Lab Series L3

Basic 60 watt solid state amp. Reverb but no tremolo. Has an external processor loop jack, 3 band eq, Very high build quality. VERY LIGHT WEIGHT. Loud as hell for its size.

A great sounding amp! Clean and warm, not unlike my Fender Twin Reverb. Stock speaker is marginal, and if you find one that DOESN'T sound great it's most likely the speaker. I play mostly blues and jazz, and found that it works for both, although the blues tone is best at an uncomfortably high volume. It really appeals as a small, light grab-n-go amp. Part of its tonal secret is that the cabinet is a very high quality, finger jointed pine shell that is only 1/2" thick! This makes the cab resonant and harmonically rich even with the original speaker. Yes, it really is that thin. I completely stripped it when I decided to retolex it. I noticed that the metal corner hardware is not the same as the more common Fender/Ernie Ball types. It was specially made to fit the thin cabinet walls.

Electronically this amp is completely original. The caps in this amp don't have to handle the high voltages found in tube circuits. Replace the now 20 year old speaker and it will be good to go.

No need for it. This thing is bulletproof.

The only flaw, if you could call it that, is that it doesn't have the built in compressor of the L5. You could use the processor loop with something like an RNC, or front it with a Keely. Or, just appreciate it for what it is, a great sounding amp that weighs next to nothing and needs no maintaining. I have a Fender Twin and an old Ampeg Gemini and this is still a keeper. If I run across another one, I will definitely buy it.

i think these were made in the mid seventies, was told by the salesman that bb king plays on these amps. I was only 22 at the time ,I didnt care. I play metal-hard rock and just wanted a amp to jam on at home And at parties and studio work. Bare bones, a bright switch volume,bass,mid,treb,reverb and a master volume. have never used the external proscesing jack, but i think its just an output to a sound board. 60 wattX112 with a speaker symbol next to the 112 is what the front plate says but after reading the other reviews i decided to measure it ,yes it is only a ten incher. It needs nothing !! Thats what my Pro co ratt distortion box and the dsp 256 xl are for. loud enough to not here my drunk roomates tell me to turn it down

solid state amp ,its very clean as long as pre volume stays below 5 you can crank master to about 8 and then after that it doesnt get any louder. It pretty much spits out what you put into it unless you use the reverb ,I rarely do . 1-4 sounds great, it seems extended further than most on higher settings. I use strats with single coils. also electric accoustics. It is reletivly noisless with good cords . Have borrowed it to freinds they thought it was cute and made no bad comments about it.Was even used for electric percusion once in a pinch.

only problem in the 15 years I have had it is that the bright switch gets funny sometimes. So I just dont touch it and leave it on bright.Sound hasnt changed a bit in 15 years. As far as gigs If you mic it to a board its never gonna die.

I bought it because it was the cheapest 60 watt amp I could find at the time .Over the years I have grown very attached to it,have taken it all over the place because of its small size . I have been playing guitar for 25 years and would love to find more of these amps.I love this amp for its simplicity,durability,and ability to deliver crisp clean uncolored sound.With my ratt pedal and my dsp 256XL I can get any sound I want out of it. Metallica ,megadeth,red hot chile peppers,BLS,hell I have even done Beatles and greatful dead with this thing. When It dies I may cry

Best feature of this amp is light weight. Second best is REVERB. Third best is eq knobs. Overall, simple amp, but has taken over my Line 6 and Fender Showman. This is the first one I owned of the three, got the others thinking they were better, but always seem to be coming back to this one. It just works for everything.

Like I said, works for everything in the rock realm. May need to tweek for some styles, like if you need tremolo, or something. But I got the Line 6 for its effects and still mostly use this amp. The sound is warm and versatile. You'll need a pedal for metal tones.

This amp might get a few tube loyalists over to the dark side..great sounds with no maintenance. Maybe not the loudest, but very strong.

Apparently company is MIA.

Value, that word says it all. I got this amp so cheap, thinking I would upgrade, but every time I think I'm upgrading I come back to this amp, and the expensive amp is collecting dust...

Sounds great with lots of guitars, and even my basses, but I really like playing Dan-O Hodad through it, since that guitar has lots of different sounds as well. The combo of the two covers a lot, and with a metal pedal, it could probably shred too.

Not so sure when the amp was made, but has a sparce control set. Even though it doesn't boast a wide assortment of features, it has a superior clean channel. For its age, this amp is well appointed.

If you're looking for a nice, clean sound, this amp is well bodied like wine. I have not tried it out with any external effects pedals or processors, but if I did I'd probably stick with something vintage to compliment its natural tone.

This amp, easily in its late twenties, is built like a brick house. Though it's not the prettiest amp in the world, it will get you where you need to go. Mine was left out in the open, covered only cardboard boxes for an entire year at one point and suffered no physical or electronic damage.

