Gibson GA30RVS

The one I have is a british one with a trace elliot circuit board stamped 1998. 3 knobs, etc. etc, as noted elsewhere. I set it with the tone and reverb at 12:00, the gain out and the volume at about 9:00. This is more than adequate for most bar gigs. Found the advise below about using a patch cord in a speaker out jack to use one amp very usefull, as this is a LOUD amp.

I use this amp mostly with a gibson es-335 and an es-339. It sounds excellent with a strat as well. With the 339 it produces the the nastiest hair raising R&R tone I've ever heard. The reverb is different from a fender, but is lush and full. The series/parallel switch affects the reverb sound. I mostly play blues and classic rock, and this amp is the best I've ever used. I also have an original '66 super reverb, a Genz-Benz Black Pearl, and a couple of Carvin amps. The GA-30RVS is the one I gig with. You can get a good clean sound out of this amp, but the overdrive is positively boneriffic. It takes pedals well. There is some unavoidable class "A" hiss, but once you start to play, it is not noticeable

This is the bad news. This amp has been in the shop 4 or 5 times. At an outdoor gig it 1/2 crapped out on me. The power was maybe 1/3 of what I started with. Got it fixed and was working intermittantly for a while. The preamp tubes would fire up, but the power tubes wouldn't.
If the amp was bumped, the tubes would sometimes fire up. Took it back to the shop and got it fixed again. Same problem shortly thereafter. Finally took the amp out of the box (3 screws, disconnect the speakers and reverb tank), turned it upside down, hooked dummy loads to the speakers and powered it up. Used a tooth pick to start pushing/pulling wires and found a bad connection on one wire to the circuit board from the output transformer. This had shrink wrap on it and outwardly looked solid, but after removing the wrap,(after unplugging the amp, of course) found a burnt loose connection. The wire was semicrimped to the jack. Checked the other ones and found one more. Soldered them and recrimped them, and so far so good. Seems to be solid. As has been noted here elsewhere, one of the speakers was wired out of phase at the board. This probably was one of the last ones Trace Elliot turned loose, but their QC sucks. Will use this amp in town, but am afraid to take it on the road. I bought the Black Pearl as a substitute EL-84 amp to road gig with. Doesn't sound as good, but it's a close second and solidly built.

Bought it used, no idea

Been playing 40+ years semi-pro, own more stuff than my skill level justifies, but still on an endless tone quest. Wish I had another one as a backup.

GA 30 RVS, somewhere from the 90's I guess. I HAVE WRITTEN GUSHING AMP REVIEWS BEFORE, BUT THIS IS THE BEST SOUNDING COMBO TUBE AMP ON EARTH. I WILL SAY IT NOW - IF LOST OR STOLEN I WOULD PLUCK YOUR MOTHERS EYES OUT, EAT THEM AND BEAT HER TO DEATH WITH A RUSTY TIRE IRON TO GET IT BACK. (The thief, of course). I traded a brand-new Orange Tiny Terror for this amp and guess who got the best part of that deal? ME, THAT'S WHO!!! I don't care that the controls are in the back, or that there is no power on light. I don't care that it weighs in something equivalent to a Cruise Ship either! When I get old and lame, I will hire an undocumented American to carry it for me.

I play all styles of rock, I need clean and crunch and now that I know what REAL tone is, this is the amp.

I recently bought a guitar snake so that I can wire up my delays and modulation effects to take advantage of the stereo effects loops. I can't wait. I'll let you know how that magic is.

The 'verb is really nice and musical.

15 watts times two? Why is this amp louder than my 6L6 based Marshall? Way friggin' louder. I can't believe this amp is 30 watts. No way Jose. (Put my amp down over there, please... Por favor.")

The main thing that occurs to me is that the RVS is somewhere between a Twin and an AC 30 tone-wise. Bright and a bit jangley, but not without some Fender bottom.

I play mostly Gibby style Hamers. Humbuckers and P-90's. Otherwise I play Fat Strats.

Never noisy. Doesn't present the ground-loop touchyness of my Marshall or Vox's.

This amp loves pedals, so if you can produce a sound with a pedal, this amp will make it shine. In that regard it makes every sound a hack like me needs.

