Magnatone MAESTRO 113 combo

Magnatone model 113 two-channel combo amp with tremolo; I'm guessing maybe 12 to 15 watts output (although it sure sounds like a lot more! Read on!). Circa 1955 from the date codes on the pots and caps; the amp chassis is marked "vibrato", but it's NOT the famous pitch-shifting circuit we all know and love, as that effect wasn't introduced until '57 or '58. The amp is branded "Maestro" (NOT to be confused with any of the Gibson/Maestro amplifiers) and is also marked "Keneko Music and Manufacturing Corp, Fostoria, OH" (whoever the heck they were?!). Nonetheless, this amp was definitely built by Magnatone ! I don't actually own this amp myself (sigh!); I repaired it for another Magnatone-Valco yahoogroup member. I only had the amp-chassis here for repair, not the amp cabinet or speaker, so some of the following info may be slightly incomplete. I should also mention in advance that the amp had beem messed-with somewhat before it came to me, and also, I was unable to find a factory-original schematic for it (I ended up drawing an as-found schematic for it by hand)

Anyway, the Magnatone/Maestro 113 has a hammer-tone gray, rear-facing control panel. Fairly minimalist feature-wise: two instrument-input jacks and two mic-input jacks, with separate volume controls for the instrument and mic channels; also a single tone control which is common to both channels, and an extension-speaker jack. The preamp circuitry for the mic inputs is configured a bit differently from the instrument channel preamp (has way more cathode-bypass capacitance) and not surprisingly has even more gain (Yee-hah!). If I remember the comments from the amp's owner correctly, the original speaker is an 8-ohm 12" (made by Oxford of course, as virtually all Magnatone-supplied speakers were). The tubes used are two 12AX7's, two 6V6's (which are being run at modest voltages, & should provide long tube life), a 5Y3 rectifier, and what is *supposed to be* a 12AU7 for the tremolo oscillator, according to the amps' tube chart----except that the tremolo is virtually stone-dead if a 12AU7 is plugged into that socket ! Recapping the oscillator circuit is the usual fix for non-working trem or vibrato, but didn't help much in this case. Closer examination revealed that the tremolo circuit in this particular amp was/is actually very similar to that of a Fender Vibro-Champ (though the circuit might not be 100% original, as it showed some signs of having been tampered with). Subbing a 12AX7 in place of the 12AU7 did get the trem working but it was too fast, noisy, and rather choppy-sounding; I tried several other tube types with varying amounts of gain and finally settled on a 12AT7 which produced the closest thing to a useable tremolo effect. Still, the range of speed/depth control available from the trem wasn't very impressive. I doubt anybody is likely to buy one of these amps just for the tremolo....but read the next paragraph or chapter to find out why one SHOULD buy one of these !

It would be the understatement of the decade to say that this amp was like a revelation to me-----I have come to expect good to excellent tone from most of the Maggies that I have owned or repaired, but this amp sounds staggeringly good. Admittedly, I'm not much of a guitar player: I'm much better as a repair-tech than I am as a picker, but I had no trouble getting interesting tones from the 113 using just a 1990's MIM Tele with stock pickups and my inherently-clumsy fingers.

In a nutshell, this is one of the best-sounding small amps that I have ever heard; lots of drive and presence, very touch-sensitive, good crisp clean tone at moderate volumes (not really jazz-box clean, more of a stinging/ringing clean-blues type tone), morphing to Keith-Richards-like rhythmic funkiness when you crank it up-----and LOUD! Damn Loud! Scary Loud ! Granted, I did not have the original cab and Oxford speaker here to test it with, but patched through a good 12" ceramic-magnet speaker, this little amp held it's own, tone and volume-wise, with any Deluxe Reverb I've ever heard. IMHO, it's a slice of blues-rock heaven! The amps' owner concurrs with me on this----after I had shipped the re-capped and repaired amp back to him, he emailed me to ask "What did you do to make this amp so LOUD?!"

Considering that Magnatone marketed many of their amps primarily to accordion players and jazz/country session players, and usually designed them to be sort of like a hifi-amp for musical instruments, I wouldn't have expected this much gain and "bite" from a 1955-vintage Maggie!

Comparing this 113 to a Magnatone 213 or 440, I'd say the 113 has a bit more bite and drive then the 213, but of course the 213 adds true pitch-shifting vibrato and so that may be where some of the gain disappeared to.....and the 440 adds beautifully lush reverb but loses even a bit more gain in the process.

As I mentioned earlier, this amp had been internally messed-with in the past (component leads, especially for some of the capacitors, had been cut and replacement parts tack-soldered sloppily into place), and so I cannot guarantee that the circuit or parts values were 100% correct when the amp came to me for repair. (This is an all-too-common problem I've seen with Magnatone amps----even well-experienced Fender/Marshall repair-techs are often totally flummoxed when they attempt to fix a Maggie !). Interestingly, virtually all of the resistors inside the amp were 1 watt size (most of them did look to be original); even the load resistors for the input jacks were 1 watt, although 1/2 watt would have sufficed here and for all but a few other areas of the circuitry (mainly the power-supply of course, and the cathode-biased output stage). The overall point-to-point build-quality was decidedly funky and sloppy, like every other Maggie I've worked on so far. Owing to the convoluted circuit layout, it took me the better part of three hours just to trace and draw out an as-found schematic for it! (If anybody out there has a factory-original schematic for this amp, I'd love to get a copy----or if you'd like a copy of my hand-drawn schematic, feel free to contact me). Anyway, after totally recapping the 113; cleaning/tightening all the tube-sockets, mechanical grounds, jacks and controls; and resoldering a bunch of funky conections etc etc, I'd give it at least an 8 reliability-wise. This amp is actually one of the "simplest" Magnatone circuits I have worked on so far, due to the lack of true vibrato or reverb etc----BUT, the component layout is so screwy and sloppy that you really have to concentrate when trying to work on this amp, or any other Magnatone model for that matter.

Be aware that, by comparison, a 40+ year-old Magnatone that hasn't been serviced in decades, or which may have been sloppily serviced or even modified at some point in the past, is a potential disaster waiting to happen, and reliablity in such a case is probably no higher than 3 or 4 at best.

Magnatone has been out of business for 30-some years; and unfortunately, most amp techs these days have little or no experience with them. If you have a Magnatone that is malfunctioning or doesn't sound right, stop using it immediately and find a qualified tech who has past Magnatone-repair experience. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure ! Not following this advice can result in burned-up transformers, and an amp that will never be quite the same even after an extremely expensive repair bill.

Well, like I said, I don't actually own this amp----but I sure wish I did ! If and when I can find the time, I'm gonna try and clone one from the schematic I drew up. The amount of volume, tone and presence that came from this small, lightweight package was simply stunning ! I'd skip the crappy tremolo circuit......but incorporating real vibrato or reverb into it would be a plus, IF I could figure out how to do it without compromising the gain and tone, that is ! Anyway, for raucous bluesy guitar tone (I also have to wonder, what would it sound like for blues-arp?), I'd give this amp a 10-----but the crappy tremolo might bring it down a notch in some folks' view, so we'll give it a 9 overall......