Carlsbro TC-60 Head

british handwired amp ,class AB,plexi panel,2 channels.
Bags of TONE! that's a feature that will beat any other feature in any amps!

Mustard caps,beefy transformers,and VOLUME. This is very loud. Like the other user said,the amp has a lot of headroom. It stays clean into the Hiwatt territory,and then once you are deaf,it will give you a wonderful Plexi sound

excellent quality,they don't make them like this anymore!

Bought this amp for a bargain price with no valves,the cab was tatty & there was a bit of tidying up internally (a few resistors changed & bias pot added ),theres not a lot to these amps which is why they work so well.No bells & whistles to interfere with signal path, just great trannies & proven vintage components (Mullard caps etc).Mine is a 1970 model, no standby switch with the black slanted front panel,it has separate bass, treble & vol for each channel & a shared Topcut.I'm gonna give this a 10 for features cos it hasn't really got any,it just oozes Tone & loves pedals.Oh almost forgot it's bloody loud.

I use a Yamaha rgz custom & play anything from soul/blues to ac/dc,though to Trivium,the only padal i use is a Shredmaster clone i made.you have to back the drive of as the vol increases & the amps natural drive starts to kick in.Played clean it sounds great "another brick in the wall" sound with bridge & middle pickup.
The amp itself is very quiet when not playing & makes a great practice amp as there is still good tone & sustain at bedroom levels, especially with humbuckers. These amps sound that good i have bought 3 more in different variations

Had the amp about 6 months,very easy to work on & built like a tank, because it's hardwired it's easy to see what's going on & if there are any probs. Since i got it running it's not missed a beat.

Possibly the most helpful manufacturer on the web, the Carlsbro forum is a mine of info & lots of support from vintage Bro owners. Unfortunatley the warranty ran out 37yrs ago.

Been playing seriously for the last 3 yrs & have a Marshall 6100lm & 1987x , z-vex nano & 5 Carlsbro's ,just sold T&B100.Expensive hobby trying to find the tone i wanted along with the versatility.For me the 60tc does it all, theres nothing else i want from it.Content at last & at a bargain bucket price,"listen with your ears not your eyes".

I think it's from around '68-'70. I bought it secondhand in Mansfield and as far as I know, It's been in Nottinghamshire all it's life. There's an original sticker on the back that reads; "Supplied by Carlsbro Sound Centre, Mansfield." As everyone else has said, it's a 60w all-valve head. Due to the design, it's as loud as you like. If I had a 100w version, I'd run it with only 2 output valves, as this one is loud enough for me! Features-wise it's like most 1960s valve amps; 2 channels with 2 inputs each, treble and bass controls for each channel but with a 'top-cut' control for the first one. 2 Speaker outputs and that's your lot! Not even a standby switch.

It only breaks up at the very top of the volume range, by which time, homeland security will have surrounded your house. Perfect for bass as it has so much clean headroom. Lovely for guitar as well, just use footpedals for different sounds.

When I got this, I think it had the original valves, which were on the way out and continuously popped. I put nice new ones in (Groove Tubes) and it sounded great. I had to leave it in a garage for a couple of years and the roof leaked, causing severe structural damage to the matching (huge) 4x12 that came with it. I didn't have much hope for the head, but when I turned it on it sounded perfect, no background noise at all! I've had to replace the pots and knobs and a lot of the hardware that had rusted out, but it's still perfectly usable!

Carlsbro have promised me a circuit diagram for this, but as the only parts that needed replacing are the pots, I don't think I'll need it. I've read about bias modifications for these amps, but it sounds fine to me as it is. Carlsbro certainly seem friendly and responsive.

I've been playing a variety of instruments all my life. When I bought this head, I was playing the guitar a lot, but it's been more useful for bass than anything else. I'd hate to have to buy a replacement, especially as they're worth more now. When I got this in the late 90s, old British valve amps like this and Selmers were very cheap and undesirable, now people seem to be catching on that they sound so nice and aren't even comparable to modern-day amps. I'm not the sort of guitarist who's obsessed with blues tones and researches valve types etc. just a producer/musician who needs a nice sounds to record and a loud, clean amp for gigs. The Carlsbro is a wild amp and I'll never leave it to rot in a garage again!

i believe this amp was made in 69. it is really versatile ranging from fender twin clean(up to very loud) into ac30 esq distortion into the ear breaking range. its a 60 watt all valve amp and its
LOUD! the only feature i wish it had would be a master volume so you could drive it at lower volumes but thats just not as rock.

