Silvertone Twin Twelve

Mine is a typical 60's model of this kind. 2 channels: one straight and one with trem and reverb. A LOUD 35-40 watts out of 2 6L6's. Really small output transformer that saturates really nicely. Pretty simple. Look out for the discontinued tubes in the reverb and trem circuit...

I bought this 2 years ago, replaced the original Jensen's (very carefully, I might add) with Greenbacks and took on the road with a grammy nominated female rock singer/songwriter. I have played several House of Blues and arenas with this thing. I wanted an amp that was not Fender, Vox, or Matchless, which everyone else uses. The tone is somewhere in between. I was playing either a Tele with Texas specials or a PRS into this thing with a Boss Super OD for boosting the leads. I split out of a Boss Line Selector into both channels; the straight channel at 40% and the trem channel full out. The sound is amazing. Every gig I would do would have guys coming up asking what the heck I was playing thru. You need to mic the front AND the back of the amp live. I have buddies who use Eginator and other high dollar amps that were blown away by this thing. The original Jensens in it cool the top end nicely but lack low end. The Green backs cleaned the tone up a bit and brought out the low end in the crappy stock cabinet (a masonite baffle board). I used the stock cabinet because it looks so cool and sounds different. A Strat or Tele on the front pickup with a OD is pure Stevie Ray... It cleans up great with the volume control of the guitar. The low end is not tight at all but has a very cool, almost class A grain to it. I had mine modded to slow the trem down and deepen it but other than that mine is totally stock... The trem is now good. The reverb is way out of hand and watery. I like it, but that is me... You can have it modded to be more managable by a decent tech. If you dig blues and rock, this thing is way cool...

My amp guy laughed at me for taking this on the road. I had a flight case that fit it so I used it on tours for 2 years. He said that the tine output transformer would die from being oversaturated and once it was gone the amp was done... I got news... it never died and even riding in the back of a gear packed semi for tour after tour, it still hung in there and always worked. I kept a backup Silvertone head on the road but never needed it. Schematics are hard to come by I think though... so treat it like your mother....

Give it up.... if you have a good repair guy, you are in good shape.

I have been playing 32 years, the last 17 full time professionally and own a ton of gear. This is a great charater piece that has a tone of it's own. I love it and will probably always try to keep one around if I lost this one. The only thing I hate is that I know it will probably die someday and the parts get more scarce by the day. I have since restored this to original by putting the Jensen's back in and taken it off the road. It is now a studio piece for me as I don't want it to get beat up by the road... Way cool and way fun....

The amp was made in the 1960s. I play blues harmonica and it has all the featues I need (i.e., plug for my Silver bullet mike and volume control). However, I understand other musicians are interested in things like bass and treble control, reverb, tremelo and channel switching, which this amp has. Still others want special effects, which this amp does not have.

The amp gives a big, fat harp sound, which is great for the blues. I always play through channel two with the reverb and tremelo turned to their low end settings, say 3 or 4. With the volume at about 7, I have enough volume to accompany my lead guitar player who uses a Fender Twin. I think the sound is great, but I don't have enough experience to give a rave review.

I have had some trouble with the reverb feeding back and, consequently, I haven't used it much. When I bought my amp the head was in operating condition but the speaker cabinet was empty. The head had been modified with a grounded plug and a speaker jack in the cabinet. I put two new Jensen 12" speakers in the cabinet and it has worked faithfully. I even think I have the reverb feedback problem figured out and I used the reverb funtion at my last gig without a single problem.

I think I'd have the same problem getting customer support on this amp that I had when I called the GE repairman to come and fix my "dream kitchen from the 50s".

I just keep getting more satisfied with this amp. It sounds great. It's cool looking and, believe it or not, it's a head turner. I went into a music store on a Friday afternoon to have a tech look at the reverb problem. The store was packed and the person waiting on me only had time to strum a few chords on his guitar before he had to take a phone call. Another customer from the store who had watched me set the amp up came over and said he thought the thing was a piece of junk until he heard the guitar start playing. I asked him if he could play a little for me so I could try to get the reverb to feedback (which it didn't). After about ten minutes, I swear I could have sold him my amp over any other amp in the store. Although I will eventually by a powerful Fender amp, having the Silvertone is like keeping a 1970 Cutlass 442 in the garage along side your new Mercedes.

My Twin Twelve purchase was kind of a fluke in the way that I had a Marshall 4-10 speaker cabinet that sounded great, but all my amps were combo's. So I went looking for a head in the 30 to fifty watt range and accidently stumbled on it in for a ridiculous price. This amp is a bare bones tone machine. Not a lot of features, the cheesiest reverb on the planet, one of the coolest tremelo sounds I've heard, in a K-Tel kind of way. What is impressive is the dynamics and sensitivity of this amp. You can visit many worlds, clean and dirty, with the volume knob on your guitar.

