Sano Stereophonic Hi-Fi 115 Combo

I think it's a 1964 (using speaker code).Gtr and inst inputs,rev,trem,bass,treb...15 inch utah,two9x6 utahs. el 34 power tubes..an el 84 and 12x7's..12u7's ...11 tubes ! cool retro looks !
about 30 watts or so.Good features for an early amp...simple & less is best in my opinion...no bells and whistles here.

Amazing sound...glorious! Tried a 74 stock stat . a strat with texas specials and a washburn Ivory eagle (les paul like ). All guitars were accepted well. The eagle sounded "Black crows". Got good Robin Ford sounds too! The strats (especially the 74)came to life.Great SRV sound (even without the ts 808) Ran it full vol...Breaks up well and sings...really sings! Very good touch dynamics and natural compression. NOT KIDDING..this is one of the best sounding amps I have owned...I have owned about 40 vintage amps...Fenders, Marshalls,vox...you name it!Vol is good for small venues...just loud enough to hear over drums...if you want louder...buy two!!! I have not used any effects yet ( I just got it yesterday)Just plugged in ,cranked it up and it sounded like God in a box!Oh...rev is real wet ,Just a little is plenty...good though!

Looks well made...point to point wiring. I will wait to see.

Long out of business...

Been playing over 30 years all over the US.Have played most styles...Blues, rock,jazz and a bit of country.I like finding these cheep but killer things out there. I have spent tons of cash on all the snooty vintage stuff and when I started that stuff used to be cheep ...now I search for cheep unknown items...it's way more fun to find a killer amp for less than $200.00 and be pleasantly surprized rather than be disappointed after spending a few grand! If someone were to steal it...I would clobber them, send em off with the amp to spread the word and by another!!!I will buy a couple more soon!

My sano is a 30 watt tube with a 15inch utah gold alnico speaker. for being made in the late 60s its in almost mint condition. unfortunately since its so old it doesnt have overdrive or any distortion built into it besides tremelo, but a simple pedal does fine. I use it mostly for hard rock and a little bit of punk, but it sounds great for jazz too.

I use a schecter c-1 + through this amp and with the sustain it makes it sound great. Also its the first amp ive played with no feedback even with volume on my amp and distortion from my pedal turned up all the way. The tremelo on the amp sounds great and you can tweak the sound to however you'd like. The clean channel sounds great even when turned up all the way, with a little bit of that added vintage tube sound to it.

I haven't had mine very long but from what the previous owner said it seems to be in great shape. Never had to be serviced for any problems, aside for new tubes. Thats not too bad considering its age. I agree with previous posts that metal corner coverings would be great because the corners get banged up, but it doesnt affect the sound so i guess it doesnt really matter.

hah companies been long gone

I got mine for 150$ at a yardsale, practically a steal. If you ever see one of these around, you should definately buy it. You'll be glad you did, and even if you aren't you can probably sell it for around $300-$400 and make some cash. I would buy any more that i found and would recommend it to anyone, beginner or experienced. If you want to see any pictures of it, write me an e-mail.

Made in early 60's is what I can gather, the tech who worked on it said 50's but he wasnt sure...
Its no good for thrashmetal, but anything up to loud rock, without too much cranky distortion is fine. This is mostly because of the 15" speaker, but the amp has a powered 1/4 out jack for a tweeter, which I have yet to try.
3 channels, no switching, independent level controls down to 0%.
for jamming, small clubs, its fine. for anything larger, a mic to pa is necessary.
Before servicing, it put out about 19wattsRMS and with a lot of noise. With new caps and tubes, the wattage jumped to 35W RMS and no discernable noise. The relative s/n ratio of before and after are an improvement of at least 300%!

I used a crappy sg knockoff on this thing and it made the p.o.s. sound great, and this continues on to other guitars as well. My main axe now is something I built myself out of a South American hardwood I wont name, and the combo is heavenly. no brutal distortions onboard, but my digital efx are warmed up tremendously by it, and analog efx are better. the 15" like i said before cant handle too much
high end volume, though the low mid, comes through nicely. Blues, of course, but the amp has a voice of its own that can handle any clear guitar sound.

I wouldnt want to take this one on the road without beefing it up, the body isnt exactly plywood, but rather slats that are dovetailed together quite nicely. its reasonably light and resonates well, unlike a plywood or particle board deal. the warm coloration is desirable in a instrument combo, while not in a reference monitor.
It would need metal corners, and a little glue of some dovetails,
and one may as well re-cover the thing, because the original cover is coming off. Ive left mine alone and prefer to baby it.

Support? LOL.

for 400 bucks - 200 plus 200 service, its a steal. not a roadworthy amp, but perfect for situations where the sound of the guitar must come through cleanly.

3 channels, basically two with preamps and one with very low input gain you can plug a CD player into. Mine has 8514 power tubes, which are rather hard to find. I wonder if I can plug 6L6s in instead? Volume/bass/treble controls, tremelo (currently not working). Nice example of an early 60s style amp.

Nice clean tone at small venue volumes (think church), distortion comes on fairly smoothly and gets to hard rock/blues levels. It has that Marshall "clank" when you mute the strings with your left hand. Tone controls are VERY effective-much more range than Marshall. Speakers a bit light for distorted playing and the cabinet rattles, but it still sounds good. I've owned or played close to 300 amps, I'd put this at the top of the second echelon (first is Fender tweed/blackface, vintage Marshall and Vox and boutique amps, so this'd look very good compared to a Supro or a Danelectro).