Dude, the distortion is like, sooooo brutal. I mean, it's like insane brutal! It's like Satanic black flaming death brutal. Excellent! COME ON. I won't even go there. This is not an amp for metal heads.

Added crunch by pulling out the volume knob for higher gain. Cleans up nicely when you roll back the guitar volume.

I have gigged about 20 times so far with this amp. No problems. I'm picking up an Anvil ATA case tonight to keep it protected.

No breakage yet. But I'm going to be pro-active there.

Gibson is notoriously un-helpful. I won't rate them unless I get no help personally.

I have been playing on and off for 30 years.
I said my piece about "Lost or Stolen" in the first section.

I hate the fact that it is not a woman and can't cook me breakfast.

No comparison to anything similar. In a league of it's own. I chose this amp because I have tried everything else.

I wish it had breasts.

Anything else I would like to share? If you ever show up at one of my gigs, you will be priveledged just to be in the same room with my amp. Be sure to thank me.

You must be thinking, "How does an amp with only 3 knobs and a single channel get a 9 rating for Features?" It's because once you find out all the hidden treasures in this amp, you'll find some of the coolest features a Class A combo can have.

Cool Feature #1: Turn the 2x12" GA30RVS into a 1x12" GA15.
Why is this feature cool? Because both speakers on 30 Class A watts (2 x 12" x 15watts in stereo) is SUPER LOUD, too loud for bedroom jamming. The GA30RVS is like two GA15's in stereo with completely separate amp sections for Left and Right. You can actually put a dummy load on one side of the amp by plugging a patch cable into one of the preamp outs (left or right) and that turns off one of the stereo 15watt amps and speaker. This means you get a 1x12" 15-watt Class A amp for bedroom jamming and lower volume tube overdrive. I just alternate the patch cable from Left to Right every time I play so I can wear the tubes evenly. Just to clarify, you basically just plug a patch cable into a preamp-out and leave the other plug of the patch cable unplugged and dangling.

Cool Feature #2: Ernie Ball Volume Pedal in the FX Loop (on parallel).
I read this in a review by 'Karl' down below and found all new tonal landscapes using the Ernie Ball Volume Pedal in the FX loop in Parallel trick. Thanks, Karl. ANYONE WHO HAS THIS AMP SHOULD TRY THIS, IT'S GREAT. Basically, you crank the volume on the amp to 10 and adjust the overall volume using the Ernie Ball Volume Pedal in the FX loop set on parallel. It's like an attenuator and you get some amazing tube overdrive using the normal and boost channels AT BEDROOM JAMMING VOLUME! This is such an amazing feature and the tone is HUGE. I have a Keeley-modded TS9 Tubescreamer that sounded decent before this trick, but now when the TS9 is pushing the already overdriven amp, it sounds like tone heaven. Try it, you will not be disappointed. If you get the volume dialed in just right with the Ernie Ball Volume Pedal, then you can use the 'boost' channel as an actual overdrive channel on the amp. Took me a bit of tooling around where I would switch between volume pedal trick and straight into the amp. Now, I only use the volume pedal trick. Remember to lower the reverb to around 1, since it'll respond to your lesser-volume sound as if the sound is on 10 (because the amp's volume is set on 10).

The reason why I gave the Features a 9 and not a 10 is because you need external hardware (patch cable and volume pedal) to achieve these cool features. Not a big deal, everyone has patch cables around, but 9 is still a great rating.

I use 2 types of strats with this amp: a rosewood-neck American Std strat with low-output VanZandt Blues in the neck/middle with a coil-tapped Seymour Duncan JB jr in the bridge and a maple-neck Clapton signature strat with high-output Kinman AVn-62's in neck/middle and AVn-59 in the bridge with the 25db mid-boost that comes standard on the Clapton strats. I've never played a real vintage strat, but I feel I can get what I think is the entire strat-tone gambit with these 2 strats. I've tried almost every pickup there is and had about 12 different strats before landing on these two strats that are a culmination of all my tonal experimentation. The first strat sounds really dark and tight, definitely a more focused sound. The second strat sounds bright and clear with tons of output from the kinmans and active electronics. The second strat, with the 25db midboost can get some over-the-top distortion on the boost channel with the 25db boost on 10(with the volume pedal trick engaged).

