Rickenbacker TR-75

ah, finally some information on my favorite amp: the rickenbacker tr75, bought some 15 years ago in a 2ndhand guitarshop in belgium. indeed the same remark as other reviewers: bright sound with beautiful reverb on the strereo channel, but forget the distortion cuz it really sucks. to add a little overdrive i use the ibanez 'tube screamer' (some experienced experienced musicians couldn't believe it was a solid state, until i turned it around)
i don't know the year of production...

my favorites are an old telecaster (2 single coil) and a fender leadII (strat/tele crossover which wasn't very succesful i suppose, they stopped producing it for quite a while now). this combination doesn't offer a wide variety in sound, but the sound you do get is unique, outstanding for every style (i bought it when playing in a punk/hardcore band and now play something like experimental blues/jazz/noise)

never had any problem with it! she survived transport in the most horrible old vans, rain/beer damage, drunk/stoned friends who wanted to try her out, you name it & she's been through it!
i remember when i bought it: owboy, this one's gonna be dead in a month :)

never needed to contact them

if it ever breaks down, i would travel to the other side of the world to have it repaired!
-- or buy another one, cuz in the states the tr75 is obviously a lot cheaper than in europe (15000 belgian francs is about 375$)

I bought my Ric used in 2001, it's a TR-75 twin 12 reverb w/distortion. Late 70's or early 80's, I don't know, it is in pristene cond., the distortion is the weak point, but when mixed with my '72 mosrite distortion it has incredible tonality and sustain, I blew an originol speaker on stage at a vol. setting of 8.5 (which is not unusual for my music), the reason was that one speaker lead had vibrated off and the lone remaining speaker was taking the full load at high volume w/fuzz, octive generator, and some wild leads. I still use this amp. on stage, sitting on top of a half stack w/4-12's, and I love the tones it gives me. I play everything from Beatles to Jimmy Eat World thru it, and it take care of me every time. Tom C.

I use a Musicman Axis for my dramatic and higher end songs, and a fat strat for warm and blues, and sometimes for screaming second octive leads coupled w/mosrite fuzz and echo. Because I run the amp. thru a 4X12 cab. I can get a very wide varity of signals thru it, depending on what toys I plug in, I can get bass that dam near rivals my bass players Fender, and screaming resonance that attains the quality and sustain of a hot tube amp. The distortion of the amp by itself is weak, but coupled w/inline distortion is carries so sweet!

It only screwed me once, but that was because one speaker lead vibrated off at high volume and the remaining speaker blew a coil getting the full load. I now solder my speaker leads.

No comment- never tried, and from what I've heard you can't get much help without shelling out alot of clams. I am an elect. engineer, so I will cure any problems if they occur.

I have been playing for approx. 35 yrs. My main-stay is an old Peavey Musician amp, and an older Sunn I use for recording. I love to play thru thr Ric. and use it whenever possible, it has a range of sound I can shift so qiuckly on stage.

The guy I bought it from said it's a '69 so I beleive him. It has 2 channels, an external speaker jack,stereo input. I wish it had a better distortion though, it really sucks. I use it at home it has a lot of power for an inside amp, my parents are always bitchin at me to turn it down. I really love it. But I cant find any info about it.

I have a Epiphone Les Paul special II. It has 2 humbuckers so the 12" speakers really bring out the low end that I like to find in heavy metal. I have a Zoom 510 multi-effects proccesor I run through it. It sounds great with heavy distortion. The clean channels are great too. Without the pedal the distortion is very weak. The clean channel is awesome,it sounds really warm.

I have never had any problem with it ever!

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I wouldnt trade it for anything. I know the history of who had it before me and it's all I need.

I'm unsure of the year; I'd guess late 70's. It works ok. It is a two channel solid state amplifier with 2x12's, distortion and reverb. No channel switching, five inputs (two reverb, two regular and one stereo) one line in one line out and effects loop which I never use. It's great for jamming alone or with other musicians.

I play a Les Paul X-R1 and recently aquired an Epiphone Casino. It seems to work better with the humbuckers loud and distorted. I play kind of a blues/punk/folk/funk mishmash and it suits me alright. I have never gotten it past 4 on the volume because I've never needed to. Lots of tones from loud and distorted to reverb drenched twang. It's a little noisy (no good for recording but great for gigs) and I can't get really clean sound at any volume. I checked the fuses and it has 6.9's installed but stamped on the back it says 6.0's only so that could be the problem? Will update on that soon. The distortion is verrry crunchy. It's my favorite tone through the treble pickup on the X-R1. Not so sure about sounds with single coils as I just got the casino this week but will report back soon.

It's a pretty reliable amp, I don't have a backup (because I'm poor) and I've never had it break down without reason. (i.e. my housemate dragging it down the stairs mercilessly) After the stairs, the second channel has ceased to function. I had the reverb fixed about six months after I bought it, but considering I've used the thing for about four years, two breakdowns (neither total breakdowns as the first channel has never died) ain't all that bad. As long as you treat it somewhat well, it is very dependable.

Rickenbacker would probably deny having any involvement with these amps, but I've never dealt with them so no opinion here.

