Roland JC-160

This rare and famous amplifier was developed in the late part of the seventies, and sold in scarce numbers. If you've aquired one of these beautiful amplifiers, you are a lucky man (or woman if you dig). The amplifier is a 4x10 combo rig. I've rated this amp a 10 in this category, so let me explain why. First, it must be said, the distortion is absolutely sacreligious, terrible to say the least. I could fart into a seashell and get better distortion. So why 10? Because, anybody that knows anything about these amps knows what they are meant for...insane (full stereo capable) chorus sound, and beautiful clean tone. The amp is loud enough (160 watts) to shake the fillings loose in your head. You have a vibrato feature as well. Thunderous bottom end for a 4x10 cabinet, which is equaly as effective with high end snappy tone. For a solid state amplifier, Roland was well ahead of its time. Roland developed the first ever chorus effect to hit the industry, and they built it into their amps (JC120 and JC160). Jazz purists love these amps. I run various distortion and overdrives through this amp, and to be honest, I've never seen the likes of it in a solid state format. We all know that achieving that tubed Marshall overdrive is nearly impossible in a pedal format, but I will say this, you'll never get silky clean tone out of one either. So, if you want some of the BEST clean, chorus tone in the industry, and are willing to sacrifice a small amount of distortion tone by aquiring a top end distortion pedal to run through this amp, then in my opinion, you'll have one of the best rigs available on the market today.

I love my gear, and more importantly, TONE is everything! I have a G&L Legacy special, with three stock (hot and bright) rail pick-ups. This is a very versatile guitar and offers both single coil, and humbuckery tones. When I bought the amp, the store that was consigning it had an old strat with single coils and I'll tell you, both of these guitars are naturals with this amp. I play everything from jazz to snappy country, to blues, to reggae, to rock, to metal. The amp has never let me down. But the distortion is crap! Roland/Boss has some wonderful distortion and overdrive pedals on the market, it's too bad they didn't around the time these amps were manufactured. Perhaps the tones could have been surgicaly implanted into the JC's as well. I've been playing for about 15 years now, and I've never come across a chorus sound like the one in the JC160. The beautiful silver cones in the stock roland speakers emit the tones with such fluidity, you'd swear you were running full stereo without an extension cabinet. The vibrato, is nice, seems to lack a little sweep , but then again, come to think of it, I hardly use it in my play either. WAY LOUD, so it's perfect for almost any average size bar on its own, especially if you have an extesion cab to go with it to run on the opposite side of the stage.

Had it for a year, never had a problem. When I bought it, it needed a new reverb pot, but 16 bucks later, and she was as good as new. Solid state amps are notorious for their ruggedness, and this amp is no exception. It's a beast, a 4x10 combo you don't come by every day, and it's got some weight to it, and although I haven't dropped it yet, I'm confident that if I did, she'd be just fine. I'd use this amp anywhere, anytime.

When the pot needed replacing, the local music shop, phoned up Roland in Richmond, ordered the part, and that was that. I've never personaly dealt with them, so I'm gonna have no comment here on the subject.

I absolutely lovely this amplifier. Anybody would be happy with, and I mean anybody. Even a pure metalhead could plug into this amp, flick on the chorus turn her up to 3 or 4 on the vol dial, strum his(or hers if you dig) first chord and go.."whoa". I am that confident. I stole this amp for what I paid, I would have paid twice that amount for it, especially considering the amp is in immaculate condition. I've had Trace Elliot (nice stuff too), Peavey, Tech 21, Fender, Marshall, and Mesa. At some point I've parted with all of them. I can honestly say, that I will never part with my Roland. It's a legend that will remain in my collection for the rest of my days.

I bought the amp new in the late 70's. As a professional player I had to produce many different sounds/styles. The low end was weak but the sound crew was able to compensate for that. As a side note, at one point I had the JC-160 behind me and the JC-120 on the other side of the stage. Real nice blend. I thought the features were great. Used the stereo chorus a lot. The spring reverb worked well. Plenty of power. It has the same head as the JC-120.

I use a rare Ibenez (1978 "The Professional") which is a versatile guitar creating a complete range of tones. The 160 carried all styles very well. It did have some noise though which interfered with recording. Miked it in the clubs and was fine. It's line out was too bright for me. Distortion was horrible. Couldn't use it.

I found it to be very reliable over the 25 yrs or so I used it. Never did carry a backup. One problem I had was the fuse holder snapped off one time loading or unloading from the truck. Another time, the reverb spring need to be reattached. Amp never failed until it was stored in a non-controlled environment. Some humidity got on the boards and smoked at power up. I'll fix it someday. May instal the JC-120 head into it.

Does it exist? I had to actually carry a poster of Skunk Baxter using one to prove to stores that one did existed. Roland basically doesn't know it exists. Shame - great amp!!

Overall - just an exeptional amp. Kept me working for almost 30 yrs now. Still the original speakers!! If I were to go on the road again, I would get a protective case. Cloth front tears.

That amp was made in 1976.I bought it by the end of april 1977 and I've been using it on stage as in the studio for 25 years!this is a very versatile, unique clean amp, Roland intended to make their amp as "an extension of your sound"...for more info, please email me and I'll send you the original, very limited and simple operation manual that got out at the time on a zip file.