My effects include a Keeley-modded Tubescreamer, Fulltone Clyde Wah Deluxe (on Whacked), Line6 EchoPark Delay, Ernie Ball Volume Pedal, and a Keeley Rat. My signal chain goes: Guitar -> Wah -> RAT -> TS9 -> Amp. I have the volume pedal and EchoPark in the FX Loop set on Parallel. The Keeley-modded TS9 Tubescreamer sounds awesome with this amp when the volume pedal is pushing the gain on the amp. I use the Line6 EchoPark in the FX Loop right after the volume pedal in stereo with two cables coming out of the EchoPark for stereo Left/Right to the FX loop's Left-in and Right-in. I can't get the RAT to sound that good with this setup so I barely use it, but everything else sounds KILLER in this setup.

I play blues, rock, and fusion. I used to play through Fender Twins, my favorite being a 'The Twin' and my last one being a 65 reissue Twin Reverb and I find this amp far more responsive and tonally superior. To be honest, before this GA30RVS amp, I felt like I sounded exactly the same with any guitar/amp combination. I really started to believe that tone was ALL in the fingers and had nothing to do with equipment. I know there's a lot of truth to this since I've felt it first-hand (had an ibanez through an old Peavey Bandit and it still sounded like me). But when you bust into the upper echelons of tone (boutique amps and such) where your pushing tubes hard on lower-wattage Class A amps, you start understanding what people talk about when talking about awesome tone. That's when I started to notice that my guitars started to sound different and have their own tonal character through this amp. Both of my strats sound completely different since the amp just lets the tone of the guitar through and represents it the best way possible with great, clear highs and focused lows. It sounds very contradictory, since I'm essentially paying more for 'less'! I'm over it, though.

I play hard and I really dig into my notes, heavy-gauge strings burning though jumbo frets, and I NEVER had an amp respond and urge me to dig in harder because of the enormous reward of great tone you get like this goldtone. "Chewey, spongey, woody" all made sense now when reading tone described this way.

These amps are based on the Trace Elliot Velocette amp which is a GREAT foundation to work up from as-is. Even though there is 1 tone knob, I get everything I want out of it. I'm not sure what a tone purist is, but I feel that the guitar has most of its sound in the pickups and the materials of the actual guitar and not via pedals/EQ settings. That could be an ignorant and almost idiotic statement, but I want it as transparent as possible. I set the tone on my amp at 4 and rarely ever touch it even when switching between very different guitars.

I give this amp a 9 without the volume pedal trick and a 11 with the volume pedal trick. I averaged it to a 10!

I don't gig with this, so I haven't 'road-tested' this amp. However, I left the amp on stand-by for 3 weeks while on a business trip by accident and it worked just fine when I returned. That was pretty cool. But it mostly sits unmolested and all the knobs still work and the amp works when I turn it on. Seems reliable to me, so I'll give it a 10, since these ratings are relative to the person rating them.

never dealt with Gibson customer support. Never had a need to.

I've been playing for 15 years and had what I thought were decent tube amps (marshall combos, fender twins/combos, mesa boogie studio caliber) and this amp is better for the tones I was looker for than the aforementioned. I got the amp as a trade for a Fender 65 Reissue Twin Reverb that I paid $500 for, so I felt I got an amazing deal for this amp. I was a pretty compulsive amp buyer and at one point came to the conclusion that they all sounded the same until I tried the Goldtone. This is IT for me, no complaints. I know there are some awesome boutique amps out there (two rock, bruno, Fuch's, Divided by 13, Victoria, Dr.Z, etc) but currently, I'm loving the tones I get from this one. I can't imagine wanting more out of an amp, but we'll see what the future holds. I definitely won't go back to the mass-produced 'decent tube amp' category. So, I may look at other high-end amps, but not because this amp is no-good, but because my curiosity may get the best of me.

I never thought to read reviews for equipment I ALREADY own, but I'm so glad I did, I learned a ton of cool stuff from these reviews. I gained a new appreciation for my amp.

I give this amp a 10 overall. I've never written a review for any music equipment, but I felt compelled to do so once I got my GA30RVS dialed-in and sounding amazing.