My guitars all have single coil pickups in them, so I can't really opine about humbuckers. I play every style from chicken pickin'clean n' spanky, to Hendrix inspired distorto' wah stuff. This amp is GREAT with effects, but also holds its own as a plug in and play blues amp. VERY similar to a Fender Deluxe. Plain and simple, when you crank this amp you get "THE GOODS". Not a real loud amp though, you would have to mike it for anything larger than a bar or club, but it's louder than a Vox AC30, if that helps.

First of all, this amp's power cord isn't grounded. I had mine changed to a grounded cord immediately to avoid shocking myself back into a 80's style metal-god hairdo. I also had the 20 foot speaker cord replaced with the normal speaker out jack. Both of these mods combined cost me 20 bucks! I've used this amp exclusively for my last ten shows and not had any problem, in spite of the fact that I own several vintage Fender amps that are also reliable.

Of course, there is no customer support for a SEARS AND ROEBUCK GUITAR AMPLIFIER! I called them and they don't even know what a guitar amplifier is! Then they DENIED they ever made one! Luckily, any amp repair man worth his soldiering iron has run across these amps a few times and can suss out any problems with relative ease.

I've been playing for about twenty three years and jeez, what can you say about an amp that sounds as good as ANY Marshall or Fender and still costs anywhere from 50 to 200 bucks depending on it's condition. How can you go wrong? I wish I'd have found this amp twenty years ago, I would have saved myself a lot of money and time looking for that elusive state of "TONAL NIRVANA".

I do not know what year it was made in but I bought it used in 1963. It had two 12 inch Jensen speakers. The amp was seperated from the speaker cabinet but for transporting, the amp head could be stored in the bottom of the speaker cabinet behind a swinging panel. It was rated for 60 amps. This was a two channel amp. One channel had only tone and volume dials while the other channel had additional reverb (spring reverb) and tremolo. There was a standby switch and to attempt to eliminate some hum there was a toggle (ground) switch. There were quite a few tubes in the amp with huge power tubes that glowed a bluish colour and glowed even more when the volume was cranked up. There was an input jack to plug in the foot switch to turn the reverb and tremolo on and off.

I used all kinds of Silvertone, Harmony, Ovation, Fender guitars from the 60's but my main guitar was a 1953 Gibson Switch Master. The sound from the amp was ok. There was a bit of hum. The standby switch came in handy because there could be a lot of feedback caused by the reverb, big hollow body guitar etc. Tremolo had depth and speed dials while the reverb had a depth dial. This was far from being a bass amp because the sound would easily break up when a bass guitar was plugged in. It wasn't very good to sing through and the 2 channels using the same speakers interfered with each other. As a practice amp, it was ideal. I would love to have it still. It would be excellent for someone who wanted to play harmonica and guitar at the same time at lower volumes for parties and jam sessions in the garage. I once used a big Fender amp and realized how much better the Fender was. I am positive that replacing the 12 inch Jensens with bigger and better speakers along with some tweeters would have done a world of good for the sound.

I used this amp for over 10 years. Actually, it was the only amp I ever owned. I played (mostly rhythm guitar) in hotels, bars, aircraft hangars, gymnasiums, churches, meeting halls, barns, outdoors, indoors, and never had to do the least amount of repair except to replace one of the small tubes. For 50 bucks, the amp really gave me a big return for my money. It took about 2 minutes to heat up.

I sold the amp for about 20 dollars about 20 years ago. I wish I still had this old amp. I now play harmonica and I want to get back to playing guitar after having stopped for over 20 years. It would make a great amp for jamming and parties.

The Sear Silvertone Twin Twelve model 1484 was made in 1968, the year I bought the head for $25 from a friend of mine. It is a great amp for lead or rhythm, and a good standby for bass (but you can't push it too hard for bass, 'natch). It is pretty bare bones in the effects department. It is a two channel amp with vol/bass/treble controls on One and Two, but two has controls for depth reverb (funky sound) and tremelo depth and speed. It has the standard tick for tremelo, but is acceptable.

I have shed equipment over the years and this one was too good to let go. I don't play as much as I used to, so I needed a bass amp, so I made a tuned cabinet and popped in a 15" Peavey and played my bass through it. Man, what a sound! Extremely mellow and totally ideal for R & B. With a 15", you don't have to worry about pushing the amp, it takes whatever you dish out. I used to have Marshalls and Fender Bassman amps, and this one outperforms them both in sound. The amp was checked over a couple of years ago and the baby runs extremely well.

Oh, btw, I remember this band that did a kind of nifty thing with his Silvertone twin twelve. He plugged his guitar into a Y cable, then the Y's plugged into channel one and two together. Neat sound.

