Kalamazoo KEH Combo

Uhhh....What? Features?! WE DON'T NEED NO STEENKING FEATURES!

We barely even need a switch to turn the amp on, or so the designers of this amp seemed to think way back in the mid- to late-1930s...seeing as how the "tone control" was still a new innovation back then...
Still, they WERE gracious enough to put a volume control on there for the "microphone" input...The "instrument" guys have to use their *own* volume.
Did I Mention it's got tubes? Nowadays those ARE features, back then, it was just a given. I mean, *diodes* were tubes back then. Transistors? They weren't even in Bill Shockley's wildest dreams in the 1930s.
So, this thing pushes I don't know how few watts from a single 6L6 (the METAL version, before those revision letters came about) into an 8 or 10 inch field coil speaker.

So I plug in, fire it up and crank it up and.....
Hum. Buzz. AC all over the place. Look inside-ALL THE FILTER CAPS ARE 70 YEARS OLD! OF COURSE THEY'RE DEAD!
One $100 trip to the tech later, I plug in, fire it up, crank it up and...
Music. Rich, thick, clean (It doesn't get distorted. at all.), Just loud enough to annoy the neightbors next door (but not loud enough for them to complain to management), and I never get tired of the sound of it. Melody flows out of this thing. I tell you, if amps like this were as affordable as the cheapo SS practice amps seen in every music store, well...lets just say that the Transistor practice amp might find itself obsolete.

Have you Ever heard of a 6c5 tube? How about a Number 80 rectifier tube? Neither had I until I got this thing.
Lucky for me 6c5's are obscenely plentiful and NOS (new old stock) US-made examples are still much cheaper than your run-of-the-mill Chinese 12ax7.
And the Model 80 rectifier is just a 5y3 tube with a 4-pin base on it. so one of these days, a socket change might be necessary. but right now extra tubes aren't too expensive...
Would I gig this Amp? Not if I could possibly help it. You see, they don't make field coil speakers anymore. And the weird connector that goes from the amp to said speaker isn't around anymore either. if the speaker blew...ta-ta. See Ya later, cool tone. But for Practice at home, or at friends' apartments, it's great!

Once upon a time when this was built, Gibson hired some electronics company to build them an amp under the "kalamazoo" moniker. In the 65 or so years between the building of the amp and my purchase of it, that electronics company has faded into the mists of time, Gibson has been bought and sold numerous times, etc, etc, ad Nauseum.

However, I did call and email Gibson in the vain hope that they *might* know *something* about what kind of product (bearing a name associated with Gibson) I had purchased. No Dice. They were more clueless than I was. The only reason I know the Model of this amp is due to *one* web page...based in Denmark...and to whoever put that page together, my deepest appreciation and gratitude.

Other than that, it's a snap to repair, and, as is fitting an old piece like this, there's no warranty anymore, if one ever existed.

All told, a cool practice amp. It's the first one of its kind I've ever seen. I even have its companion piece, an old Kalamazoo KEH Lap steel (the ONLY one I've ever seen or heard of). I play them both regularly (though seldom together anymore).

Is there anything i Wish it had? Yeah. Replaceable parts!

What would I do if it got stolen? Cry. I think that's about All I could do. I've never seen another one of these (and since this is the first entry for this amp on Harmony Central, I think it's safe to say this is the first time most of the readers have even heard about any of these amps.)
How Many were Made? I don't know. Maybe Tons. Maybe 15. Maybe they all got thrown out with the advent of the 50s, just another Depression-era relic that got scratchy and "worn out".
Lucky for me, however, one survived. Possibly in the basement of some pack-rat old lap steel player from the Jazz Age who hung up his suit ages ago, only to be dug up by a once-young son years later and sold to an endless procession of dealers and vintage buffs, but never valuable enough to keep when times got rough.
However it got to me, I'm Glad it did. Because I like this amp. And If I possibly could buy this amp again. I'd do it. And I probably wouldn't wait as long to get it fixed, either.