I have been playing for about 12 years. Other aged amps like this do not usually sound as good. If I came home and found this amp missing I would definitely start searching for another one immediately. It is a well constructed piece of equipment.
I think the best part about this amp would be that effortlessly accomplishes what other amps and manufacturers try to duplicate in the lab.

This amp is from the late 70's, I play a gibson Les Paul Studio mostly, and would classifly the music I play as rock/blues, with an alternative twist. ( I hate classifying music). There is only one channel but thats all I use anyway. There is no headphone Jack, but I love to play loud all the time so that didnt bother me. The features of this amp are very cut and dry, however why do you need a bunch of fancy controls. The one "feature" it has and I use is the reverb knob. It does the job. I use this amp playing with my two buddies mostly. My friend plays out of a Fender Hot rod deville 60 watt tube amp and surprisingly, my old Lab tec keeps up with his amp. The limit is 6.5 or 7 on the volume. Anything higher than that distorts the sound naturally.

As mentioned earlier, I use a Gibson Les Paul with twin Humbuckers. The amp works well with Rock/ Blues/ Jazz and even Grunge. I set the volume at 4-6 out of 10 most the time. I use a Boss Distortion DS-1, a Boss Super Chorus, a Cry baby, and a Boss Equalizer. Using the Chorus, and the equalizer pedal, plus setting the Reverb high on the amp makes for an amazing almost tube like sound. The pedals work well and dont distort the sound. Only after you turn up the volume past 7 is when the sound distorts, however it is not that bad.

I got this amp about a 2 years ago and it hasn't had any problems yet. It is over 20 years old and still had all of the original parts in it. I take good care of it and hope to use it for many more years.

I have been playing guitar for 12 years. I own a handful of guitars and basses. I have a crate amp as well. I have grown a customed to using my Lab Tec and would try to replace it if it was stolen. I love the tone and the simplicity of it. I hate that I can't put it on my porch and play the star spangled banner with the same intensity as if I were playing through a Marshall Stack. Overall these little 60 watt amps are quite versatile, and create a great sound.

My Lab Series L3 kicks for jazz, blues, rock. Great recording and small gig amp. How can you knock an amplifier that is 20+ years old and hasn't needed ANY repairs? This thing has the tone of a tube amp with NO maintenence.

I use the amp with my Gibson Howard Roberts Fusion.
The combination = TONEE TONE TONE!

I've been playing for 25 years. As a player, you are always searching for the right guitar/amp combination. After I bought the LAB, I quit looking for amplifiers, because I finally found THE one.

Lab Series L3 amp of unknown birth date, but probably nearly 20 years old, if not older. My brother gave it to me 17 years ago when I was learning how to play bass. Now after a 14 year hiatus, I've picked up music again and purchased a couple of electric guitars.

This solid state amp has one channel, no effects except for a reverb knob. No headphone jack. As a bass amp it was pretty weak but for a guitar amp it seems to have a lot of power for only 60 watts. When it was made, it probably had all the features in vogue at the time. But as a relic in the year 2002, it is woefully inadequate in the "features" category. So I'm not going to give it a low rating since it seems unfair considering its age.

I don't believe they make this thing anymore, so I'm not sure why I'm writing a review. I guess some others have so I'll follow (what a sheep am I). Maybe someone is selling one on eBay and a potential buyer wants to find out about it. I don't know . . .

I have a Danelectro DC-3 and an Aslin Dane Jazz model, through a Zoom 505II pedal (all the low budget stuff!). And still this thing sounds pretty damn good! Especially considering the price. Sometimes I have to fiddle with the eq controls depending on the effect I'm playing through the Zoom, but all of the sounds are pretty good. And it is plenty LOUD for household use, as I'm sure my neighbors could attest to.

Its a bit noisy if I'm too close to it, but the solution is simple - move away. There is no distortion on the amp itself, unless I turn the volume up so much that the speaker starts to distort, but that obviously does not sound good. But it handles the sounds coming out of the Zoom quite well. I give this amp high marks in the sound category.

An absolute tank. Has handled abuse by a bass for a couple years, plus a long long absence of playing anything, and it still works as well as it did 15 years ago.

Sorry, no such luck.

Its worth far more than one of those ridiculous 15 watt practice amps. If you see one on eBay I'd pay up to $75 for one in good condition.

I think this thing was made well and was a quality amp when it came out. But its got no tubes, no effects (save reverb), few amenities. It sounds good but since it is so outdated I cannot give it an honest rating.