I'm using an old Roland G-808 guitar synth with stock pickups at the time made by ibanez, a 1976 U.S. telecaster and and also a 1976 Gibson ES-1975 for 3 different very clean sounds.The distortion was made for a "mild" distortion, with an external distorsion from a pedalboard or other combined with the amp distortion it makes some great sounds cause the amp distortion alone just does not cut it! it was not the goal of that product, for a transistor amp, it's the warmest I've seen ever.

definitely reliable, solid! I toured canada, New-york, L.A. with it without any problems whatsoever, they never break!.It broke only once! when I played on a military base...people came dancing and jumping on the stage(it was a wild party!) my amp kept moving(and I was using the internal spring reverb at the time...boom...boom..)So one IC flipped and broke!Elvis has left the building!

If you don't have any friends at Roland, don't even count on them, they have lots to do!at the beginning, they did not even answer my requests, now that I'm more knownand sent them some articles that I've appeared in, they email me and send me free stuff! yes ladies and gentlemen, support can change!I'm just getting at it!once you get in, and buy some,they are kind and helpful.I got the amp very cheap here in Canada because in 1976 when I got in that store, I had $4,000 in my pockets(in cash) and bought a lot of stuff...in those times, that was a lot of money for a musician, they almost closed the store for me that afternoon, I was treated like Elvis arriving at Sears.

I've been playing for 35 years, I own lots of other instruments too long to enumerate here, Home studio, I record and produce albums.if it was lost I would do my best to look for another one, same model, I love the cleanness and fidelity of that product,I would probably change the speakers(I still have Roland's "musical speakers") for some JBL's...I heard that one guy tried that on a JC-120 and the sound is terrific.But the JC-160's are very rare in my area...lots of JC-120 though.There's no perfect product, but I got so used to that sound.Bass player extraordinaire Jeff Berlin who played on my first album told me once:"these amps sound just great man!" I was very happy about it coming from a true professional.So that's it folks! if you happen to have one of those amps, I send you my regards! Hans

The guy we bought the amp from said it was from the early seventies but when i called roland they said that this amp was only manufactured for one year(1983 limited edition)so who knows? my brother plays freeform jazz thru it without pedals it has two channels a really lousy distortion but who cares it's an amp for clean playing no feedback antics the channel switching is three way toggle (on-off-on) which you know is the main power switch it has line out and speaker out jacks has no headphone jack nor does it have an effects loop jack but there are footswitch jacks (three of them) for the vibrato, chorus, and distortion...it has never been turned up past six and that was super loud and just as clean as on one plenty of power just waiting to be used this is solid state and there is a convenient screw out fuse in the back

with this jazz chorus amp my brother uses a squier tele with a tony iommi humbucker in the neck position and has a great tone the only time theres crackling noise on this amp is when you turn the distortion on so he never messes with that knob i'm a former guitarist turned bassist so i know my tone he asked me to write this review for him since we jam together all of time the chorus is excellent the vibrato in my opinion is'nt extreme enough (i like the electoharmonix memory man style vibrato) but yeah good enough...

only had the amp for three months so we'll see...tough as nails construction with lots of metal and rivets on the cabinet...

it's like roland does'nt want to admit that they put this amp out or something...when i called about info on this amp all she said was it was made for one year and before i could get another word in the lady hung up on me there is'nt any info on their website about this amp just the 120 model...no warranty we will shovel out the big bucks to keep this thing working because it is a collectors item or something not really sure it's probably the same thing as a jazz chorus 120 as far as schematics and what not

i played guitar for five years been playing bass for two now my brother has been playing for over a year and this is his first real amp after a crate gx-15 practice...he likes the classy looks of the rolands and of course the awesome chorus and clean tone he was gonna save up for the 120 version but then stumbled upon this instead if it were stolen well we don't think like that so it's out of the question

I picked up the JC-160 not knowing much about the amp. However, when i played this amp it was a cut above the rest when it came to the clean tone. THe distortion is bad, very bad. but i suppose you can't have everything. This solid state amp comes with reverb, chorus and vibrato. And these FX are of reasonable quality. The JC-160 has 4x40 watt speakers. This quad box gives a better lower end than the JC-120 which makes me very happy. I like to play blues, funk and "alternative" music. So i have tried to push this amp and it has stood up to the test. With the FX features it is fantastic value for money.

Clean channel is Fantantasic. With the help of a pedal such as my fuzz pedal or bluesbreaker, the sound in good for distortion. When playig at high levels the chorus and vibrato through distrotion, tended to "whoosh out" a little. Therefore it may not be the best amp for loud, heavy distorted guitars. I use a squier strat with a wah and the above pedals mentioned. This gives me the tone i want and need. Maybe not quite as warm as a tube amp but is darn close.

No problems Yet (touch wood!. The amp appears to be a few years old and it still gives great sound.

The roland homepage does not even mention this amp. Can somebody tell me about it.

Fantastic clean sound. Fantasic Value. Bad Distortion. Fading Chorus/Vibrato at high volume levels. If this were stolen i would break down and cry, because i don't know where else to get one from IF ANYBODY KNOWS ABOUT THIS MODEL COULD SOMEBODY PLEASE TELL ME ABOUT IT!!!