Epiphone Electar Tube 10

For a small tube amp it has everything i could expect,the only thing that i wish it had was reverb,i would have gladly paid twice what i did for real spring reverb.
On an amp this small i was glad it at least had a gain knob,plus a mid knob.For the money i would have bought it without either

By itself it sounds good enough for practice and if blues is your thing you are set right out of the box.The speaker is lacking though but through a 4x12 it roars.Alot of people state they use a 1x12 or 2x12 or even a 10 inch,dont play around,just plug it into the same 4x12 as if it were a 50 or 100 marshal and it will push it.Analog effects make it really come to life and a tube screamer will really make you look twice at what you paid for it.I am giving it a 10 based on using a 4x12 an 8 for right out of the box

ive had this amp for 8 years and never a problem,the only thing i did to it was to put a new tubes in it,electroharmonics high gain pre and groove tube 6l6.I have had many tube amps melt down since i had this little beast and believe me i have pushed this one harder than all of the others.

This thing is now my main recording amp,on 10 it will rattle the walls but to get the tone i like a sure sm57 through a tube mic box with a tube screamer is it.You will swear the recorded sound came from a wall of stacks running at meltdown.For giging i have just got another tube 10 and use them in stereo with a 4x12 each,awesome.Any guitar i have plugged into it sounds great,turning the eq knobs really dials in the guitars tone.I guess the bottom line is this,anyone who wrote a bad review about this thing,email me at captnpolska@zoominternet.net,i will gladly take it off of your hands,i would fill a spare room with them if i could find enough and try different mods on them all.Every singl day of my life as i have my morning coffee i log onto e bay and type electar tube 10,you wont find many,in fact you will find more people trying to get out from under a princton.

Update!

You can use EL34 instead of 6L6.
No modification is needed.
Just replace 6L6 with EL34. Period.

Why do I replace it? It is because
the EQ circuit of Electar 10 is from
Marshall circuit. EL34 will make your amp
more Marshall-like sound. Moreover, it
will give more power. I think it is more
than 15W.

However, there are three minor problems.

The bias setting is not perfect. However, it is ok.
Don't worry. The amp will not explode.
You will forget 6L6.

(|It was measured 410V in the plate, and 30V
(470 ohms) in the cathode with EL34.|)

Another one is heater voltage. 6L6 needs
6.3V-0.9A, but EL34 needs 6.3V-1.5A.
it was measured 5.9V with EL34.(6.3V is normal.)The power
transformer does not support more than 1.5A, I guess.
5.9V is not bad. Some guitarists like to drop heater
voltage in order to make more dirty tone.

The third is hum. It seems to be resulted from lowered
heater voltage. However, I do not feel disturbed by the hum.
It is very small amount of hum.

Someday, I will add 6.3V transformer to Electar 10.
I can examine some space between power tube socket
and voltage selecter. (You may find it in Radioshack.)
And I will test 6550

I am the guy who posted in 08/21/2005 17:26.
Some people have asked more information.

@Larger speaker (10-inch): MOD 10 is used. However, don't do it. Do Mod 8. I carved cabinet in order to install it. Mod 10 is too tall for electar 10. (But, Now, I have much more bass.)

@Bigger transformer: Hammond 125CSE. (I did not use electric drill but nail and hammer to make hole for new bolts.)

@Better capacitors: Wima MKP10 grade. Tantalum Capacitor for bypass.

@Removing R5: You can see what it is if you open back panel. Numbers are marked on the pcb surface.

If you are afraid of hacking the amp. Do two things.

First, remove R5 (just cut the lead), then feel what's going on.

Second change speaker. After you remove R5, you will find original speaker cannot hold tone.

You will find Electar 10 becomes a cying little beast. It runs more versatile from clean to rock.

ps@When you replace speaker, remember it works in 4ohm.

Basic No frills class A amp, with 3band eq, gain, volume, pre-amp out.

Very sturdy build, with tube cage protection.

For a basic tube amp (class A!) the features are what you expect.