The amp is solid, we bombed around in a van, so it tended to get bounced from time to time. Very good construction. One of the guys cut a side hole in the head and installed a fan to bleed off some of the heat, but this is not required.

Overall, the amp is reliable and the tubes have a long life (even Sovteck). A couple of tubes in mine are original.

Generally, you should always take an extra amp for a backup just in case, but we never had to use the backup. This amp kept working without any problems.

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I've been playing since 1968, mostly lead and rhythm, but over the last 15 years I mostly just play bass. my favorite bass is the Vantage Witch, it has a fast neck and a real bluesy sound.

If you can get ahold of a Silvertone Twin Twelve, you will never let it go. It has a sound that is fantastic.

Mine's a '64. I enjoy the surf and rockabilly so its lovely tube sound and tremolo suit me perfectly. Two channels: clean & reverb/trem. The ground is sort of tricky; it's not labeled '+' or'-', so I'm constantly getting shocked.

I use assorted solidbodies, all with single-coil pickups. Distorts wonderfully at about 50% volume. It produces too much bass and no treble. That's why I cut the cord to the cabinet so I can play it through smaller speakers than those muddy 12s. Reverb is crappy- has a ghosty sound rather than the poppier, hotter sound you'd get out of a Fender.

I've never had even the slightest problem with it. Before I came to own it, the power tubes were changed out because supposedly it was shorting out. Other than that, it hasn't had a lick of service in all of its 35 years.

Doesn't exist of course.

I'd buy it again any day. I'll own it or another one just like it all my life. Like I said, my only grievance is the lack of treble- there should be some tweeters in the cabinet and the treble knob should go around a second revolution. Fuzzboxes sound great through it. It's the poor man's Twin Reverb.

Other comments describe it, so I'll try not to repeat them. Each of the two channels does have two inputs (like Fender, etc) and I recommend bridging them to get different sounds. Different preamp tubes do indeed vary the sounds a lot. I like 12AU7's (although I don't know if I'm hurting the circuit-sounds fine, though) in the reverb channel. Sounds best cranked, like a milkshake with bourbon in it.

There is no clean sound. The volume picks up at about 2 1/2 and overdrive starts at 3. The tremelo is good. The reverb has A SINGLE SPRING in it! this means it's a (quiet) muddy, echoey sound up to about 3, then it turns into a crazy, boomy, totally unique weird thing which gives me flashbacks...only you'll notice that it 'picks up' certain notes (low ones)and just keeps them going--even if you stop playing! The only way to stop it is to shut off the reverb and turn it back on again. I'm not sure how useful this is, but it does sound kinda neat sometimes. Nice mid-'60s Jensens in the cab (I often use this cab with other amps). Playing a Les Paul though it is almost absurd, it's so distorted. Fenders though it have more definition, but then again 'clean' or 'subtle' are not in this amp's vocabulary.

not dependable, noisy, make out of pressed wood chips with tin foil lining. Easy to fix, though. At the price, you can buy two or three, and keep the non-working ones in your front yard with weeds growing through them.

this is the softer side of Sears.

do not buy this to be your first or only amp. However, If you look at that picture of the Velvet Underground with all the silver Mylar baloons, you'll see Lou Reed is plugged into a Twin Twelve. Think of the guitar tone in "The Gift" and that's probably it. Cheaper than a distortion pedal and better sounding.

Amp has two channels. First has volume, bass & treble; second also has reverb and tremolo. On/off,standby, thats it. Definately an old amp, probably mid-sixties (no master volume,channel switching, presence or that stuff). All-tube, and sounds like it. I use it for many of our gigs. If the venue doesn't mike the amps it could be a problem in a large room. But its got probably about 40 watts, maybe 35. You definately want to turn this one up - best at about 7 or eight, where its got lots of overdrive but not overloading the thing. I do not have the two-twelve bottom; I play it thru a Marshall 4x10 and think it sounds better, anyway.

I use it with various guitars; good with the Ibanez, great with the LP, even better with the Epiphone '58 reissue korina wood V (altho will improve once I get rid of the Epi pickups) and absolutely fabulous with the '65 Fender Musicmaster with a couple of JB Jr's in it. It has that mid-sixties surf sound and intensifies when its cranked. I use it for punk-pop, and gives a real tube-soaked sound, but is different then, say, a Marshall (and thank god!everyone one's got a Marshall and they all sound the same!). It was made by Supro, who made amps for various brands (ie Silvertone, Gretsch, etc) and definately has that Supro tone. Has a big upper-midrange, big low bottom, sparkley top-end, less lower midrange. Lots of sustain and doesn't muddy up, distorted but twangy. It is noisy tho. This is not an amp for crunchy or scooped metal tones, but but great played at deathmetal speeds; if you can play this tempo evenly on those bottom strings, you get a richer tone than the scooped-mid bit. Not good if you need a real loud clean tone like for country. Much darker kind of twang. I use a distortion pedal only for leads (more volume); other than that, you can control the distortion level with the volume and tone on guitar if you've got higher-output pickups. Great for fast riffing with definition!

