Supro 6424 112 Combo

Again I have to weight this with what was out there in 1965. The Valco part # 550-27 has changed from a Rola alnico in the 1959-62 1624to a Jensen C12Q. OK I have both a Supro, and a Valco with this exact same circuit, but differing speakers and slightly different cabs. The cabinets are both 1x12" speaker cabs but the Valco was painted black after having the vinyl stripped off. The Supro looks like a Supro with the trademark gray with silvery tsuff in it, and white trim, and maybe some piping. The Supro has the nice screen with flocking, and the Valco has what looks like belongs on an old radio. 2 volume, and 2 tone, and speed, and intensity. The 1624 only had 1 tone control

They both sound a tad different, but do not make me choose. The sound of the 6973 RCA tubes that came stock in a Supro is wonderful, and Electroharmonix did a decent job of making a 6973 too. I would take Ehx over Sylvania NOS tubes, but RCA is the best sound for me. These break up later than a 6BQ5 or 6V6 push pull. They are responsive for a class AB, and the distortion is super sweet sounding. I like the 1624 a bit more I guess. There is less filtering in the tone stack, and the PI is different in the 6424. This give a different, but no less wonderful sound.

This amp is way easier to work on than a 1624, but just because the chassis has a bit more room. There are about 90-100 parts total in these amps. This includes everything. As long as a transformer does not get destroyed everything is replacable. The Rolas have smooth cones, and the Jensens still have a recone kit available, so if the tubes are tested before use, and it is kept maintained there should be no real issues with break downs. These are all flying leads on tag boards, and no PC boards, so they are easy to fix, and not as prone to problems as some stuff, but thet are getting old.

This company is long gone the way of lots of great companies in America. There are schematics in books and for sale on the web. That is it. I will not give a zero, as I have to reserve that for companies that hire idiots to answer the phone. I guess that would be a one in this survey. Brand loyalty has created a nice amount of info out there, so I will award a point for that.

I've been playing since the age of 5, and have a 1624T, the 6424, and a Valco with the same exact circuit. I paid about $280 for the Valco which was painted black. The Supro was given to me by a TV repair guy some years back. I have a 1961 ES 330, LP Stds from 52-86, a 74 Fender Strat, and 62 Tele, I started buying 6973 powered amps recently off eBay and Craigslist. I have a 77 Vibrolux, a brown Showman, a Dynacord Twen, and a couple Silvertone class A 6V6 5 watt 6" combos that are really great responsive low volume fun amps too. I have home built amps and FX pedals and rackmount stuff, and a Suporo RT 500 reverberation unit. I wish I had billion dollars to spend on gear, and also to give music programs back to some of the schools I once attended. I would get a real 59 LP Std, and a set of ESs from the 125 to the 355, and a super 400.

1962 amp from serial # and the Jensen speaker code. In mint shape when I acquired it in 2005: it had just been sold to one of my favorite local (Eugene, OR) music dealers by an elderly gentleman, along with its matching MOTS lap steel. He hadn't played amp or guitar in, oh, some decades, but had stored the amp well. (A tremendous value at $375 in 2005 dollars.)

It's an ideal partner for my Rossco Wright custom Tele with tapped humbuckers: it loves to roar, and cleans up well at lower gain. Four inputs, two bridgeable channels (one with delicious tremelo) in 50's tweed style; 17 watts or so with the 6973 tubes, which were notoriously expensive as NOS, but are now available again (Russian; here's hoping Tesla will make some). Each channel has a Tone/Volume; tremelo has speed/depth, with a footpedal jack.

I gave up my modern 30-watt EL84 amp after a week wih this one. Long live the teen-wattage tube amp.

Guitars: a tapped Tele and a Heritage 575 with floating neck pickup. The 6424's power range suits the Tele's bluesy/greasy genius better, but as I can get piano-clear tone for the Heritage by tweaking the bridged channels, keeping the main channel between 3-5 (V & T) and the bridged channel V 4-7, T rolled off, depending on how much volume I want. I lent it recently to a NYC-based jazzer who needed an amp for a Portland trio gig, He ran his old Gibson ES-330 through it, and loved it--enough clean to work with a drummer, but added growl available when he wanted to get greasy.