Sounds excellent. Depending upon the pickups you will want to dial in master and gain from 3 to 8, then turn down the volume on your guitar to get that nice class A compressed tone. For weaker pickups or for a nice overdrive tone, just add a pedal (of choice). A little boost to the front-end, provides a natural tube overdrive in excess of the nice overdrive tones available with the amp alone. Some may find the use of a boost pedal unnecessary, as I do. All the breakup I need can come from adjusting the gain and master controle.

The amp sounds GREAT (not good, but excellent) with an external cab (1x12, 4x12, or 2x12). And it is much louder with external high grade speaker cabs. This is where the amp tone controls (and guitar volume control) are really noticible (and necessary to get the sound you are looking for). Some cabs can have too much base or treble, and the 3 band eq helps with this.

I depend on this amp for stand-alone practice and for rehersal and gigging.

This amp is the most solid little combo / head I have seen on the market. Well, if you take care of any combo and don't throw it around it will be more reliable.

Never needed it.

I own a few amps, and I like to play and reherse with this one as it really brings out the tone of any guitar nicely.

No longer available new, you will find them used from several sources, for example, ebay and http://guitar-gear-for-sale.blogspot.com/

Just make sure you get one that isn't all beat up. These amps are built well, but why buy one that has been rusting away and might have corrosion problems due to basement or garage storage?

Master Vol, Pre-Volume, 3-EQs, STBY SW, Preamp-out, Speaker Extension (Original speaker off when extension works).....Well, this small amp has a lot of features!

Well, althoguht it uses 6L6GC in around 420V, its sound is neither hot nor loud. If you are going to use this amp for practice, it is ok. However, who the hack gonna use 10W tube just for practice? 1

I found that this amp has some problems in parts. The 8-inch Speaker is really sucks! The output transformer is as small as my thumbnail. It is not enough to push 10W power.

So, that's the reason why I modified it. I did five parts: larger speaker (10-inch), bigger transformer, better capacitors, removing R5 (for more gain), NOS tubes.

It is well built with strong cabinet. The wiring seems to be very firm. Man, this small amp is really built. I really want to thank to its manufacturer.

I have never contacted.......

Well, the modified Electar 10 sounds monsterous tone. It is easy to break up. I play it with small and cheap digitech multi-effector (RP80).

single-end 2-tube amp with 8" speaker. No effects, nothing but a line out for other speakers. I use this for recording...but it's a catch 22 amp...too loud for small sound, not loud enough for big sounds. I have repaced almost everything in this amp and now it sounds very good...and the replacement parts/work still come in under $150 bucks for everything!

Im running a strat clone with black velevet bridge and duckbucker neck position pickups...in trying to recapture my old princeton sounds, this has come closest. The Electar was taken apart and rebuilt with some orange drop cap.s, a new weber ceramic non-ribbed cone, a mullard and RCA old tube, and I built a 5ply birch cabinet (open) which basically led to a completely different amp in the end. BUT, all very easy (im no electrical expert) and inexpensive to do, and the end result is a very sweet and reliable amp! I now keep treble around 3, mid from nothing to 4 and bass almost all the way up! 11! It seems to truly sound like a baby bassman with a few princetoon trebly sounds at times. Good for almost all except heavy/distorted music styles (unless using a distortion pedal...then it's ...ok) My style is more sick bees than slick new stuff so this amp is perfect...a little champ on roids maybe!

Oh so very reliable. BUT MOST of the schematic pages for this MOD have been taken off the net, though there are still one or two...., get'em while you can! IF ANYONE has a MOD for this as a 2 speaker cabinet (what Im doing with next electar) please contact me martinomron@hotmail.com

Is there ever a good customer support for any non-custom music stuff? Let me know!

A great deal for reliablity, you could probably get a better sounding airline or old kay amp on ebay but how long would it last if it has not been tinkered correctly with? Get this, build it right and it should last for (ever?) more than 20 years or till the transformers blow/leak/disintegrate...a BONUS IS when the webers break in and come into their own, the sound just gets better.

Maybe 5 watts? (it's not as loud as my 1966 5-watt Silvertone tube amp though). Gain, Bass, Middle, Treble, Volume. Two tubes (couldn't tell what kind). Tubes were encaged in... well, a cage. Speaker out and preamp out. No reverb.

