Silvertone 1433 115 Combo

I?m harmonica player playing the style of Little Walter using mainly ?tongue block technique?. I use mic with either JT 30 crystal/ceramic element or Green Bullet Control Magnetic or Reluctance Transducer. The Silvertone 1433 is one of the best sounding amp I ever heard for harmonica. What?s great about the amp is that it has instrument channel with separate bas and treble knobs. That?s the channel I use and that's why I give it 9. The vintage amps like Silvertone 1482 with just one tone control knob for both treble and bas never worked for me. It?s much more difficult to control feedback. Another thing that doesn?t work for me as harmonica player is the 15 inch speaker. It?s not very harmonica friendly and causes a lot of feedback. I changed the 15 inch to 12 inch Electro-Voice EVM-12S. The reason why EVM-12S works very well for harmonica is that it doesn?t have any top-range rise. From 1000 Hz to 5000 Hz the EVM-12S doesn?t go above +95 db SPL where as 15 inch Jensen speaker goes above +110 db SPL. This 15 inch high top-range rise will make the amp howl no matter what preamp tubes and mics you use. Email me and I will send you the frequency response spec.

As I mentioned it?s one of the best sounding amp I?ve heard for harmonica. The preamp tubes 12AX7 (1.pos.) and 12AT7 (2.pos.) make this amp fat sounding with Control Magnetic element mic. Another sound improving thing is to replace the baffle board with plywood. That?s the only way to hold 8, 6 kilo EVM-12S speaker! I also replaced the cabinet with pine wood. I kept the original top part. With all these sound quality improvements I would say that the Silvertone 1433 is right up there with expensive amps like Sonny Jr.1 and Fender Bassman RI with tube rectifier. The price of these two expensive amps would be more than 2000 US$ to get to Europe. All together I only paid 1000 US$ to get the Silvertone 1433 gig ready.

I only give it 3 points because the mediocre electronic parts, cabinet construction and seriously bad wood quality. The cabinet construction has this cool vintage look but when it comes to sound quality I prefer close cabinet. The whole cabinet is made of chip board! That's why there are only few of these Silvertone 1433 left in working condition. It's simply too big an amp to be made of chip board. My Silvertone just caved in during transportation!

My vintage amp technician went through the Silvertone and replaced old parts with high quality parts. I would only have my vintage amps looked through by an amp technician who?s an expert on the field. I have had bad experience with an amp technician who works on modern amps and made a miss out of my vintage amp.

Finally if one is willing to spend time and money on sound & cabinet improvements the Silvertone 1433 could be transformed to a highly quality professional music tool for gigging harmonica players. Using two 6L6 tubes (around 20-25 watts) the amp is loud enough to gig with. I never regretted the large amount of time and money I had spent on this amp. If I have the choice of paying 2500 US$ for a boutique harmonica amp or spend months working on this amp I would still choose the latter.

1960 Silvertone 1433 tube amp, 1X15 (utah speaker?), w/ tremolo . 3 intsrument inputs , 1 microphone input, 1 foot switch ( tremolo). Sweet sounding blus / jazz tone at lower volumes and RAW distortion at full throttle , the break up of the 15 inch speaker takes longer than the smaller silvertone amps. treble and bass knobs allow for a large range of tones, I like it straight at 12 o clock . The one thing i want it to have is additional speaker jacks to run another small cabinet.

I play with gibson 335 and fender mustang , the tone is RAD with both. the hollow body is bass heavy but can be adjusted and balenced for any style of playing. I like the bass responce for jazz/blues , and the fender goes from blues to punk . This is not the amp for grind core or heavy metal , stick to a marshall but , for lo-fi this is good one.

It seem that any local amp repair guy / gal could fix it . mine still has some original tubes 45 years later . Like the other reviewer, I wonder what would happen if brought it into sears...?

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This is a cool amp , good for 50's rock music , rockabilly , lo-fi punk , jazz , blues, you get the picture. the only down side with mine is I got shocked now this is not life threatning but hell it hurts. There is NO! ground. be careful when touching guitar strings and the on/off switch. I'm going to get a ground put in or fixed.

This amp was built in 1960. It is not particularly versatile by modern standards, but that's fine by me. I prefer an amp with one or two great sounds than some modern effects-filled garbage that gives you hundreds of mediocre sounds. The amp has two channels (non-switchable of course), one for microphone and one for "instruments" - the instrument channel has three inputs. There is no reverb, just tremolo. As stated below, the mic channel has a single tone control, instrument channel has bass and treble controls. Mic channel has slightly more gain as well.
The amp is a "split chassis" design like many Valco/Supro amps. The upper chassis contains all the controls, jacks, and a singlle 12Ax7 tube. The bottom chassis contains the transformers and most of the amp guts, along with another 12AX7, a 6AU6, a 6CG7, a pair of 6L6s, and a 5Y3 rectifier.

I am using this amp with a '56 Harmony H-62, '57 and '64 Danelectros, a '59 Gretsch 6186, a 60s Premier solidbody, and a Tele converted to Esquire. This is one of those amps that will make any guitar you plug into it sound fantastic.
The amp is not noisy at all, in fact it idles quieter than any tube amp I have ever heard (both volumes on 10, nothing plugged in). You actually have to double-check and see if its on!
It sounds like its putting out in the 25-30 watt range.
The amp runs on fairly low voltages, and the resulting tone is compressed as hell, even at low volumes. The amp doesn't break up until you push it well past halfway. The reviewer below mentioned that it reminded him of a tweed Fender Pro - that's completely false - this amp has a sound entirely its own. You CAN get it "close"to tweed Fender territory by bridging the channels - the amp gets VERY loud and agressive that way.

It's 40 years old and still going strong. Needed a cap change when I got it to make the tremolo work. One resistor and three caps later, the tremolo works fine. No hiss, no white noise, no blown fuses, just 100% reliable operation.

I wonder what would happen if I brought this to the customer service desk at Sears and asked for a replacement part?

I have been playing a little over 20 years and I have owned some great amps over the years. In terms of sound, this is easily in the top 5. The only thing I dislike about this amp is the typical cheaply-made Danelectro-built particle board cabinet. I would love to get a good quality repro cabinet made out of birch or pine plywood for this amp - hell even the baffleboard is particleboard. The 1433 sounds so beautiful I have to wonder how much better it might sound in a decently made cabinet.
I am a big fan oif Danelectro-made amps, particularly the non-reverb combos such as the Silvertone 1396 and 1434. If I have a speaker preference it is certainly for 15"s and the combination of the big speaker and this amp's unique voice is really a pleasure to hear.

This amp is from1959. Two channels, one marked "instrument" with three inputs, one marked "mic" with one input. Instrument channel has bass & treble controls, mic channel has a single tone control. Tremolo speed & intensity for both channels. 15" Jensen speaker. 6L6 power tubes, maybe 30 watts.

This amp sounds very much like a tweed Fender Pro. Doesn't break up too early and when it does it is beautiful.

Still putting out after 45 years with a few changed caps and grounded AC cord.

The only thing I can say about this amp is if you find one BUY IT no matter what it costs. Fantastic tone!