Silvertone 1482

Last summer,I acquired one of these funky old 1962 Sears/Silvertone amps because I wanted tube tone at low to moderate volume levels,as well as low cost.It features two channels,three inputs,tremelo,large knobs lined up vertically on the right side of the amp,inputs in the back and a diamond shaped cut-out for the speaker.This amp is great for blues to hard rock,especially with the help of a preamp.I use the line-out from a Crate G20XL with the volume on the Crate amp on 3-4 and the Crate's Accutronic reverb at 7-10 for gain and prescense.This set-up also provides better tone control. This amp utilizes two 6V6 power tubes,two 12AX7's,a 6X4 and a 6AU6.I had to replace the power amp and preamp tubes [Sovteks].I'm still looking for replacements for the other tubes.I find this amp to be rather unimpressive as is but it works wonderfully as a tube power amp/speaker combo for jamming alone in my small living room.

I prefer playing clean blues to heavy blues,country rock to hard rock.This little amp does'nt cut it for real clean and clear stuff,but it sounds great for all other spectrums of my favorite guitar sounds.I use a Fernandes strat with DiMarzio vintage style pickups and an Ibanez Tubescreamer[the model with the boost switch]through the Crate/Silvertone setup with excellent results.All this stuff was used and cheap too. With the Silvertone turned to 3 to 6 without distortion,it sounds hard and cutting.Great for rockabilly and blues.As you dial in distortion,the sound varies from raunchy to thick,creamy tube saturation with snap and articulation.This is where this amp sounds best to me.This saturation can be achieved at low volume or moderately loud volume.I never turn it up past 6 as it gets warbly and honky at top volume..

It's a very old model, but it,s also very basic.Not suited for professional use.

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I'd love to score a second one ,since this old Silvertone gives me a sound that closely duplicates those Clapton-Vaughn sounds at low volume levels.

Early 60's very funky looking ... a real attention getter. Very good trememlo ... total vintage tube warmth at low volume and Phat at high volume. Two instrument channels and one Mic channel ... If anyone knows someone who can gang these channels together for more gain ... Anyway if it had reverb, i'd be in heaven !

Playing through it with a couple of strats, one equipped with Seymour Duncan vintage type pickups and another with P-90's . Both sound superb, completely distinctive, and essentially exactly like the guitars should sound. The only 1X12 combo amp I would put in the same league would be the Fender deluxe and some Princetons. I like this one better, though because i don't have to run it as high a volume to get the speaker to sing. The tremelo is as good as fender's. No wonder this amp was one of Jimmy Page's favorites for the studio ! A couple of studio guys have seen me gig with this one and begged for me to sell it !

I never ever go on a gig with one amp ! First of all, I love stereo sound, and secondly there are too many things that can go wrong, even in the best amps ! I don't think it's any more likely to flake out than a Fender, but just NEVER EVER sit on it !! I saw one of these crunch and it was not a pretty sight! They're not lightweight for no reason!!

Any good tube shop can fix 'em !

I've been playing for 30 years and owned every major brand and configuration. I like the sound of these almost as much as I do Fenders ! I love these because you can still find them cheap! Try getting a 1X12 single ended all tube tremelo amp these days for less than $500 !!! I love going to gigs, auditions and sessions with them too! Those that know them are loving my choice of amps, and those that are not hip to them scoff initially .. then are green with envy when my slide tone makes the women all warm and wet !! The club owners and sound men love it, because I don't blow out the first 5 tables !!

3 INPUTS-1 MIN,2 INSTRUMENT PLUS 1 EFFECTS.1964 ALL TUBE.USED AS HARP AMP ONLY.HAS TO BE MICED IN LARGER VENUES,BUT THE 12" SPEAKER IS PLENTY LOUD.EVERYTHING STOCK

USING FOR BLUES HARP ONLY. NICE FAT,CREAMY SOUND.DISTORTS NICELY AT HIGHER VOLUMES

KEEP A BACKUP AMP AND EXTRA TUBES. NO PROBLEM SO FAR.

