Garnet G45TR

Made in the mid 70's, this amp is well suited for all the genres of music I play, rock, hard rock, rockabilly and surf. It has only one channel, with a "pull" on volume for bright, and a master volume. It has reverb and tremelo, both real good, fender-ish. I use this amp for home practice and band practice (with a drummer). It has enough power to possibly go on stage for smaller venues (40 watts?). It is all tube, hand wired, point-to-point, use 2 12ax7's, 2 12au7's, and 2 6L6's. Has enough power to break up nicely in the higher volume range.

This amp can sound like anything I want without heavy distortion. It's mostly clean. It starts to break up (nice sonic overtones and mild distortion when pushed above 8. Ther is no gain or distortion per se built in. I use it with SG's and Les PAULS (Humbuckers) with bridge pickup ohm readings in the low teens (hot). Also with a Jazzmaster with Seymour Duncan Antiquities (7+ ohms)for surf (clean reverb drenched). It is low noise at any setting.

I have agood amp tech so reliability should be no problem. One of the 12ax7's came loose in transit. That might just be because the tube is old.

Never had the pleasure of dealing with Gar Gilles, the creator of the Garnet amp line.

I've been playing since 1961. I also have a Marshall JCM800 50 watt, a very nice 1966 Fender Vibrolux Reverb, a 90's Fender Dual Professional (custom shop) and a Lesie 825. If this were lost or stolen I'd try to replace it. I like that it has a strong clean tone with lots of headroom for pedalboard effects. I would compare this to the Princeton Reverb (that I stupidly sold cheap). I can't think of any improvement to this amp. It's a great lightweight portable single speaker amp.