I play in a live band using Mesa Rectifiers and Les Pauls. I have Fender guitars that I like to kick back on jazz and blues with, so I tried this amp in the store. I tried a Fender '65 Deluxe Reverb Reissue, and two Ampegs: a J12T 15-watter with a single tone control and tremolo, and a SJ12R which is a 50-watter with full tone controls and reverb. There was something I didn't like about the tone of each of those. My opinion is that, although this Electar is not necessarily a better amp, it has the most rounded tone out of the bunch. The other amps were either too bright, too dark, too big and heavy, etc. This little electar is a nice amp for home/porch practice. It doesn't have much headroom at all, and with the volume cranked and the gain on 2 or 3 you can hear it begin to distort, so I'd say it does blues more than jazz. For a tiny 5-watt tube amp @ around $249., you can't possibly go wrong.

The one I tried has a metal cage surrounding the tubes. The Output tube also has a metal plate on the end of it with two springs holding the tube in nice and tight. That's better quality than you'll see on Peavey's Classic 30, whose tubes all stick out in the open. However, on this amp the 2 springs vibrated sympathetically with the guitar and made a weird noise- the tube seemed to amplify the spring vibration. I moved the tube around and it seemed to stop. Other than that, they seem built ok. The knobs are a bit cheesey maybe.

The only things I didn't like were the lack of headroom (I'll check out the 30-watt version), and the fact that the Bass was as loud as it can go by the time the knob gets to 3. There's a very small window where it seems the bass is either all the way up or all the way down. They should really even that out across the entire range of the knob's turn. That kind of thing on any amplifier (and it's common) annoys me.

see other reviews

Belive it or not i swapped mine for my old Marshell JCM800 valve head and cab (ok I got a les Paul as well) and I'm actually very happy with it. I finally had to admit to myself that having a 100 watt valve amp just was'nt oractical and wanted a valve amp I could actually use, this seems to fit the bill perfectly. Apart from reverb it has all the knobs you would need and sounds like...well a small valve amp, what more can you want. I would say it has a tendency to muddy the low end, but the mids and highs are warm and rounded as only valves can make them. Played it with a le Paul, and a vintage strat and have to admit, the single coils seemed to react much better. Low ends with humbukcers can be smoothed with tweakage.

seems fine, oly had a few weeks though

never had to deal with them

If you're in a metal band and are intending to play Wembly statium, don't bother. After reading article after article about how to get the sweetest tone out of a valve amp I was persuaded that you really can't the sounds you want unless you push the valves. Valves at low volumes just don't distort enough and don't warm up enough and end up sounding not even as good as a ss amp. Enter the 10 or 30 watt models. If you want more volume for gigs, put it through the PA. This amp is bluesy and jazzy, its thats your thing buy it, if you want a heavier sound, buy something else. Simple.

Just an additon to my previous review... I ended my eperiement with this amp many months ago. I passed along my web page of mods to several interested parties. I believe that, if you look hard enough, you will find them hosted somewhere on the WWW.

Please understand that I neither have the space to host the mods page any longer nor the personal bandwidth to respond to email requests and questions about them.

I still think it's a "pretty good" amp overall and a great deal for the $$$. Take care.

Bought in June, 2000. Basic tube practice amp. Not at all loud.

Disapointing.

Didn't keep it long enough.

Music Yo is great to deal with as long as you're willing to do it online. I've bought a few other things from them and have been happy with their service.

I've been playing blues, classic rock and everything else as the needed, for about 35 years. I'd been looking for a low cost practice amp for the apartment. I bought this on a whim and after reading some of the other reviews. To put it bluntly, I was thoroughly disappointed. I never really found a sound I liked and if I would've, I couldn't hear it. It wasn't even loud enough for apartment life. I kept it for 5 days and sent it back and bought it's bigger brother, which I am quite pleased with. Especially since they lowered the price to $129 and gave me a $10 online coupon. For $119.00 plus shipping, this is the deal of the year. More about that under the electar 30 ratings.