Gomez El Sonido ('63 Blonde Bassman)

Two channel amp circuit based on a bassman 6G6-B. Fifty (loud) watts brings it for everything except the largest outdoor venues.

I play instro surf both in a trad style and in a more modern version with a lot of edge.
Main guitars are a Nash built Strat and a Nash built Jazmater with P'90's.
I use this amp for small to medium size outdoor gigs...stays clean till about half way than starts to get that VERY rounded breakup that is magical. Rockabilly players love this circuit but stick a reverb unit in front of it and it kills for surf. I had been playing a vintage BF Dual Showman at larger gigs and a modded Vibroverb RI (didn't cut it) for medium and smaller ones.
My El Sonido has a fat sweet tone that is very unlike my other amps.
One can push it and get that edge or back off on the guitar volume and it sweetens right up.

Built by Dario Gomez with care I expect no issues..I always have a backup but I'm anal that way.

Have spoken on the phone and via email with Dario several times. He has always responded to any questions in a timely manner. One can tell he wants you to be happy with your amp and takes the time to give good advice.

Been playing for 30+ years and have owned my share of amps. I never thought I would forsake the vintage BF Fenders until I tried this amp. I waited several months to write this review to avoid the new toy gush..
I would compare it to the amp it was designed upon a Brownface Bassman..except everything is new and dependable...build quality inside and out is the best.
Would I buy another if this one was bagged...yes I would, but in the meantime I have two of the Gomez (G-Spring) outboard reverb units arriving tomorrow and have a Gomez Surfer (Brownface Showman) head on order.
The combination of vintage style, tone AND reliability coupled with state of the art customer service sold me.
Gomez are the only amps I perform and record with now.
When one considers the basic cost of a vintage amp plus the $$ needed to bring it up to snuff, the price paid for a Gomez product is a bargin.

Volume, Tone and Presence Controls, Two Channels, Four Inputs, 50 Watts and a Standby Switch. This basic setup mirrors the original ??? and, trust me, it is all you need! The controls are sensitive and responsive and pull a wide variety of rock and roll sounds out of any guitar. Simple but not limited. There are lots of great sonic surprises to be found here when playing with combinations of knobs.

The matching piggyback cabinet with 2 - 12??? Vintage 30 speakers is built to last.

Point-to-point soldering and broken in by hand, this amp was clearly built with care and craftsmanship.

The blonde tolex is distinctive and expertly applied.

When other guitarists see this rig, they ask: ???What is it???? When they hear it, they ask: ???Where can I get one????

To me, the old Blonde Bassmans sound like the perfect cross between a Fender, Marshall and Vox. Crisp high and low end, crunchy distortion, sweet sustain, a chimey ???almost reverb??? sound from the presence control, and enough twang with your bang to remind you where rock and roll started. Dario Gomez???s El Sonido has captured the sound that does it all.

The ???Bass??? channel is warm and full, while the ???Wild??? channel really pushes into a tube driven frenzy. With humbuckers, this amp starts to break up with the volume around ???3??? and delivers some serious overdrive when turned up past ???6.??? Whether picking out a pentatonic blues solo or hanging a 6 note jazz chord out to dry, the individual notes are always distinct.

The 2 x 12??? speaker cabinet moves lots of air and will give any drummer a run for his/her money. At decent volumes you can feel the full frequency sound of this amp reverberating in your chest ??? not simply ringing in your ears ??? and it feels great!

Other reviewers have discussed this amp???s ability to sound like an original 6G6-B Bassman and Brian Setzer???s rig ??? and I would take their word on that. But what impressed me most is that this amp allowed me to really sound like ???me.??? All the sounds I had been hearing in my head (for over 30 years) were in one package ??? and the amp even suggested a few sounds that I hadn???t considered. El Sonido doesn???t just amplify your guitar ??? it collaborates with it.

There are lots of great ???Name??? and boutique amps out there but, for my money, none of them sound nearly as good as this.

The amp is still pretty new but quality tends to take care of itself. It is solidly built with simple, high quality components. Not much to go wrong here ??? and if it does, it???s easy to repair. Dario Gomez stands behind his products and offers a 5-year, iron-clad warranty. What more can you ask for?

I bought this amplifier on-line from Gomez without playing it ??? something I???ve never done before. Dario was lightning-fast replying to my e-mails when I was ???just looking??? and was always there to answer my questions from purchase to delivery. He is a talented and humble craftsman, who is justifiably proud of his products and truly concerned about satisfying his customers.

