Carlsbro 50 top combo

2 inputs, 2 outputs, selectable 8 or 16 ohm impedence, bass/mid/treble controls and a volume. Single 12" fane 'Powertone' 60 watt speaker. It doesn't come any more simple than this.

The speaker is connected via jack socket, which is great, because you can easily hook up a power attenuator to control volume - and believe me you'll probably want to do this! It is unbelievably loud.

No headphone jack, no effects loop, no channels, no footswitchable boost, no reverb, no built in effects. If you want features, you'd best look elsewhere.

The amp distorts very easily with modern medium to high output pickups. I've found that to get a clean tone I need to set the guitars volume knob about '5' and then turn up the amp to the required volume. This however is a good thing. With no pedals at all you can go from relatively glassy clean to nice blues/rock overdrive simply by controlling things from the volume knob. The amp has a kind of shimmering harmonically complex tone when clean that IMO means it doesn't really need reverb.

The amp takes pedals very nicely, although I've found less is more when it comes to throwing in extra dirt. A boss SD-1 with the level about half way and the distortion about 1/3 of the way up drives the amp into a nice smooth 'violin' like overdrive which is perfect for solos. By the same token, throw too much dirt in and it'll sound mushy and decend into difficult to control feedback. Using an EQ pedal to emphasis the mids/highs and drive the amp a bit more can get you nice AC/DC type old school rock tones. For best results, use a power attenuator like the Marsall Powerbrake. IOW the amp itself provides alot of it's own 'dirt' when you push it, most of what you're hearing is tube saturation from the amp.

I've found the lack of effects loop is a slight problem, subtle delay effects tend to get pretty blurred to the point where you can't really tell if it is on or not if the amp is overdriving.

Overall, like the head (which I owned before buying this) it is one of the nicest amps you'll hear - so long as you know how to use it, but it really won't suit everyone.

It's been going since the 70's and shows no sign of stopping. I had it fully serviced right after I brought it (more for safety reasons than anything else) and it is simplicity itself and therefore there's less to go wrong. It hasn't let me down yet and I should imagine it is very unlikely to let me down in the future.

I've not contacted Carlsbro about this amp, I'd guess it is out of warranty - LOL. I do know they have forums and maintain an interest in their vintage gear, I also know from past experience with other Carlsbro products that they are pretty good at looking after their users. They can take a while to reply to emails though.

A great vintage style single channel amp for alot less beans than you'd spend if you brought one of the more famous brands. Something this devoid of features isn't going to suit everyone, but if you're after a simple, single channel, vintage style valve combo that won't spend half it's time in the repair shop you could do much, much worse.