Well, the rectifier fell out in shipping, the trem stopped working... It is a plywood cab, though. Chassis seems to be bent aluminum and the wiring is all over the place. I'd be more confident if I had a schematic.

Long gone and no one knows who they were...

A solid purchase for $200 or so. I wouldn't seek another out, but I'll enjoy this one just fine...

My Sano is a 15" w/ 2/6X9's I think. Tremolo and lush spring reverb. It's a weird combo of speakers that was made for accordian I assume. It has two inputs, not sure how many watts (plenty loud though),original footswitch, and black vinyl covering with white plastic piping. I'm guessing it was made in the sixties. My guitar player uses this amp with a Boss super overdrive and it sounds killer, warm and crunchy. With no effects but the amps own tremolo or reverb it sounds killer also. This amp is a wonderful side brand amp with little exposure. It has everything a tone hound needs.

My personal favorite is my Gretsch double Anniversary. Sounds incredibly warm and with the weaker hilotron pickups it doesn't feedback at louder volumes. Next would be my sivertone 2-pu amp in case guitar. Sounds real cool with a Danelectro Dan-echo pedal. Incredible rockabilly sound! My '65 SG Special with p-90s sounds killer with an overdrive pedal; real gnarly but not too much. The clean channel stays pretty clear at high volumes.

Haven't had any problems yet. It's a tube amp , I'm sure it'll need something sooner or later.

Sano was a spinoff of Ampeg and has been out of business quite a while. The company is mentioned in the back of the Ampeg book and I think the story was that the guy who started Sano was into accordians and decided to concentrate on accordian amplifiers. I think that's why all early ampeg amps have accordian imputs on them. I have the book but can't find it now. If anyone needs more details I'll dig it up.

I've been playing for about 15 years and have too much to list here. About 10 amps and 19 guitars. For the price this was a killer find. If you see one in a shop , I strongly recommend giving it a try for yourself. The only I've ever seen I bought and I'm extremely pleased with it. The reverb is extraordinarily lush and the tremolo strong and extremely variable form suttle to stop/start style.

Not sure of the exact year Amp was made, assume late 50s or early 60s. Amp has Normal, Guitar & Instrument Inputs, and nice sounding Tremelo. Very clean sounding Tube amp, T-Bone Walker sound.. Use for clean R&B or Jazz Guitar.

I've used a variety of guitars with my Sano. All guitars sound nice through this amp! Especially like my Gibson ES-330TDC with P-90 pickups through it, sounds incredable!!

Never been services since I bought it in 1996. I opened it up once to see the insides and found estremely articulate Point to Point wiring, great solid metal frame. Solid 15" inclosed speaker.

Any experiences electronics repair shop could work on this amp because of the excellent wiring inside. Unfortunately, the company isn't around any longer and I can't find schematics anywhere.

I've been playing Guitar for 25 years now. I have a nice collection of vintage instruments that you can see at my personal home page, URL is www.thriftymusic.0catch.com and if you are interested, I can send you a picture of my Sano amp. I intend to put a Picture of it on my home page soon. If I could find another Sano, I'd buy it. Only thing I'd like to have with this amp is spring reverb. :)

Sano was an offshoot of Ampeg, so I'm told. They made accordian amps and accordians, too. I also saw this exact amp with name Exclesior on it. This has a stereo channel and two other channels for guitar and accordian. The accordian and guitar channels have volume knobs and there's also a master volume and tremolo. But the channel volumes are more for mixing, not for distortion like on a more modern amp. It also has a line out--unusual for that era. At first glance, from the back it looks like a Supro Thunderbolt, with the preamp on top and the output stage on bottom. Two 6L6s for power. Single full-range 15" Utah Gold Alnico speaker. Bass and treble controls. This is basic tube amp that distorts nicely about 3/4 of the way up. It's not quite as loud as some other dual 6L6 amps...maybe 30 watts. It uses 12au7 drivers, so maybe they could be switched for 12ax7s for more gain, but the level is fine for me. I would wan to see aschematic beforee i messed with it. Anyone know where to get one? Reverb would be nice, but I can use outboard effects if necessary. Looks very cool with the speaker grill cloth that wraps around one side of the cab. Big chrome appliance handle on top which I didn't think was stock until I saw another one like it.

Great warm tube distortion for blues and rock. Amp conmpresses nicely as you turn it up. It's a little noisy at high volume, but it probably has never been worked on and it's not a problem for live playing. I've played guitar and synth organ through it. The 15 is very cool allowing me to some SRV type tones from it. The tremolo is pretty good, too. I odn't why it's called stereophonic; it's a mono amp...unless the line out is for another slave amp or something.

I'm not sure how reliable it is because it's so old and I don't think it's even had a cap job. I bring backup, but it's never gone bust on me.

I can't even find anything about Sano on the internet except one Ampeg page that doesn't describe my amp. I see their accordians mentioned a lot. Sorry, I'm not into accordians...use an accordian, got to jail, is my philosophy. But old accordian amps are among the coolest and best kept secrets. If anybody has a clue about this amp or wher eto find info on Sano, please email me.

I've played 30+ years...mostly blues and rock. If it were stolen I doubt if I could find another. But this amp is basically a poor man's Thunderbolt. I'd buy anothe rif I could find it and the price was right.