The amp is a 2003. It is the made in the U.S., black tolex, gold grill version. You tend to love or hate the appearance. I love it. It is basically a single channel with overdrive. The overdrive quality is surprisingly good, but a separate level control would be nice. Single tone knob but the control is more flexible than I would have thought. It is a true stereo amp with two separate pre and power sections but you do not have stereo inputs. You can only access the stereo functions through the effects loop. I use a Lexicon MPX1 and feed it with the mono send and then return on the stereo left and right returns. I have also used a Carl Martin stereo chorus pedal in the same way with great results. Tube pre and power sections, solid state rectifier. Tons of power. Most of the other features have been amply covered. Oh, it is surprisingly heavy. It looks rather sleek and the weight can surprise you. I also own a GA-15 and this is way heavier.

It is surprisingly versatile. I saw a video for the xotic effects pedals with Paul Jackson Jr. playing one and was surprised enough by the tone on clean/jazzy stuff to go check one out. I knew it could do rock and blues but it is surprisingly good clean. I use it with a variety of guitars and it is not terribly picky about pickup types and seems to get along with most pedals quite well. I picked up some NOS Tesla 12AX7's and EL84's and strongly recommend playing with tubes. JJ's sound good but these made me realize the amp was even better than I thought. I did stick a pair of early 70's Mullard EL84's in it. Wow. Almost $500.00 for tubes but again makes you realize how good the amp can be.

I have had no reliability issues other than a gassy tube. The UK version of these guys had some fairly serious issues, most relating to the tube sockets overheating and failing. I understand the mystique of a British amp compared to a Gibson but I have compared the two mono versions and hear no difference in sound quality and the US made ones fixed the tube socket issues. I own two versions of this and have been around a couple of other owners and the US version seems quite reliable. I wish their guitars were as consistent.

I don't like Gibson in general but I can't comment on this piece since I have had no issues.

It is no longer available but I consider it a bargain at its price point. I have a variety of amps but this, a Savage Rohr 15 and a 66 Fender Deluxe Reverb are among my favorites. This is an excellent value, especially with upgraded tubes. I like it enough that I have two versions of it. Guitars range from Grosh strats and tele styles to various archtops, serveral Hamers (great values, too) and a variety of others.

2001 Gibson stereo Class A amp. 2 12' speakers. Effects Loop(no overdrives here, only boosts volume) 2 Channels, clean and OD(both can be OD if cranked) Footswitch with channel and reverb buttons. only one tone, one reverb and one push/pull volume control. Used for small gigs, but good for large ones too. LOUD AMP!!! Holy crap its LOUD! 4 el84s 4 preamp tubes.(12ax87s?)

Here's where theres a LOT of Debate. OK LISTEN UP!!!!! LISTEN!! MY amp was set up "RIGHT" from the Factory, but apparently, the speakers were out of phase with each other. I dealt with an extremely CRAPPY, MID-RANGEY, Honky, SICK, UGLY sound for over a year and a half. I didn't even really play it that much the treble and mids were so ear piercing. I tried forever to warm it up, but I couldn't. Finally I contacted a repair company in Great Britain(smart guys, really willing to lend an ear, unlike Gibson) and they instantly suggested that I switch the speaker cables on one of the speakers. OMG! That did it. A completely new amp! Warm and round, and present. I can play my acoustic through it and it actually sounds good! It can do almost any sound now. The problem was that the speaker wires, + and - were set up wrong FROM THE FACTORY!!!! LISTEN HERE, its IMPORTANT. If you're having the same problems I did, as some reviewers here in this post apparently did, DONT chuck the amp!!!! Please try switching the speaker wires. Right now, my right speaker has the negative wire on the positive lead and the positive wire on the negative lead. It will change your world!!! I would have given this amp a 2 or 3 for sound, now it gets a 10. Its a GREAT amp!

Its a little on the weak side. The box its insanely heavy and sturdy, but the knobs and switches are REALLY delicate. I've broken my series parallel toggle switch, and the reverb pot shaft is now bent. The logo also ripped right off by a guitar cable i was picking up in front of it!! Sounds weird I know, but the cable hooked the bottom of the Gibson logo, and it completely bent it and ripped it off, beyond repair. Its only a logo, but come on! It honestly feels like its made of gold its so maleable.