It's the basic feature for small amps :
Single clean channel : Input, bass, medium , trebble, reverb and output level + a "bright" button
I played a lot of other amps since and as far as I have seen , this is quite enough. I can even say that I prefer an amplifier not having more features as I prefer to have them on external devices.
The only thing I wished to be added is the medium range frequency (as it is put on lots of other amps).
At home the amp is powerfull enough. If you go elsewhere you need something different (As I like the sound of this amp, I bought an additional Lab Series L7 for live performance)

The sound of this amp is quite warm. It has mainly medium boost, the high and low frequencies are somewhat too weak, espaecially the high frequencies. This is not the perfect amp to play hard rock or funky style as the sound is not cut sharp enough for main riffs. On the other hand I have never found an amp that sounds so warm on guitar solos or when playing Santana like melodies.
A big lack of this amp is that it sounds nice up to volume 4 of 10. Above this, the sound is not the same anymore. That's why, at low volume I give it an 8

I bought it 14 years ago. And I believe it still makes the same sound.
For some years I have the volume knob giving me some trouble. Sometimes no sound comes out and I have to fight with it. The same occurs with the high input jack. But this should be acceptable after all these years

No idea, never used

After 14 years of duty, I still use it for home work and I'm happy with it. I have heard better amps but also a lot of worse. I you take into account that Lab Series are very cheap, they become an interesting solution. I have no regrets. It it was stolen I'd buy of course another one (the amp is very good but now I have some more money...)

i BOUGHT THIS AMP FOR $20.00 WITH BLOWN OUTPUT TRANSISTORS AND NO SPEAKER IN IT .SOME ONE HAD ROUTED IT FOR A 12" SPEAKER INSTEAD.
SO I GOT A 12" CELESTION AND PUT IT IN .THE IS A 4 OHM LOAD SO TO GET THE POWER OUT OF IT YOU SHOULD USE THE RIGHT IMPEDANCE. THIS AMP REALLY CRANKS AND HAS GREAT TONE WITH THE MOD.IF YOU CAN FIND ONE OF THESE LITTLE POWERHOUSES PICK IT UP YOU WON'T BE DISAPPOINTED. I WOULD BE LOST WITHOUT IT AND I HAVE AT LEAST 20 AMPS NOW!

This amp was given as a gift, and I have relied on it since I got it.It has basic controls (ie: treb., bass, mid) with a master volume, and reverb.Solid state with a 10 inch speaker.I am not sure about the power handeling on It says 60 watts but I dont think so.

I've used this thing for jazz, blues Rock, metal.I have heard a lot of negative things but personally All it really takes is a bit of eqing to get it sounding right.As small as this little guy is, the damn thing is a lot louder than most of the bigger combo amps I have played through.With single coils the sound is kind of thin at times,keeping in consideration it was made for gibson Humbuckers are the most obvious chioce for any of these amps.that aside it has a great sounding spring reverb,and is actuall pretty wet sounding.By itself the amp is clean and warm, when the volume is turned up the distortion is very 70's sounding, with a tele it does Jimmy Pages communication breakdown sound really convincingly I can barely tell the difference,Add a little midrange and Ritchie Blackmore's machine head deep purple era is the next stop.Cut the mids and sabbath is the next stop. When you want to get into a more 90's sound the first thing to do is to get a good sounding distortion pedal [(probably a boss hypermetal) I use a regular boss ds-1 distortion with my morely pdw's overdrive boosting it] then cut the midrange out because the lab series are a pretty midrangy sounding amp.Another thing is to hook up another 10 inch to evenly distribute the power to get it sounding deeper.I had a 10 inch from a fender keboard amp and that did the trick for me even though it isnt probably a good Idea to.

It's been dropped,kicked,slammed against walls and the darn thing hasent broken down yet.

This division went out of buisness years ago, schematics are on the back though,even that I dont think Ill ever need.

After 13 years pf playing this amp has been my amp of choice it is reliable and there is no regular matinence needed,no tubes to replace it is avery cost efficient amp.A very cool little amp

Even though it is only a smaller combo(In my opinion) it blows alot of higher priced amps out of the water.Basic controls treble,mid,bass,volume, master, and probably some of the wettest reverb this side of a twin!There is a direct out for recording(a major plus for home recording),and a weird input jack that when you plug in to it with the reverb up it sounds like the amp is in another house). It is 60 watts powering one 10" speaker.

The amp is pretty versitile but some high gain pedals just sound like crap in it(ie:thrash metal,hyper metal etc.) and get kind of noisy.When slighter overdrive is used you can get a wide pallet of sounds,blues sounds very good played through it.Also a very good ska/swing amp! Pretty versitile for the price.It sounds good with another amp to boost the sound if you play bigger gigs. I use it with an old 80 watt yamaha in stereo through my boss super chorus(A good heavy sound) .

I love this amp but reality has forced me to use a bigger amp with it when I'm playing a pretty big place.Other than that if I lost it it would be like losing a leg, or a hand for that matter!Its like a favorite old pair of shoes it just feels right sometimes.It is solid state so it has never broke on me.

No customer support that I know of, I think the company no longer exsits.

In the 13 years I have been playing I personly feel that for what I paid for it was a bargain and I will never let it go.