I've been playing for about 8 years and I've owned tons of crappy guitars and practice amps. The Rick was the first and only real amp I've owned- I love it to death. I love cranking it up to about 4 on the volume and 10 on the distortion and pissing off my neighbors. It's only real drawback is the lack of clean tones. If it was stolen I'd buy another if I could find one (I've never seen another). I compared it to a few other 2x12 amps in the price range (crate, peavy) but none had the distortion (peavy and crates have really cheezy "metal" distortion) or volume I wanted. Also, it looks really cool and it was pretty cheap too :).

Year: unknown 75W solid-state combo 2 channel 1 inputs w/volume, treble, bass 1 stereo input 2 channel 2 inputs w/distortion, reverb, treble, mid, bass, presence, volume Back-panel: convenience outlet, footswitch jack, "pre-amp #1 in/out", "pre-amp #2 in/out", "effects loop in/out". Speakers: 1 15", 1 10", 3 2"

Clean, loud, nice reverb. A little weak on distortion, but for a solid-state, it's got an overall warmth that I like. As with most solid-state amps I've encountered, there's a pretty sharp 'pop' when it's turned on, which doesn't seem too good for the speakers, but no trouble so far.

I've had the amp for all of a week, but I did open up the brain for a look...very clean no-frills construction, looks like a dream to work on if repairs are ever required.

I can't find any other references to this amp anywhere other than this very page!

I was looking for a Roland Jazz Chorus that I saw on the cheap at my local music store...it had been sold, so I checked this amp out. The speaker configuration as described above seems to have been a modification that a previous owner made, since I haven't seen it described anywhere else, although as I mentioned above, the Web is not exactly rife with Rickenbacker amp write-ups. That was the big selling point for me, those speakers--I'm using the amp with my Fender Rhodes, too. The diverse speaker setup handles the piano's tonal spectrum quite nicely, by the way.
The reverb knob is grouped with the channel 1 knobs but only seems to be available to channel 2 signals. I just got the thing, so I've only been running an electrified acoustic through it (in addition to the Rhodes!) I've got a tele on order, though, which I'm greatly looking forward to putting through this amp.
I'd recommend the Rick TR-75 highly as a nice solid amp for certain applications. You may have to front-end your signal some to get the effect you're looking for, but everybody does that anyway. That raises another question--I'm not really clear on how the effect & preamp "in/out" chaining is supposed to work with this thing--I always thought you needed a send AND a receive for such stuff...
As a clean solid-stater it's pretty sweet, and VERY cost-effective--you should be able to grab some outboard effects with the dough you save, yielding a nicely-configurable package. And if the 15/12/2/2/2 speaker setup is more widely available, grab it. You can't beat the evenness it'll give your sound.

It has a great spring reverb, fuzzy distortion, an effects loop, and a couple of inputs. It's nice, clean and simple and that's why I love it.

It's solid state but it sure doesn't sound like it. Plus it's not as fickle as the tube amps I've had. I use a Rickenbacker 360 12-String and a Fender Jaguar for very varied sounds (From Byrds' twang to Flying Saucer Attack's droney whoosh) and the amp lets me do whatever I want without getting in the way. I use pedals for distortion 'cause the amp's is too wimpy. I think the amp plays clean all the way up the dial which is fine with me.

I use it all the time, I bought it so cheaply because the guys at the guitar store couldn't get it to work. I have to whack the panel when I first turn it on to get it to work right but after that it always works fine. It's never failed me, it's solid state!

I doubt Rickenbacker even remembers making these things. No one seems to have ever seen one.

I've attempted using other "cooler" amps but I always come back to the Rickenbacker. Call me crazy. The other amps I have are a Vox Berkeley (great reverb and tremelo but too quiet), a Marshall 50W combo (horrible), and an small old Gretch combo (too distorted). And you can't beat the price I paid.

The amp is a 2x12 stage amp. It has 5 input jacks, including 1 stereo input. It has built-in distortion and reverb, an effects loop and an external speaker jack. I generally always use the reverb and never the distortion because it's too thin for me. It's a solid state but you'd never know it as it has a great, warm sound. I rarely have to turn the volume up past 3 or 4 as it is louder than hell.

I play on a Rickenbacker 360 and the amp seems to have been made for it. When my band plays a show, I always get comments on how great it sounds, and people are surprised to find out it's solid state. Since I don't like the built-in distortion, I use an Ibanez Tube Screamer and a Boss Distortion (the orange one).

Basically, I've only had to take it in to the shop once to fix the reverb. The tech didn't know what to do with it, as he had never seen one before. He did get a wiring diagram from Rickenbacker but it didn't seem to be much help, but he ultimately fixed the problem. Otherwise, it's a sturdy, well-made amp

I e-mailed Rickenbacker about it and they never got back to me. I suspect, like other owners of these amps, that they really didn't know anything about it.

I love this amp. I almost bought another one just like it a couple years ago, but didn't have the money. I own an old Fender Princeton reverb amp that I also love, but the Rickenbacker is the best (for me) that I have ever played on. If anyone knows anything about Rickenbacker amps, please e-mail me at the address below.