Epiphone Electar Tube 10

This is a single channel, 10 watt(?), class-A, tube amp. I question the 10 watt rating, because this thing is barely audable. It really lacks any sort of clean headroom. I believe that the reason for this is perhaps due to the use of a very inefficeint speaker. The controls are gain, bass, mid, treble, and master volume.

With humbuckers, this thing turns to mud immediately. I can't even get an adequate clean volume for late night practice. I returned the unit for a refund, less a loss of shipping expenses. Note: the cabinet is very tiny (just enough room for the slim 8" stock speaker), so you can't install an efficeint 10" or 12" speaker in this box. No useful sound here for me!

The unit was received damaged. The 6L6 tube was shattered.

Electar amps are no longer made - good luck getting support.

Save your money for a real amp with a real speaker.

This little tube amp is THE best buy in low-powered amplifiers. Great features such as standby switch and sealed back cabinet with a protective grille around the tubes. Three tone controls and a gian knob, in additon to volume.

As it came from the box, it sounded good. But I'm a tinkerer, so I couldn't leave well enough alone. First, I replaced the stock speaker with a Weber Signature model. Theni started on the tubes: tried a Svetlana 6L6GC and a NOS Sylvania, but ended up staying with the stock Sovtek 5881. I tested it with the following preamp tubes: NOS GE 12ax7, NOS RCA 12ax7a, ans Sovtek 12ax7wa, 12ax7wxt+ and 12ax7LPS. Of all of these, the Sovtek 12ax7LPS had the best tone (at least, to my ears. By making these changes, the volume seems to have increased noticeably and the controls are more responsive. Has a great bluesy sound and the gain control isn't overly sensitive, as on some amps.

I've only had this amp since late last year, but it's holding up well so far.

What's that?

What a bargain! Just a shade under ninety dollars for a great looking, great sounding tube combo. Don't let this one slip away from you.

10 watt combo Class A tube amp. Gain, Volume, Treble, Mid, Bass controls. Input, Pre-Amp Out, Ext Speaker jacks. Standby & Power toggle switches. Comes with a Philip JAN 12AX7WA preamp tube & a Sovtek 5881/6L6WGC power tube which are protected by a metal cage. It uses an Electar Labs 8" speaker which has a ceramic magnet.

Stock, this $89 amp sounds good for the money. Its clean sound is okay, but its distortion sounds very farty. Here's what I did to make this amp a gem.

1) Ditch the stock speaker and get a Weber C8SS speaker ($19). This dramatically increases the amp's volume and ability to reproduce a good overdriven sound.

2) Replace the Sovtek 5881 power tube with a Svetlana 6L6GC ($15). This will smooth out the overdrive nicely.

3) Replace the Philips 12AX7WA preamp tube! I tried a Sovtek 12AX7LPS, but after making the above mods, I starting getting breakup as soon as I brought the gain above 2. I then tried a GE JAN 5751 ($10). Much better! Breakup now starts at a 4 for humbuckers and 5 for single coil pickups.

After making the above "mods", the amp is great! Tone, tone, tone! It's still not loud enough to compete with a drummer (but maybe an external speaker cab with a couple of 12" speaker would fix that?) Clean: it's warm and the 5751 is bright enough to counter the amp's bassy-ness. Overdriven: great "brown sound" and nice growl when you turn the gain up. An 8" speaker will always sound a bit "boxy" when distorted, but the amp is so small (12"h x 14.5"w x 7"d) it's a small price to pay.
I rate the sound a 6 stock and a 10 after my substitutions.

The amp is well constructed (with the exception of the plastic jacks). Metal corners on 6 of the 8 corners and no exposed tolex seams means it travels well. No rattles when I turn it up (which was rather surprising). I've only had this amp a couple of weeks so I really can't comment on reliability yet.

As others have mentioned, the pidgeon-english manual is entertaining. Here's a quote: "STAND-BY -- After find its power s/w on, then amplifier can be worked with STAND-BY NO. If STAND-BY OFF, Its tube sound will be off."
This is a discontinued model and from what I've read, Gibson plays dumb when you call them about it. So basically, you're on your own.
(No schematics are provided with it, but I managed to find them at someone's web site.)

