Kent 2188 Combo

Kent made moderately priced guitars and amplifiers in the 1960's. This particular Kent 2188 amp was made in 1964. It's a small combo type amp with an 8 inch speaker and a simple three-tube amp circuit. It measures about 19 inches tall, 14 inches wide, and 8 inches deep. The front panel has three 1/4" input jacks, one volume control, and one tone control. The on/off switch is on the tone control. The cabinet is made of plywood covered with brown textured vinyl. The front panel is a masonite board covered with brown/green/gold tweed fabric. The control panel with the jacks and knobs is screwed onto the top end of the front panel, and is a rectangular slab of aluminum with some stripes, the KENT logo, and "Made In USA" painted on it. The back panel is a bare masonite board with some air vent holes near the top and bottom. The 8 inch speaker is an alnico magnet type with no identifying marks on it. The power output capacity isn't written on the amp anywhere, but I'd guess it to be somewhere in the 5 to 10 watt range. This amp has pretty typical features for its age, but does not have any modern conveniences (no channel switching, no effects loop, no EQ, no headphone jack, etc).

This amp sounds GREAT for blues and old school rock n' roll. At low volume levels it has a clean-ish sound with a little grit to it, and at higher volume levels it breaks into down and dirty tube-driven distortion. There's not enough gain for really heavy Marshall-esque distortion, so if you play metal then you would hate this amp. I've played a bunch of different guitars through it, and I think it generally sounds better with single-coil pickups but that's just a personal preference. With one volume and one tone control, the sound options are limited, but they all sound good. The circuit uses a 35W4 rectifier tube, a 12AU6 preamp tube, and a 50C5 power tube. The schematic is printed on a label stuck to the inside of the amp. The circuit is almost identical to the Kay 500 and 700 series amps, the Harmony 400 series amps, and the Silvertone 1430 (all very, very similar to each other). If you like the sound of any of those amps, you'll like this one, too. This amp also has the option to replace the 12AU6 tube with a 12BE6 for a cleaner sound, but that also cuts the gain so you won't be able to push the amp into distortion as easily.

It's over 40 years old so something's bound to break eventually. It was still working when I got it last year but I recap'd it and replaced a few other parts as a preventative measure.

Customer support? How about a soldering iron and a voltmeter! Seriously, Kent has been out of business for decades.

Bottom Line: It's a typical 60's three-tube amp. It rocks for blues. It sucks for metal. It's not loud enough to gig with but what a sound! Everybody should have at least one amp like this Kent (or a Kay, or a Harmony, or a ...)