I use it for gigs, always have it with me in studio, but not for long road work. It rides up in the cab, often on my lap, and only on nearby gigs. Handle with extreme caution. My tremolo tube stopped working, and must be replaced. Tubes are pretty common, as long as you go to a someone who knows and cares about these great amps.

What are ya gonna do? Call Sears? hah! I bought this from Elite Audio in Chicago. Jim had tuned it up, put some new tubes in it, changed the output ohms to my Marshall cab. Jim is a tube guru, has many types. I brought it back after a while, tried a few different 12Ax70's and picked a Japaneese and a Danish tube for the pre-amp, and it just got better! You can really fine tune the tone on this baby by trying different tubes (if you know a place that can help you).

I have been playing this for a year, since it was loaned to me while my Marshall head was being fixed. I still have the Marshall, but prefer the Silvertone. It is not a pratical amp if you gig, because of its fragility, but once I started using it live I loved the rich harmonics. I am sure I will by another Supro-built amp; I have seen and played a few, and they,re not uncommon (just check out Midwest Buy & Trade in Chicago). I admit that the tone is what many would call vintage, but the truth is that it rocks very hard and takes effect pedals as good as the next amp. This amp is alot of fun at loud volumes and has a great dark, twangy, distorted sound. I bet Poison Ivy's got one.

It's an all tube, 2 Channel funky old amp, with reverb/tremelo. Sounds great for Blues and "Classic" 60's rock. I use it at home for fun and occaisional recording (although it is a little noisy). Actually, I have 2 of these beasts in the stable. They are both VERY different sounding, although only 2 years apart in manufacture. The only way to use these amps for guitar is WIDE open, with humbuckings in the guitar. I really love the "suitcase" design - the amp nestles into the back of the speaker cab for transport! Kinda goofy, but cool too. They are basically "one tone" amps - but it is a very nice sound.

I play all kinds of music - but these amps are used for really retro/classic sounds. Not a lot of variety in tone, but the tone you get is fat and rich, provided the amp is basically opened up all the way. I use an early 80's Schecter strat with 2 humbuckers on mine.

I wouldn't even try to use either of my amps on a real gig, although I have played a jam session or two using them as "novelty" amps. They were not built to be very sturdy. I have replaced tubes and had a little bench work done on one of mine, but old amps like these tend to be a little persnickety about being moved around.

I would not even approach Sears about mine, most good amp repair people know these amps though.

I love both of mine - wish I had a "new" one in perfect working order. They are funky to look at, funky to play through, and generally odd.

This 1958 was in bad shape when I found it, and I can't get the tremelo to work very well (I changed tube and capacitors, to no avail.) It has two channels, each with volume, bass and treble controls. The tone controls are "cut" controls, so you get the unaltered sound of the guitar when they are on "12". Warms up slowly due to the odd way of powering the preamp tube filamants: the voltage for them comes from the isolated power tube cathodes. Has 2 12AX7 preamp tubes, 1 6SN7 driver/phase splitter, 4 6L6GB power tubes, 1 5U4 rectifier, and I forget what the tremelo tube is (a pentode with a "6" or two in the name). Tremelo has intensity and speed controls. 2 12" speakers, each driven by it's own pair of 6L6's, each with it's own transformer.
I play harmonica thru it, using Astatic JT30VC or Electrovox EV630 mics.

Noisy. Mine crackles and hisses, due mostly to age. A lot of "blow" for a 50W amp. For guitar playing, this amp sucks. All midrange tones, no top end. Bass tones are loud but uncontrolled, and when played with a bass guitar booms like a mother. But for harp playing it's pure joy. There are only a few extreme knob settings that don't sound great with the Astatic mike. It plays smooth and rich, minimizing mouth noises and breaths, but yet plays very dynamically. Mine doesn't seem to distort too much, even at the maximum settings. It handles microphone distortion wonderfully, parhaps from the cold-running preamp tubes. The rating of "9" is for harmonica with a good crystal or ceramic mike. Guitar would get a "3"

My amp is old and feeble. It occasionally needs a whomp up the side, but it's always played for me.

This thing's warrant expired before I was born. All the tubes it uses are still available, and fairly cheap.

Given that I found this one on the side of the road being thrown away, sure, I'd stop and pick it up again. I'd even pay $100 for it, in it's condition. But to be fair, I do electronics and have spent a lot of time inside it getting it up and running. It really is a great harp amp.