Sound City 50-reverb

hand-wired British amp with a killer sound

These amps sound amazing. The person below must have a faulty amp or faulty ears...how does he gets ''buzzy distortion like 80's hair-metal bands'' from this amp? What nonsense.
The thing about Sound City amps is that they have an extremely powerful EQ,it's active,you move the EQ a bit and the sound changes drastically.
But take your time to tame this beast,slap a powerbrake on the back of that amp,crank the volume up,and stand back. It will give you some of the most amazing distortion tones you've heard. From Pink Floyd to AC/DC, this amp kicks ass,and it's absolutely on of the best amps you will ever buy. Try for yourself and you'll see. Awesome tone.

Hand-wired amp with very expensive Partridge transformers. Best quality

If you are lucky to find one of these amps,buy it...you'll be absolutely amazed!

all-tube,hand wired vintage amp with a powerful active EQ,excellent to drive the amp very hard with. This model, the 50 Plus R ,really rare, is the reverb version of the 50 Plus.

Sound quality? Are you joking? I can get any tone from Rolling Stones to AC/DC,to Van Halen, to Metallica,with this amp. The Metallica tone is obtained with the help of my Tube King pedal.
I don't mean that I get a poor copy of these tones. I mean I get these tones EXACTLY.
I use a cheap but excellent Weber powerbreak in all cases....this amp's EL34's distortion is every bit as good as the distortion of my '69 Marshall...the guy below that says that this amp is 'a poor man's Hiwatt' does not know what he's talking about. The Sound City was designed and built by the same person who created Hiwatt, Dave Reeves. The Sound City is hand-wired throughout,has the same ultra-expensive Partridge transformers as in the best Hiwatt,and if you compare an Hiwatt with a Sound City,you'll be surprised. It's basically the same amp,the 'major' differencies are that the Hiwatt uses a weaker,passive EQ while the Sound City uses a powerful active EQ.
Poor man? Yeah right....
The guy below also says that the amp has buzzy distortion? I think there's something wrong with his amp. Buzzy? These amps have been used by people like David Gilmour for many recordings! Go to wikipedia and look in the 'Hiwatt' article...it features Sound City's most notable users! This amp sounds like Marshall plexi's most feared enemy! It has that deep impressive 'macho' crunch (as I said,you must turn this amp up all the way with a powerbrake).

Best amp I have ever had,and it's small and loud as hell for a 50 watter. I would give 12 out of 10 for sound. This is not a copy of a famous design. Many amp makers would kill to be able to build and amp that sounds like the 50 Plus R....this is the real thing. The reverb sounds good for a spring reverb.

it's built as amps that nowadays would cost $1500 to build one from a custom maker...so it's the best of the best

Marshall-style 4 input, w/ 2 volumes and shared bass, middle, treble and presence. Oh yeah, and reverb!

Reverb is a bit swampy. Marshall reverbs from the same era actually sound better. But it's not bad.

Doesn't sound like a Marshall. More a poor man's Hiwatt. The active EQ is either a bug or a feature depending on how you use it. Dime the tone controls for extreme, buzzy distortion (think 80's hair bands). Back 'em off to 3 or 4 and use the "normal" channel only, and the amp has a nice, bluesy clean tone. Run and A/B switch and you can switch in a decent lead tone on the brite channel.

I use it with a les paul and a Marshall 4x12 (or bassman 2x12).

Within the constraints of the old-style controls, a fairly versitile amp. Great for classic rock. Now where did I leave those platform shoes?!

It needed a cap job. Since getting it back from an excellent local guy (Stan Day in Boston area), it runs loud and quiet, IYKWIM.

It came with the original Mullard pre-amp tubes, which are still in there and sound great. Stan has offered to give it the Hiwatt treatment by replacing the active EQ with passive. But I'll keep it as is. It's a different animal.

Support your local amp guru!

It's different. There is a contingent of "Sounds Shitty" lovers out there. I guess I'm one of 'em.

There are rare times when everything just falls into place. I have a Celestion ALNICO Blue sitting in a birch ply cabinet but nothing to drive it, though there are 4 tube amps scattered around the room but they are all pretty much set to where I want them to be and I am basically your lazy middle aged guy. I wanted a head, the speaker is 15 watts so I figureed 50 to 60 watts would be perfect to overdrive it at a resonable volume. The idea of dropping a grand was grounds for divorce and my wife is a keeper, so I wanted to keep it around $300.00 or so. I looked at kits but they scare me, the capactors do at any rate because they can bite long after you think they won't. And it had to be tubes. I went to Fredericks in Goldsboro NC and there was a Sound City 50R, they wanted $399.95 I walked out with it for $250.00 tax included. Rick, the guitar guy offered it to me for that price. He is an excellant man, easy to work with and stands behind his stuff and he orders some really cool custom stuff from Fender and Gibson.

I figure this amp is late 60's, early 70's. There are two channels, one bright, one not so bright. There is a sensitivity switch on the back that seems to increase 60 cycle hum. Has a wonderful reverb unit to it, and your typical bass, middle and treble knobs. When I got it home I cleaned the pots and that was it. I wish it had either a Master Volume and or Gain. This one very loud amp, it is also the smoothest sound I have ever heard. I love this old thing.

I try my hand at a lot of differnt styles. Typically I prefer humbuckers over single coil, I enjoy P90s too. At last count I reckon there are 15 or so guitars, a Strat, Tele couple of Les Pauls, Jazz box, Guild Paloma, SG, National Reso-lectric and so forth. As I mentioned before this is the smoothest amp I have ever played through and it is very quiet until you crank the volume and you are awash with white noise. I believe any amp is as versitle as my imagination and motivation.

I think the fact this plays as well as it does speaks for itself. I would not gig with it because I believe it to be a piece of history and I want to keep it intact.

These folks are a memory.

I love this thing, really. I got a couple of Sunns, a fender and a Peavey. And they are all fine amps, certainly the Model T but the Sound City transends wires and all. There is a quality to it that gives it soul. I would behead the thief, rush into a burning building and throw myself in front of a Budliner train to save this thing. If you see one do not even pause to think, get it, you'll love it.

This is an early 70,s or late 60,s 50 watt head,very similar to the 50 plus only it has reverb.The amp is,nt very versatile but if classic rock crunch is your bag your in luck.It sounds as good or better than any vintage Marshall I,ve ever owned and blows away any newer model.It,s a single channel 4 input head,typical of a british amp from this era.No effects loop,head phone jack,or channel switching but neither did Hendrix or Townshend,s and they seem to make them sound OK.FWIW sound city was the inspiration for Hiwatt amps founded by Dave Reeves which started out at sound city.This is a rock and roll amp period.It is,nt very versatile but it will hang with the best British tube amps.

I tend to play humbucking pickup guitars through this amp but my strat and tele sound excelent as well.The amp gets that great tube overdrive great for classic rock.I crank everything to ten except the bass and use a Marshall power brake to control the volume.Think vintage plexi and you,ll get the picture.

I,ve never had a problem with the amp so far and if I did these amps are simple to maintain.

The company has been out of business for several years so no warranty opn these babies.They,re early amps are to die for but they could,nt leave well enough alone so the later ones suck.

I,ve been playing guitar for 20 + years and have gone through tons of gear.No other amp I,ve owned sounds as good when it comes to straight ahead rock and roll.If it were stolen I,m in luck because I also own a 100 watt sound city head as well.These amps are still affordable but this will soon change like everything else.Buy one if you find one just remember to get one with passive tone controls ,the later ones have active tone controls and don,t sound near as good.