Poor. They don't really listen to your questions. I told them what was going on, and they suggested I try things that I said I'd already tried, so either they didn't even read my email, or they have some kind of auto-bot trying to answer questions. Come on Gibson.

Aside from my troubles, I still give it a high score because it just sounds so dern good. I've finally won my battles and now I'll never get rid of this amp. Its awesome.

Bought new in 2003. This amp is too clean and ducky for what I wanted it for , I need more creamy gain. The only time I heard creamy gain is when I cranked it to ten with the OD pulled out and all I heard is the sound man CRY, TURN DOWN it's too LOUD. What a bummer. It sounded good in the store because it was cranked to ten, I was misinformed that the gain only rises when the volume rises. So 7 gain means 7 volume and thats about 150 decibels!!! too loud for a club, unless you want to never go back there!

Like I said, its like the mids on an EQ are full up, but I should have known better with class A, it's my own fault. If this amp had a master volume or seperate gain knob, i'd still own the 75 lb. beast. I traded it for an old Mesa Boogie, which is OK for now but I'm still looking for a replacement for the best amp of all time, Peavey Blues Classic.

NO it cut out on me during a BIGGG gig and it died, so I had to finish the gig through a stupid keyboard amp with a fuzz box. I was so pissed. This should NOT have happened for $1250 big ones.

Horrible, I waited for a month to get new Gibson tubes for this, and was told they can't get them anymore. Then they told me I messed up by having the wrong impeadence on the speakers and tried to blame me for it cutting out. When I swear the shop owner switched this switch to get more money and try to make me look stupid. I know better about impeadence switching thank you very much!

Good if you crank it to ten only and don't mind getting back pain and cramped hands before gigs from lifting the leather beast.

UK built, bought used about a year and a half ago. The guy was replacing it with Line 6, said he did a lot of teaching and needed much more variation of sounds (!). Brown with the gold metal speaker grilles - looks way cool, and I get very envious looks at the rehearsal studio, and occasional "WTF is that" type comments. Usual features as discussed here, great false-stereo reverb, push-pull boost volume control (I have the two button foot controller), and tone control. Effects loop is very very useful, (see sounds). All the controls and jacks are at the back at the bottom, which would be a bit of a pain if I ever wanted to adjust the amp mid gig, but I don't. You can plug in a separate extension cabinet, which makes stereo effects just wild (or just knock out one channel by just putting a lead into one of the speaker jacks if you needed to for any reason).

This is a very loud amp, and I didn't initially find Gibson's advice of "just turn it up to maximum and control volume from the guitar" very useful when trying to practise at home, or even rehearsal, so I used a Marshall Bluesbreaker pedal. Thought about using a THD Hotplate, but was told I'd need two because of the twin channels/speakers.BUT..I asked Gibson for help on this. At their suggestion (this was the Europe help centre in France) I bought an Ernie Ball volume pedal, put it into the effects loop, and now I can have maximum overdriven tone at controllable volumes; and I can control the tone/volume mix completely from the pedal and rolling off/on the guitar volume controls! Fantastic!! The tone is better than sex, and makes every classic rock riff sound like it was you playing on the record - I play Free, Cream, Peter Green etc covers. I use a Jum Dunlop Cry baby for some of the Cream/Hendrix stuff, but also like to leave it set at the bite for some solos, which gives fantastic controllable feedback and notes that last forever.This is the best amp I have ever played for classic rock sounds.

Great as the discovery of the volume pedal in the effects loop was, the reverb didn't like it much and seems to be stuck on maximum - I can have it on or off only at present, so I'm taking it to a tech for a repair. Nothing else has gone wrong since I've had it.

Like I said, the Gibson people were helpful and friendly, although I guess it must have been difficult for them in dealing with a product they don't make any more.

I play classic and blues rock, Les Paul Honeyburst Custom, and Les Paul 57 reissue Gold Top.Been playing for about 25 years, but very off and on. Main amps I have had before were some old Marshall half stack (years ago can't remember model) and more recently a Fender Blues Deluxe. I love this amp, and believe that it is utterly unbeatable at the price I paid for it. I would only replace it with something similar, possibly an Orange Rockerverb, which also has two Celestion Vintage speakers.I decided to look at a Super Gold Tone GA3RV to compare the two sounds, since the Super seems to have more features, including master volume and clean/dirty channel switching, and with the option of blending sounds on the two channels. But as I become more and more familiar with using my volume pedal set up, it doesn't seem so important. I don't think it looks quite as good either. I'll sell one of them to the other guitarist in the band, who has been complaining I sound too good/too loud using the Gold Tone.

