Sound City SMF Tour Series Head

SMF (not sure what this means) Tour series made in about 1978 I believe. This amp is quite daunting with all the tubes in it and power (8 el34) rated to 150 watts and it has the tones I need or could ever want. It has the sought out Master volume too!!! We play blues and blues rock so it fits the bill well with a good pedal in front of it, although I am not a big pedal guy, you kind of need one to get the overdriven tone out of it. Unless you want to crank it, then it is all good, but the kind of places we play, Bars and such, too much. It has two channels, Dirty, and clean, loop(slave in/out), which I dont use anyway, and enough outputs to power a whole bunch of cabs he he! You can tweak the knobs to get darn near any tone out of this you want, this thing has to be the most cool amp when it comes to that. There is 4 band EQ; bass, mid, treble and presence. On the rear there is a 600 ohm balanced output jack, foot switch jack, ground flip switch, 4 speaker cabinet output jacks (you have to use two cabs, another caveat) and variable output impedance and input voltage plugs. I wish I could use an attentuator with it, maybe I will one day, but because of the power, I have to have a special one made to the tune of about 4 hondo, ouch!!! It has way more than enough power for me, and all the clean headroom I will ever need to cut throught the mix, or make my drummers ears bleed, tee hee. It is all tube class A ptp circuitry which is completely well built and strong. The partridge trannies are all there in the overbuilt glory and waaay over the top!!!

I am a single coil guy at heart, I have no need for humbuckers for what I do right now. I play mainly teles and strats with the occasional P90 in their somehwere when I need a fatter tone. As mentioned above we play your blues, blues rock and it shines great for this. The cleans are there and I use a keeley modded Blues driver into a compressor to chunk it up when I play leads, and it adds the right amount of od to get the grit I love It is not noisy, but you also need to use a good quality cable with it. I shielded all my guitars to get rid of the hum, it is not the amp, it is the inherant nature of single coils, love it or hate it. This is the best kept secret on the planet as far as I am concerned, let all the freaks chase down their marshalls, fenders, and boutique this and that ( I did). (they will never play them anyway) This thing will clean their clocks one and all at a fraction of the price. I think it is a statement of maturity as a player and artist to not jump on the bandwagon and consequently artifically drive up the price of clean vintage pieces, oh well thank god I grew up finally. Very versatile, sparkly clean with NO distortion (fresh and clean)to all out OD mayhem, (with a proper pedal) let the paint peel baby!!! It is by no means a scooped mids metal box, (but who likes that anyway?!?!) but if this is your cup o tea, get a pedal, or better yet something with transistors in it. Like the other reviewers say, it is loud, loud, loud. and I add: Marshall, fender, vox!!!

Well, here is where I can really rub it in your face, you marshall freaks. ( I don't have anything against Marshall amps I love them, I own several. just the freaks who buy them and put them in a museum (closet) and brag about how great they are when they have no idea really) This amp is built, to quote Bob Seger, "like a rock" PTP circuitry, Insanely huge Partridge trannies, and enough quality wire to make the best braces. It was serviced, to have a look see and get the aging parts out, retubed and biased and all the normal routine maintenance. I have to say, if you are a player this is the one you need. No one will ever give it a second look (i.e. dreaded missing amp syndrome) and you can get the tones from heaven It never gets overheated, which is one thing I was worried about with all the tubes in, about 12 or so. But to be on the safe side, I always have my trusty Mesa Mark I on hand, another great amp by the way, in case of an act of God or so. Can't ever see anything happening to it though

Customer support, AAHAHAHAHAHAHA, Just send it to your favorite amp tech, I did, and it will get fixed up right.

I have been playing a long time, 20 years or so, and it is a hobby for me. I have been just as guilty as the next guy for chasing down the latest gizmo or amp to see what I had been missing (nothing) I own some small amps, Fender Deluxe Reverb silver face modded, A Princeton, a Marshall lead and Bass 20, (real one!!! that I actually use and does not sit in some closet wasting its life away by some collector weenie) and a bunch of other gizmos and stuff left over from my wallet bending days, Mesa Mark I, which I hold near and dear to my heart, (even though it is PCB I love it anyway). I have to say, It was a liberating experience to get this amp. Nobody has heard of it, and I can finally lay my GAS to rest. Uhh.

I wish it had a power cut or something like that to tame it down a bit, I just don't need so much stage presence. If this were lost or stolen I would have to scour the earth to find another. These were not made in any large quantity and I got mine a round about way. (Non Ebay Thank God) There is a great website dedicated to Sound City amps with pics, Schematics and all kinds of groovy stuff. The web master of the site said this was a real hard find, so it made me feel all the better about it. If you ever see one, (unlikely) get it before the word gets out on these and all the Ebayers drive the price through the roof, or whatever. Great amp, and the buy of a lifetime. Sound City built some silly stuff back in the day, but I have to say they hit the bulls eye with this one!!!