I bought the Electar Tube 10 because I wanted to tinker with a cheap, Class A tube amp. It was well worth the money. I now like it better than my Fender Blues Junior. If something happened to this "throw away" amp, I would immediately buy another one (assuming I could find another one)

Gain, Master Volume and three band EQ. Decent but not stellar feature set.

Guitars: PRS Standard w/Duncan Seth Lovers, Fender '57 RI Strat w/Duncan Antiquitys.

Even thought this is a super low volume amp, I prefer to dial in a low gain sem-clean tone and use my pedalboard. I think the low gain tones are by far the best. The higher gain quasi Boogie tones just don't get it for me. I prefer the sound of my Fulldrive.

I bought this amp for essentially one gig: playing in church.

Out of the box, this amp is a little on the polite side.

After Mods/Tweaks, the tones are Workmanlike but not stellar. However, it delivers them at the whisper-quiet stage levels I need. Hey, it was either this amp or I was gonna have to buy a POD. I was out of options. The sealed cab does not bleed into other musicians' monitor space. Sound guy loves it. Sounds big when mic'd.

Construction is much better than one has a right to expect in an $89 amp. Most low $$$ tube amps mount the tube sockets directly to the PCB. That gurantees that all the heat from the tubes will get coupled to the PCB. Bad, bad, bad.

This amp mounts the tube sockets on the chassis, then uses flying leads to connect the tubes to the PCB (ala Mesa Boogie). Switches are high quality; pots and jacks "not so much;" speaker sucks.

Hard to find better bang for the buck. After you add tax and shipping, this amp will cost you about $115 delivered to your door. I replaced the stock speaker with a Weber Signature ($27.50 shipped). So my total cost in this amp is around $150. Still, I can't imagine a better sounding amp for the money. Like I said, I got the church sound guy off my back. That alone is worth what I paid for it.

I made some mods to the circuitry that really improved the sound. If you're thinking of doing any mods, I have a web page where you can download a schematic and see what I've done: http://members.home.net/mtatro/Electar10Mods.htm

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. This is a great little "project amp."

Bottom line: I've played it, I've gigged it. It doesn't embarrass me and it cost next to nothing. If you need a super low volume amp, get one while you can.

Small tube practice amp. 10 watts, 8" speaker. Appears to be well made. Nothing out there beats the bang for buck. Cant believe these things are selling new for $90.

This little amp sounds great. I was leary of purchasing this amp sight unseen, but after playing through this amp with my Lonestar Strat & Teleacaster I am satisfied this is one great price value. My Line-6 AX-212 sounds better but at 9 times the price. My Blues Jr also has good sound but the Tube 10 can be cranked at bedroom levels to get a great blues distortion. Blues Jr is too loud for this.

Apears well built but too soon to rate this category.

No dealings with Epiphone or Gibson.

Sure you can buy a better sounding amp & I have, but for the price it is great. At this price get one. I'm a 40 year old hobby player. I play a Fender Lonestar & Telecaster. Amps are the Tube 10, Blues Jr & AX-212. Effects, Korg AX-1G. If you have some good suggestions for getting great tone with this gear & want to talk about it, E-mail.

An update of my review below. This amp gets better and better. A few small changes and it really comes to life. Now has a wider tonal range, and can work from very low vols, where it's clean unless either gain or volume is maxed. The new valves and speaker means you can go to around 8 on both dials before breakup occurrs and this gives increased headroom. WHen breakup does occurr it's a musical breakup, not a harsh one.

You will not find a nicer sounding overdriven tone than this, except maybe an original JMP, but that's only gonna give you that tone at the same time it blows your windows out!

1. Replace JAN Phillips 12AX7 with almost anything else. This is the cause of the dark woody tone commented on by a few. Even an old Sovtek white-box is a great imrpovement. $Aus12 for a Sovtek 12AX7LPS and I can actually use the tone control!
2. Stock speaker is, simply, crap! I used a NOS Magnavox 70's era speaker, but the new Weber 8" signature fits apparently, and was on special for $US15. This significantly increases volume and reduces fartiness to negligible. Mine is a plain cone speaker and still distorts a little, but it's nice distortion. Weber has a ribbed speaker which would improve volume yet again.