WHAT'S THAT?

BEEN PLAYIN'28 YEARS.BE HURT BAD IF IT WERE MISSING.LOOK FOR ANOTHER ONE JUST LIKE. I'D ALMOST COMPARE IT TO A FENDER DELUXE.

1960's era tube amp. Seperate Mic and Instruments channels. Odd side vertical configuration for controls and amp section. Instruments plug into back while controls on front. Has Speed and Tremelo as only effects. I guess these are good features for the era. I have yet to use the Mic channels. I wish that this had a external speaker jack, I would like to hear this amp drive a 412 cab. The speaker that came with this one is a Jensen Special. Not sure if this is orginal or not. The only other short coming is the lack of effects in/out jacks or a reverb tank and controls, if it had that it would be perfect.

Used with Fender Std Strats with orginal and custom humbucking pickups. Sounds great with both. There is a slight hum that is probably coming from one of the caps. Amp needs a cap job. The tube sound form this amp is fat and wonderful. One of the nicest amps from this era I have heard. Nice smooth transition into and out of distortion at full volumn.

I using it to play everything from Classical to classic rock to grundge. To get some of the grundge sounds I'm using a Digitech RP2120 in front of it.

I would use this amp for gigging if I needed to. I got this for studio use. This is known as a very reliable amp.

This is a 30+ year old amp. Sears got out of the musical instrument business, so talking to them is useless.

I use to play a lot more than I do now. Been about 15 years since I played until recently. Decided to pick up the guitar and bass eariler this year. I have played for a total of about 20 years.

I would buy another one in case of loss. In fact, I'm looking to get another unit as a spare.

I love the warm full sound that this amp makes at low volumn. And when you crank it up it just gets sweeter and fatter.

I'm going to modify the amp to add external speaker outs and an effects loop. I will have to change the output transformer and I plan to change out the caps and control pots while I'm at it. I have an electronics engineering degree so I plan to mod this amp myself.

I have Fender Champ, Fender Deluxe 90, Marshall JTM30, and Alamo amp (model unknown). I read the reviews from here and decided to give this amp a try. I remember a friend had one in the 70's and I liked the sound. Reading the reviews here just refreshed my memory of it. Thanks all you other reviewers. At the moment this is my favorite amp. Better that many amps at 4 times the price I paid.

Not sure of the year--must be late fifties 0r early sixties. I've seen two others in real life and another in the Cunningham Collection. One of the one's I saw was the property of a local music store merchant who would not sell it at any price as it was "part of his son's college tuition". Good for a lot of harp playing styles. Even good going acoustic with a dynamic PA mic like the Astatic DN-50 Silver bullet I used at an acoustic jam for a while. But for Chicago blues overdrive you really can't beat it (see sound). I got my girlfriend to dig this one out of her attic a couple of years ago when she mentioned she had "an old Sears amp that sounded shitty if it did anything". I blew out the tube sockets and a friend of mine (WHO i WON'T REVEAL) gave all mint tubes to replace the originals (which I still have). God's honest truth I've never had anything run clearer, not a hiss or pop, even at crunch levels. Not the biggest overall volume mind you, but the purest overdrive I've heard out of any amp.

On the get-go let's get this straight that I am a harp player and have only blown harmonicas throught this amp. It is genuinely a gem of an amp. It is not at all prone to feedback, even at top volume, which is a huge thing with strong pick up harp mikes like the Green bullet I use. When pushed it has great overdrive for Chicago blues and of course you can mike it like I do and use at even the biggest stadium gigs! It is a real ball-buster of a harp amp.

I will always have a back-up to any tube amp I bring to a big gig. Even if you have plenty of replacement tubes, an elephant may happen to sit on them and you'd be screwed. If there are no elephants scheduled for the event, I would have to say as tube amps go its pretty reliable.

Consider yourself lucky to get a schematic.