I have played Fenders, Marshalls and a variety of other tube and solid state amps over the last 30 years. Research and instinct told me that this amp was different ??? and I was right. I was so impressed that I bought a Gomez ???G??? Reverb and I am very happy with that amp as well and will review it at a later date. I am impressed with Dario Gomez as I am with his amplifiers. Right now, he has carved out a niche by remaking and improving 1960s Fender classics. I look forward to the day that he takes his expertise and turns it into amplifiers with sounds all their own. This is a great guy making amazing amps; not a company that used to. You can???t go wrong by going Gomez!

Just got my Gomez El Sonido ('63 Blonde Bassman)clone, although I hate the term clone it is a reproduction of my favorite amp. But the quality is awesome and is a new amp that can last a lifetime like the older ones are now. I also won't be paranoid hauling this around as I am a 63 Blonde Bassman.
Just received in Fall 2007, was custom built, Rough Blonde with Wheat grill, with a matching 2 x 12" cab, all just awesome quality and safely shipped from California to my home in Pittsburgh area.
The tubes were shipped seperate, using reissue Tung Sols and JJ ECC803's, giving it a great easily attainable old school tones.
Has 2 channels, both are sweet with the Stoke Channel being my favorite with Gretsch. Nice Twangy and awesome out of the box. 50 watts, which at the time was concerning it would be to much but it is not. It is perfect, and can get dirty pushed with a booster, overdrives, or even just a compressor. Plus turning it up will get the "on the edge" break-up. Just a killer looker to all piggybacked and fine. It is a straight forward and always have been amp. Not alot of bells and whistles but it is massive in tone. In fact this is the best amp I've ever had and I've been playing 24 years now. I've owned them all, custom shops, Vickies, etc etc etc. This is it.
Adding pedals and effects are easy since this amp is a great clean tone machine. I gave it a 10 since you can use it with jsut about anything and it is all super easy. Add pedals to taste and you can cover anythnig.
The ONLY hang-up is the weight, just like the originals. You must be prepared to not only carry guitars and stuff, but carrying 2 things in to a gig everytime you set up. But thats not Gomez, thats the piggybacks. Love it or leave it. The tone and looks are well worth it.

Tone wise it can do it all, Blues with my Tele with some nice jangly twangy bite. And strats sound very killer.
Awesome Rockabilly and twang with the presence up, with my Reverend Horton HEat 6120, and my Setzer 6120. BOth are super sweet.
Can do some surfy Strat or Jag/Jazzmaster stuff. I use a Victoria Reverberato, and gets great era R&R.
Very clean and gets dirty in all the right areas. Pick hard and dig in, or soft and get that buttery tone. I for one, like this for the solid state rectifier doesn't effect attack. IT is instant and I dig that. No sag, just fast and what I like is you can hear every picked note if you rip up a scale, and then strum a nice chord and hear all of the chord. No mud.
Crank the bass and get a nice clear Jazz tone.
What I love, is it is as easy as setting the knobs slightly on either the amp or Guitar. No fiddling, no fuss. The tone part is easy, end of statement.

I've had it almost a month, and will post if it collapses. But Dario Gomez has a great Warranty and he is a really cool builder who cares if it is wrong or right. I can safely say it won't be an issue if there is an issue after talking with him on several lengthy occassions. I'm giving it a Very dependable since after talking with him I'd say Dario is Very Dependable.
(He gave me a specific serial number I wanted, and named it #7 Big Ben for my 5 time Super Bowl Champion Pittsburgh Steelers.) Again, very cool.

This is an area where you can't have a high enough number. I've spoken to Dario on the phone at least once a week on the amp before I got it. Most often he'd call me with an update. CALLED ME!!! We'd talk sometimes for 45 minutes, about the amp, Football, Surf music and Amps. He does all things right, and makes you feel comfortable. The amps aren't cheap. BUt try and find a dead mint new Blonde Bassman for what he is building them for and I'll outbid you quickly. Try and find one beat up for it and again, I'll get it faster.
You will be ULTRA-comfortable spending money on Tone, Service, and frankly prestige. These amps are in a topshelf class of thier own. I actually want another one just in case this ever needs something done. He also is making a 100 watt Showman that I'd sell my furniture to own.