I do not own this amp but I played it much in a local music store, the amp is simple you can read it in other reviews. A 9 because its very heavy

this is the amp for every thing. It sounds like you play.

No problems, only 1 time a tube got bad when I played it for a few hours in the shop but I think thats normal because everybody played that amp 24 hours a day

I thinks tis is the AMP I couldnt buy it because I dont have money and in the maenwhile its already sold

the hisses at low volume arent a big problem, its A CLASS REMEMBER ?

and a good thing what most poeple hate is the controls in the back, If I had this amp at a gig and the other guitarist coundt hear himself because I played to loud(this amp is loud = good thing) he would not found the controls so I could solo all night long ahahah

Volume, tone and reverb. Pull volume for gain channel. A footswitch to channel switch and reverb on and off. Left and right speaker outputs and a bright switch.
That's it, a stereo class A 2 x 12 combo. Not that common a combination but it works very well and is surprisngly flexible.

The best clean sound and a lovely harmonic break-up.
The reverb is amazingly good - as good as i ever encountered in either amps or sperate units.
It is great for sparkling cleans, but is very responsive if you dig in.
Got a bit of class A valve hiss, but nothing distracting. That is more marked on the gain channel, obviously, but nothing that gets in the way of strong lead sound.

Its tempting to assume this is a simple amp because of the lack of knobs and dials, but it is actually two seprate fifteen watt amps running together so it need to be well made.
This one of the Brown ones, made in England, and it is very robust.
Heavy.
Not had a problem.

not dealt with them

These went for big money when new. I paid what seems to be the going rate second hand, and at that price they are a true bargain. I have owned quality Boogie, Fender and Matchless amps and this the tone of this is as good as any of them, including the Matchless.
I like its strong retro look - and if these things matter to you it looks rather stylish in the bedroom or sitting room.
I will not be parting with mine. These amps are one of the strongest second hand buys out there for guitar players..

There are not a lot of feature on this amp. Honestly, there are NO features on it except TONE! Seriously, the tone of this amp is incredible. The chimey sounds just make you smile. I can't turn this up much past two or the sound guy goes nuts. We mic everything into a PA. The bright switch only work's well with my 335, other than that I don't use it.

The clean sounds are just beautiful, very full and satisying. I use primarily Fender's and Mesa's and bought this on a whim because the $ were right. There is a bit of Class A hiss which is expected and I seem to think the effects loop is a bit noisy when engaged which is too bad because the only other reason I bought this VS. the 15 watter was to get the effects loop. That said, the sound is incredible and the nitpick stuff goes away as soon as you start playing. One word of advice. This is a vintage style Class A amp. It takes very well to the pedals on my board which I use for overdrive etc. I also have plugged in a Boss GT-3 and that was great using the stereo outputs even though the Boss is junk to begin with. I honestly don't know how you could turn this thing up loud enough to saturate the tubes. This is the loudest amp I own, so be advised....I play strats, les paul's, 335's and a Carvin ct6m.....

I have had no problems, but time will tell.Built like a 'freakin' tank and heavier than one too. I will have to say that gibson's customer service, while very nice and attentive, didn't seem to have a handle on this beast when I called them regarding the footswitch replacment that I needed because mine didn't come with one.

I will have to say that gibson's customer service, while very nice and attentive, didn't seem to have a handle on this beast when I called them regarding the footswitch replacment that I needed because mine didn't come with one. I have had excellent luck with them on the few guitar related issued I've ever called them on.

This amp fills a need and for some reason these are being dumped on e-bay and everywhere else because a newer version is out I suppose. Not long ago, these were all the rage and Joe Perry uses them and I've seen them on many live stages....I have to say that my heavily modifed Fender amp is my go to amp, but this one has found it's way on stage more and more often. It's a VERY heavy 72 lbs and way more power than I need, but plug in a strat in the quack position and have a seat , you'll be there a while!