I've blown harp my whole life. Screwed around with electric harp through guitar amps here and there. Started seriously playing blues jams with this amp a couple of years ago. Big sound -- not so big volume(needs to be miked)

Very simple. Two Chanels, mic and instrument. Mic channel has one input and inst. channel has two. One input for footswitch to on/off tremolo. Each channel has one volume and one tone control. Tremolo has intensity and speed control. Pretty standard for a early 60's tube amp. The exception to standard is on the physical features. The amp chassie runs vertical, the control knobs are large like old TV knobs and are staggard down the vertical front panel. All the before mentioned input jacks are on the back panel. This amp kind of looks like a TV but with speaker grill instead of screen. The covering is a gray tolex with black and white specks. It is very compact for a 12" speaker combo. At first glance you would think 10 or 8 inch speaker. Compared to the high tech amps of today this amp is very short on features but in its day(60's) it was basicly what all the other amps had.

This amp has a very warm fat sound. If you use the amp direct in, no effects it is short of a high end EQ. I also can't stand to play dry(without reverb)but that fat tube tone is there. Also you can crank to full volume on the amp with the guitar full up and you get nice natural distortion. The only effect it has is tremolo but it works great. I would have to say it works as good as the old fender tremolos and thats saying something cause they are great in my opinion. The way I handle the lack of high EQ and reverb is put a preamp/effects processor in front of it. I find that the preamp/processor gives the amp lots of clean headroom that actually makes this little low watt amp pretty loud. This amp sounds really good with the combination of warm/fat tube with preamp/processor. This amp still has the original silvertone tubes and no-name speaker. I just believe when I get around to installing some NOS tubes and and a new prememum speaker its going to even improve. Just got a schematic from a guy named Pat who has his own site and sells hard to find schematics who uses two silvertones for his main live/gig sound and he recomends changing the speaker to a 10" Celestion. He said you could do this by installing a 12" insert baffle with holes drilled to fit the studs for the 12" speaker but with a 10" hole in the insert with studs for the 10" speaker. Pretty cool Huh!

These are reliable amps. I've had one before in which I will expalin below.

Don't exist.

This is an exact duplicate of my first amp i got in the 60's. I was surfing vintage music sites and ran across it on Mobees Music site. If you do a search to this site and click on amps you can see it entitled "60's Silvertone Tube Amp", just click on the icon for picture. Thats my Amp!!!! It's just something special about finding this amp after all these years. I used to be nailing that tube compression on those old Stones, Vertures, Beatles, Chuck berry, ETC. Etc and didn't even know what was happening. I just knew it sounded good and tuff!!At that time I had a Airline(Montgomery Ward/Valco) solid body with two humbuckers and a whole lot of knobs. I played this amp for several years before I got a gretch 2-12 combo. I can't really recall how I got rid of the original 1482, been to much water under the bridge since then. I'm just happy to be re-united with another 1482 again just like the original one. Thank You Brian at Mobees music but mostly Thank You Jesus!!!!If you would like to contact me I'm at ttocsbob@hotmail.com Bob Scott

This is a great amp for 'guitar, cord, amp' players who want gind at low volume and singing sustain at moderate volume. about 12 watts, cathode biased, way cool tremelo. This one has a Fischer P12R type speaker.

This amp came to my shop not working, fading in and out occasionally, mostly out. Turned out to be a flakey 6X4 rectifier and toasted voltage dropping resistor in the power supply. the 2.2k resistor on the filter cap should be upped to a 1 watter for reliability. Other than that the p-p construction was neat and pretty well laid out compared to earlier silvertones. It had a silvertone labeled Mullard 12ax7 in it. I would up the reliability to an 8 after the suggested resistor change.