3. The stock 5881, while not bad, tends to mud. Replace with a Svetlana SV6L6GC (the new model) and you will be amazed at the clear overdriven tone you get. You could use a Sovtek 6L6GCWXT which also works well, but it's more overdriven, and the amp is dirty enough.

This little amp is now a real tone monster. The tubes and speaker just unlock the potential. It's not really a living room amp anymore although it does work better at low volumes now, but also not quite powerful enough to gig with a drummer. For coffee shop stuff, where you want a little screamer it'd be perfect. Despite the dinky size of the trannies, there appears to be no reliability hassles.

Mine is still buzz and rattle free after a year.

Six phillips head screws, two at the back rear and four on the back panel and the chassis and backplate lift out, giving easy access to the speaker. It's very easy to quickly swap components.

You'll get nothing else with tubes at this price. A Champ will be more collectible and ultimately worth more, but this is a little gem. Now that it appears to be discontinued everyone'll wake up to it!

This is a 1999 model that I picked up a couple of weeks ago. It has a LOT of useful features for a small, inexpensive practice amp which is what it truly is. Gain, volume, bass, mid, and treble controls. The standby switch is neat and unusual for such a small amp. And the retro styling is cool. This is a great little package.

Boys and girls, go out RIGHT NOW and get one of these while you still can. There isn't a whole lot of volume from this little ten watt wonder, but it's tone to the bone. I play a Fender Stratocaster and an Epiphone Les Paul standard through this amp and they both sound great. Solid low end from a little 8 inch speaker. Might be due to the closed back cabinet. But whatever the reason, this little thing has a lot of guts. With the gain control, you can dial in squeeky clean or a lot of distortion, if that's your thing. I got it to use in my living room and it works beautifully. I play classic rock and blues, mostly - Stones, early Led Zep, CCR, Doobie Bros, Cream, Hendrix (well, I try).

I've only had this a couple of weeks, but it seems to be pretty solid. The wire mesh cover over the tubes is well thought out. Time is the true test on reliability, but I feel confident that this is a good product.

Haven't had a need to contact Epiphone, so I'll just skip this one

This just HAS to be the best small tube amp value available anywhere. Sounds good like a tube amp should. Looks like a cross between a 30's Gibson amp and a 50's Fender tweed - really cool. You won't take this to your next gig, but you'll definitely find it's useful for sittin' back and strumming in the living room without upsetting the rest of the house. I've been playing for a number of years and I have several "professional" quality amps that I've used for awhile and I'm very pleased with. But at low volumes, they don't sound any better than this little guy. If you have a use for a low wattage amp, check this out.

Basically a SS-rectified Fender Champ clone, with a three-band tone stack in lieu of the Champ's single treble shunt. Also has a master volume.

Has a cool extension speaker jack (4-ohm) that disconnects the internal speaker, thereby eliminating OT loading issues.

Standby switch is a cool inclusion and pretty much unheard-of in this price range.

As-shipped, the amp has a NOS JAN Philips 12AX7 and a Sovtek 5881, running single-ended class A - not bad. At idle, mine was dissipating about 28W, right where you'd want an SE 6L6 amp to be.

The stock eight-inch speaker is, well, junk. Most of the cone area is obscured by dust cap, but for $89, you can't have everything.

I first fired it up with an early '80s Dean ML with DiMarzios. It doesn't have any clean headroom to speak of (at ~10W, that's not surprising), but it does develop a lot of dirt. My initial impression is that the speaker is very raspy, and the overall tone is a bit flat and one-dimensional.

So I got to tweaking a bit - this is a VERY well-built amp, and easy to tweak. I replaced the 5881 with an old Tesla EL34, and rebiased.

This made a huge tonal difference - harmonic content increased dramatically, and the overall soundscape became Marshall-in-a-little-box. Plugged into a Marshall 4x12 with Vintage 30s, the sound is fabulous.

