Guild 98-RT 115 Combo

Well, this amp has 3 inputs, as said below, a volume control, a tone knob, a reverb knob, and 2 knobs for the vibrato - speed and intensity. I got 2 of these amps from a friend back in the 90's - spent over $200 fixing one of them up, and ended up selling them a couple years later for $300 for both!

The amp has 1 channel - a clean channel. Didn't really break up at all - even when cranked. I want to say it had 9.8 watts - that would make the model number make sense, as it's a 98-rt, 9.8 watts, revern and tremolo? It has a 15" speaker, so it moves some air - but it's probably in the 10 watts range - but in a tube amp, that can be loud.

I gave it an "8" - b/c it does have features for what it is - but it's only one channel. This was probably a lot of features for the year though!

The amp sounds warm. The tonal options you get by changing the tone knob were impressive. The vibrato function did have a little hiss in it, if I can recall correctly. My amp was a '59, or '58.

I thought it would be a cool blues amp - but it didn't overdrive the signal at all when pushed. Sounded a little flat / unexciting to my ears at the time. Probably a great amp for a jazz tone though. Not bad for blues. With no overdrive sounds, it can't do any rock tones - as to be expected. These amps were designed to stay clean at a loud volume. Why would you want distortion? ;o)

Well, I got the amps and they weren't working. I retubed them, replaced the 2 prong cord, replaced the transformer (?), and I think I had the caps done. It worked without a problem for the 2 years I kept it for. Wanted to restore the other amp, so I could run them in stereo, but I never realized that dream.

Well built amp, and point to point wiring of course. For being over 40 years old, and still being in such good shape - I gotta say these were some reliable amps in their day.

Uh, what now?

I got the amp when I was a teenager. Had been playing for 6 years, thought I knew everything, etc etc. While I had an appreciation for the vintage amp, it didn't gel with me in the end. I did enjoy turning down the lights, plugging in to the amp, and just listening to the peaceful tones it made, and smelling the tubes cooking in the back. :o)

If lost or stolen, I would buy it again. Actually, that's what got me to write this review. I was trying to find one for sale - good luck on that one. Rare to find is an understatement!

If you think about it - the 1950's was the birth of the electric guitar going mainstream. Exciting times - companies like Fender, Gibson, Guild, and many others pioneered the way we would approach the guitar - and amplifying it! Now, some 50 years later, we look back to these years, and to the original guitars and amps from that era, and see the value in the workmanship, the simplicity, and the attention to detail.

Owning a guitar amp from this era feel historic. You're playing an important piece of history. It takes you back in time, to when a musician walked into a music store, picked up a 1957 Fender Stratocaster, and plugged it in to this 1958 Guild 98-RT amp to test it out. You can hear the salesman say "check out the footswitch that activates the vibrato", and see the smile of the guy's face as he pulled out the cash from his back pocket, and took the amp home.

This amp was there. The stories this amp could tell! Having a piece of guitar history, even a small piece, and being able to interact with it just the same way someone would have done when the amp was new - well that's just something special.

The schematic on the inside has a date of March 1962, so I'm guessing it was made sometime after that.

I don't know how many watts it is. It's got 2 6SL7 tubes, 2 6SN7 tubes, 2 6V6 tubes, and one 5YT (?) tube. It may have more, but I don't really know.

It came with an old 15" Jensen speaker, which I took out because it's such a good speaker that it deserved to be fixed.

It's got one channel, with foot switchable reverb and tremelo. There are three inputs on it.. guitar, bright, and accordian (you have to love that).

There's a volume control, a tone control, a reverb control, and a depth and rate control for the tremelo.

that's it.

I'm giving it a 10 because for an amp this old, that's about all you'll find anywhere.

I was told that this amp was a jazz amp. Using my semihollow arch top, it certainly sounds that way. It's warm, but not muddy, punchy but not harsh, and can get mighty loud before it breaks up.

The tremelo is nice and soft.. it doesn't sound as if it just cuts on and off (which I've heard in some before). It's nice having a tremelo like this as it is actually useful.

This amp has the best reverb I've ever heard. It's very full and complex, more like the natural echo of a parking garage or a cave than sound traveling along a shaking spring.

The only real tonal variation you can get through this amp, though, is through the tone control, which is just a treble boost. Still, it's remarkable how many different sounds can be obtained through it.

I have to say at this point, that the amp doesn't really work well anymore. The electronics are shot. After forty years I think the capacitors just died.

When it did work, however, this thing sounded sweet. It had a very old fashioned tone, but it didn't sound like every other old amplifier out there. It definite has a distinct tone, and I love it.

It's forty years old. I didn't expect it to work. I'm sure if it were reconditioned it would be very reliable, assuming it was brought back to it's original specifications. The thing is built like a tank. That's what's nice about all those old amplifiers, you could hit them with a baseball bat and they'll only get a dent.

There is no customer support for anything like this. The company doesn't even exist anymore (just because the Guild name is around doesn't mean the company is.. hell, all the records the company had on their amplifers were 'lost'.. whatever the hell that means).

This amp fills a niche. That's the only way I'll look at it. I didn't have to pay for it (a friend's father gave it to me), and wouldn't have if I had to, but I would have been missing out. It's very warm and inviting to play. It has a completely different feel from my Fender Bandmaster or my solid state Peavey. On a practical level, it's not as useful. But it's a blast to play and brings a smile to my face, and that's really the only reason I play, so why the hell should I care if it's not that versitile.

If it were stolen, I don't think I'd be able to find another. I've never even seen another Guild amplifier in person, let alone the same one.

This amp's got soul.. and one hell of a nice Jensen speaker.