I hated to give this one back to the owner after fixing it, it would be a perfect practice amp, or could even cut a blues gig with a light hitting drummer in a small club. It's only drawback is it may be a 'one trick pony', but it does that trick well. Extra points for the tremolo and 'cool vibe factor'

this vintage cheapo I picked up at a yard sale for five bucks! It has Two inputs, one mike input, tremolo, and enough oomph for small gigs. I've been playing for 4 years and I learned to play on it. I find if I let it warm up for an hour with volume on 7 and tone about 8 it has a real sweet spot killer for blues. Try a tube screamer and it screams. It isn't too clean, so I'm gonna' try new tubes.

Good for blues, and bloated turner overdrive type 70s rock, but it does make noise when not being played, but what the hell, it was only 5 bucks!

About the only maintenance I've done was cleaning the sockets out, but when running a singers mike and my guitar simutaneously, during "Highway to Hell" it will start to cut out.(but what do you expect from a 30 something year old amp thats been neglected?)

Are you on crack???

In a nutshell, I lucked out finding this relic. It works good with my stereo setup with a fender solid state sister amp, tubescreamer, dano chorus, and crybaby propelled by my Washburn. I would be heartbroken if it got lifted. If you run across one, I highly recommend you snatch it up. Eric and Jimmy would concur!

Early 60's--as above. Got a stock Jensen to die for--2 6V6's also to die for.

Here's the deal--I bought this thing for $175 and it had some dry cap static and general noise. The shop fixing it up went crazy for it. They just dimed it and couldn't stop playing through it. I hear this was one of Jimmy Page's faves and he did a lot of recording through it. Important--get the volume pot replaced with one that won't dull up the tone at less than WFO. The stock one acts as a dullomatic in all positions except full on. This sucker does one thing--it totally rocks huge and warm at full volume. It ain't real bright or loud, just FAT! Add some echo and you can run through the EC Bluesbreakers album and nail every solo just by switching pickups every now and then. It's that good. You got gorgeous 6V6 breakup, speaker overdrive, 12ax7 overload, all packin' in this incredibly huge, creamy, poppin' sound that blows Boogies away! No s---!

Hey, it's a cheap old piece of crap made for Sears. Whaddya want? It wasn't supposed to distort, they just made it lousy. Our gain.

This does one thing, and brilliantly. It ain't loud enough for gigs but for recording and jamming it rocks.

I'd have to give this amp a 7 on features. It has two channels, one marked microphone and the other marked instruments. I wish it had an overdrive channel because it sounds great with a fuzz box. The tremolo is really cool, especialy when you replace the 6AU6 tube with a 6CB6 (that increases the range of speeds on the tremolo). It's all tube, two 6V6's, two 12AX7's, a 6X4 rectifier, and a 6AU6 for the tremolo. It has a 12" speaker, a closed back, and a jack for a tremolo foot switch. I use this amp in the house and at 5 on the volume control, this thing is loud! It probably puts out about 15 to 20 watts.

My amp sounds Ok clean but sounds much better with some sort of distortion or fuzz pedal in front of it. I play all kinds of guitars through it, a strat, tele, a Harmony rocket, a Danelectro 59-DC reissue, a epiphone Del-rey, and even my P-bass( at low volumes )!
Single coils are nice and punchy and humbuckers are a bit dark.
I have a Fender Princeton and the Silvertone sounds quite similar but is still no match for the Princeton's tremolo or brightness. I play every thing from country/blues to 70's heavy metal and I think that this amp would really shine at Ozzy/Black sabbath type music if equiped with a good overdrive pedal.

This amp was given to me when I bought my Fender Princeton, and it didn't have any tubes in it. I have replaced the tubes but there is a problem with it burning out the heater in one of the 12AX7's. There is also a problem with the volume raising and falling without touching the volume controls. I'm not saying that all silvertones are this way, just that this is my personal experience with this model.

N/A Since this amp was built close to 40 years ago, I would think that it's safe to say that it's out of warrenty!

I love the fact that this amp didn't cost me any thing except the cost of tubes. I don't think that I want to get rid of this amp, but if it was stolen I probably wouldn't buy another.