I still thought the amp was a bit woofy, so I began tweaking the components a bit, until I got a sound that made me happy. Basically, the circuit passes too much low-end as stock.

The thing still needs a new speaker, but through an extension cab, it's very cool.

I think it's quite well-made, considering the price. It's a lot easier to service than, say, a Fender Pro Junior.

It's a five-year warranty, but of course I threw that out when I started tweaking. No comment on CS.

I'm an amp builder/repair guy, and I'm pretty impressed. For living-room amps, it's pretty good as-is, and with about $12 in parts and a little soldering, it becomes a KILLER practice rig.

A 10 watt dual tube amp single channel with 3 band EQ, gain control, 4 ohm speaker out, preamp out, 8 inch speaker, detachable power cord, made in 1998. Cabinet is particle board covered in black vinyl, has small chicken head knobs, carrying handle, corner protectors. At a class AB 10 watts it is almost perfect for practising at home without becoming annoying.

Play mostly blues and rock, using a strat style guitar with single coils and an LP style guitar with humbuckers. This amp has a single channel with a separate volume and gain controls. This amp sounds best when the volume is turned up to 10 and the gain control kept to between 3-6. Higher gain settings turn the sound into a farty, non harmonic sound. At the lower gain settings this amp sounds outstanding with a nice bite. This amp is amazingly quiet after a warmup period. I plugged into a a 2X12 extension cabinet and it sounded great.

This amp is used strictly for practising. The tubes are located at the rear of the amp and covered with a wire cage and have spring retainers. The controls seem solid and they work like they're supposed to.

Purchased from MusicYo which does a pretty good job of getting the goods out on time. Warranty is 30 days from them and five years from Epiphone. Never used either one.

From what I've gathered Gibson/Epiphone no longer makes these amps and they are unloading them through MusicYo.com for a cut rate price. This is a great bargain for a pretty well made little tube amp. I was expecting somewhat of a toy with a cheazy sound but I was stunned by the really good sound it puts out and the decent construction. The amp has a nice vintage look about it and is a steal for the money.

10 Watts RMS, one 12AX7 preamp tube and one 6L6 power tube, 3-Band EQ pots (Bass, Mid, Treble), preamp Gain and Volume pots, On/Off and Standby Switch, External Speaker Output, preamp out, 8" Electar Labs Speaker, Closed-Back Cabinet, Switchable 155/230 Voltage Selector, Detachable Power Cord with External Fuse Compartment. A solid, basic guitar/harp tube amp that has Tone.

The guitars: Custom Strat with 3 SD Vintage Rails, modified Kramer Focus Strat (yeah, the 69 buck wonder from MusicYo) modified with a set of Armstrong VS4 Strat single coils (amongst other mods), a Custom Tele Special with a pair of P90s. My playing is eclectic, ranging from ragtime fingerpicking to electric bluez. The E-10 is extremely quiet, even when driven by single coil p/u's. Nicely overdrives when the preamp gain is tweaked, fairly clean headroom with the volume dialed ahead of the preamp gain. With the EQ pots you can get from thickish Vox/Gibson tones to Fender tweedy squeels. This amp is in it's venue for bluez or jazz. Metal heads will need to resort to pedals.

Totally gig-worthy and dependable. I currently use two in parallel and had purchased two more as backups - NOT neeeded.

I queried Gibson/Epi for a schematic but after rapping with two different "customer relations reps", who told me they knew nothing about the amp and said I should look elswhere, I gave up the quest. Bad business on Gibson's part for such a neat little amp. Oh well, at 89 bucks a pop ($100 delivered to my door in 5 days), replacement is easy on the wallet...

This is yer basic tube amp, with some nice added features that're missing from those big name basic tube amps (and at a true fraction of their high dollar price tags). It works well for home jams, recording or small club venues (PA mic'd, of course). I've had *many* guitar amps over the last 4+ decades and my current stable includes a custom Holland, but for $89 (www.musicyo.com) this is the tube amp deal of the New Millennium. Cool tones, reliable, available, cheap. Don't be without one - I won't.