guys love working on this tube stuff.

I've been playing since 1964 and have owned a lot of gear over the years. "Practice amps" like this one were common when I started out and often were the only ones that a lot of us budding wannabe R&R stars could afford. Eventually we moved "up" to Harmonys, Gibsons or Fenders. In 1965, when I got my first gig as lead guitar in an R&R band, I bought a used '63 Fender blackface Bandmaster with 2X12" cab. Who'da thought that those Beltones, Kents, Kays, Pauls, Silvertones and a host of others would become desirables and collectibles?
In the late 60's, solid-state amps took over the market. Fortunately, things have gone full circle. Those old tube amps have a sound all their own and have withstood the test of time. They are still the hallmark against which any new amp is compared. Tone monsters. Need I say more?