I use it with my home made 2x12 which uses a celestion green back and a vintage 30 celestion the cab really suits the head and is less directional than a 4x12. Through this i run my Gibson custom shop les paul which has emgs so it drives it really nicely. this amp really suits my bands indie rock stlye but it would adapt to many other stlye for example blues jazz or classic rock basically anything except metal its only downfall is that it is just too loud for some venues.

It is really dependable for its age but obviously its an old amo so it has had to have some repairs along the way but the tone is alwasys great and it has taken a fair few knocks and kept going.

I recently emailed carlsbro about the amp and what valves it would have used new and they where very helpfull and got back to me really quickly and where really helpfull

overall its a great sounding amp loud enough to keep up and the tone is as good as almost any amp you would care to mention imagine fender twin crossed with a vox ac30 but louder and much cheaper.

Just as a follow up to this great amp I reviewed a couple years ago.

It stays sparkly clean (Hiwatt/Sound City) up till about nausea inducing volume and then (with industrial strength hearing protection Marshally crunchy creamy dreamy and naturally screamy goodness about 7-10.

Still going great and has never even cut out. Some crackle with one of the pots but barely and this is usual for an amp this old. The rest of the pots go "clink" "clink" as the knobs hit the stops when the amp is on (that's some pretty cool sensitivity).

This is the part where I wanted to emphasize how cool these guys at Carlsbro are: I had requested some information via e-mail about the TC60 and not only did I get a response 4 days later, several pages of hand copied literature with certain parts hand highlited for referance, were sent to me along with a catalog of new amps and even old ads and a copy of an old catalog for the TC line amps. I'd like to see Peavey or Ampeg do this.

Go out and get one for around $400 before they shoot up in value. These tube Carlsbro's are too cool. They are even reissuing the 50 top amps along with a combo version and a higher gain version of the 50 top. Very neato. This is an amp company to watch.

I bought this amp on e-bay for about 380 bucks. It is in very good condition so I can't really say how old it truly is. '69-'77 is what I can imagine. It's in pretty shape but the graphics on the front look like they were designed by someone at Maytag. Looks aside this thing has 4 inputs (2 channels?) and treble, bass, volume on one side and treble, bass, response, volume, limiter (which is kind of a neat compressor-master volumesqe thing) and presence. It has 2XEL34 and 3XECC83 and 2 Dreggs (sic?) transformers. This thing is utillitarian but made for rock and roll. LOUD rock and roll.

I live in Austin Texas and after i recieved the amp I brought it to a local tonemeister who sevices amps for Eric Johnson (okay there is the name drop). He told me the amp was perfect aside from needing a power cable to suit USA wall outlets-which he constructed with the Bulgin mains output I had ordered. He personally owns 2 Carlsbros (one TC60 and a 120 watter) and told me that there were now THREE Carlsbros in the city. Like an older Marshall, this thing needs to be CRANKED. And when it is it can knock over blowout Crate halfstacks and small animals at 40 yards. The tone is vintage Marshall. It has to be as these things are built exactly the same way. For ALOT cheaper! The tone is AC/DC. The other tone is AC/DC. And if you want killer gain, just plug in a pedal of your liking. Even the shittiest pedal will sound good. I have a 60 (more like 100) watt dusty cookie. SWEET but overlooked.

The company still exists but i don't think (knock on wood) I will need them. Other than recieving new caps and tubes before I recieved it, it needs nothing (except maybe Madison Square Garden).

They still exist across the pond but I have not needed them (knock on wood again).

I use a '78 Gibson LP Custom with humbuckers, which is nice and thick thru it and a Danelectro (reissue Yamaha) Seal-Pickguard thing which has lipstick tube (really just single coil) pickups and, although thinner sounding-still very nice. I sometimes use a Bixionic Expandora for higher gain sounds but find myself just cranking the thing with no effects and watching the windows rattle. This amp is basically a older Marshall (JTM to 1987 plexi reissue) at a lower price. Get one. Or two.