I've played since I was 12, going on 36 yrs old now. own several Gretsches, Fender Custom Shop stuff. I would buy this again before any guitar or amp period. THe other half of Rock-N-Roll is the most neglected. AMPS!!!! Buy a good one and any guitar will sound killer. This would be my amp if I could only have one ever, ever, ever again. And it just might be.
I actually want a second one to be safe and to have doubles running super loaded side by side ala Brian Setzer. I've had 0ver 100 guitars in my life and about 50 different amps and worked for a major guitar manufacturer and so I feel I have a good idea on good "tone". Not individual tone but plain old good tone.
This is it. Easy, to dial up any types. I'd even say you could do heavy metal out of it with the 2 x 12's if you had a grinder type of distortion.
IT does it all with a couple of knob adjustments. Very responsive and sweet to look at. No ones making Blondes, and rare to see any old ones out gigging night after night. Service, Tone, and Prestige...... its all there for the price man you cannot beat it. Seriously, I'd be surprised if Gomez isn't the next Victoria amps. Just killer stuff. Be different, go Blonde.

Just got two of them in from Dario of Gomezamps.com and put em to the test against
my late 63' blonde 6G6-B. Now my amp has had some updates from tophat amps but the
only modification to my amp is the removal of a 222j cap that takes the damper off the high
end in the bass channel.

Dario's amps are built in Orange County just like the originals using overbuilt components that
match or excede the OEM components that fender used on 500 S. Raymond Ave. in Fullerton
back in the old days (at the time my dad was working there more or less). While original
blonde bassmans had a "presence" control and normal channel, Dario took the liberty of
calling that channel the "wild" channel and changed the presence control name to "stoke".
While he has a surf music background he has the heart for rockabilly artists looking to
get "the sound" and he has done so with the EL SONIDO. Its every bit as good with
fat tight bass and jangly,punchy highs as my own 63' fender blonde bassman.
I put it toe to toe into my bassman cab loaded in a 4ohm configuration with 2 celestion
speakers (one vintage 30 and one vox alnico blue).
This El Sonido has the same sonic footprint as my original other than the fact that you need
to turn the treble knob up on the gomez amp one notch past my original to get the same
twang. No big deal at all. What is much more improved is the quietness of the amp and that
the volume controls are usable the entire range unlike the original and most fender repros
that can only go from off to loud in a twitch of the finger.


The amp has a tad more headroom than my blonde and thats pretty much from the fact that
Gomez amps use JJ ECC803 preamp tubes (a longplate 12ax totally interchangeable) and
the Tungsol 5881 reissues. Remember that the originals were issues with RCA longplate pre's
and tungsol small bottle 5881 (same thing with Phillips 6G6-WGBs) so Dario is trying to
stay as true to the original as he can.
What an added bonus is that straight out these El Sonido amps have grounded heavy duty
extra length AC cords and an internal bias pot so that you can use any kind of 6L6 type tube
for your liking. (the original has a fixed bias that requires a tech to determine when you change
out tubes).

This El Sonido amp gives up the rocking crunch past 6 oclock like you expect and the lows still
stay nice and tight. Well defined sonic articulation across the spectrum.

I opted to have the treble damper cap in the bass channel exempt since I like to play my strat
through that channel for modern blues and rock stuff and as well I prefer the very
bright and hot Ruby 12ax7C5 pre amp tubes (ala setzer) and NOS 6L6WGB pwr tubes (ala setzer)
but pretty much you could blind taste test these amps and pick the EL Sonido as the better sounding amp.
I can now stop sweating about having my original blonde "dissappearing" from the stage and
take the El Sonido out to gig. While my own insurance would have to cover theft, I can rest in
the fact that Gomez Amps gives a solid 5 yr warrantee for his amplifiers.

I've got two at the moment, one for myself and the other to sell. IF you are a giggin musician
I would be happy to get one of these amps to you immediately. I've kinda signed up to play
and sell Gomez amps since I'm no good at at selling things I wouldnt play myself and dont
believe in.

I'm sold on this blonde and its been a long time coming for a company besides tophat and clark
to finally build a near blueprint 63' Blonde 6G6-B bassman amp.

hey Setzer, I got a new amp for ya that doesnt look like fonzies juke box. :wink:

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built better than the original amp comparing chassis to chassis

Email returns are the same day and phone calls are as well

pricey, but even if you bought a used original blonde and
had it brought up to speed you'd spend near the same on
your amp but you still would have an old amp that could
quit anytime without a warrantee. The Gomez El Sonido
is brand spankin new and has a 5 yr warrantee.

hmmm.. a no brainer for a giggin musician IMO