Though I still haven't given it the cap job it needs at age 44, it's remarkably quiet when idling at low-medium levels. Cranked up (full V, full treble T, both channels bridged), well, it idles like a vigorous senior citizen taking a nap--think Snoresville--, but I have no reason to record it solo fully cranked. Last few dance/rock gigs I used it on in a 5 person band, I had no need to mike it to step in front of the band: I had a Mesa V-Twin (straight-up clean boost) & volume pedal in front of it, and kept the amp fully cranked, adjusting for solos/quiet backing via the volume pedal.

Supro cabs were always less well-built than Fenders, so the clean sound is certainly less focused than a Deluxe, but I love the cab's light weight at my age (53), the 62 Jensen ceramic 12 is sweet (though someday I may put an Alnico in there), and the Supro's handle-rattle at loud levels is solved with a handkerchief wrapped around the handle.

It has broken down less than its current owner since 1962. After the cap job, it will certainly outlast him. I'm the one who needs backup, not the Supro.

However, I run a 2-amp set-up now, so I routinely bring & use 2: either a mid-50's Rickenbacker M8, Champ circuit, for added growl, or a cute little 12-watt Bourgeois Seville (which is a piece of Skyway luggage with a 12" and a 12w Crate solid-state GFX amp--and if any of you live in driving distance of Corvallis, OR, you should drive to the Fingerboard Extension on 2nd Street and check out the growing number of one-off luggage amps being built by the Kill-O-Watt Collective, whose build ethic is scrounge yard sales for 1/interesting luggage and kitschy furniture to turn into cabinets, and 2/orphaned amps & speakers, and charge no more than $125 for their very cool one-off creations).

We all know the answer here. It's a classic amp design, so easily serviced by any number of amp artisans around the country.

I started playing 2 years after this amp was built. I've mentioned the 2 main guitars, other amps above, and two main pedals above; I also use a Rolls A/B/Y switch, a Behringer desktop mixer to send/tweak the split-amp signals and mix in FX from a Midiverb III and an Alesis 31-band EQ (mainly to increase tonal variety for the one-knob Rick amp).

Other instruments: a Taylor 410 cutaway and a Mexican Jazz bass (fretless).

Past instruments/amps I regret letting go in spasms of youthful foolishness: '65 Deluxe Reverb, '57 Strat, '58 ES-175. For many years I played nothing but a '67 Ovation Deluxe Balladeer, but in the 80s I began to come back to amp & electric playing, so there I've played with Peavey, Crate, JB Player, Yairi, Carvin, Gallien-Kruger. They're gone because I no longer have to put the kid-raising budget first, because I've been a good reader of Vintage Guitar's reviews & column's (esp Gerald Weber's invaluable amp guruing), and because after hauling the Carvin 50-watter around I gradually worked my down to the perfect-weight/power amp for my declining years & interest in not going deaf while still being able to crank it up.

1960 Supro. Valco Chicago. The layout is fairly straightforward. Two channels, one regular one tremelo. For both channels, one Bass and Treble input. Back in 1960, considering the features they put on most amps I wouldn't discredit it in any way. One of the cooler things about the amp is that you get out of it exactly what you put into it. I know several people that have said they can actually play better because they hear what their playing really sounds like. I use this amp in a fairly small venue. It's loud enough to be heard over a loud drummer with a drum shield. And perfect for that golden archtop tone playing with a jazz drummer. The thing about this is that it isn't loud. Not just for the sake of being loud, anyway. It starts very soft and straightforward, perfectly clean and then starts heading upwards to smooth out a little, and add a tiny tiny bit of overdrive. When it's up to eight or so, it's not too loud to stand in front of, but not too soft to not be able to be heard. As far as I know this amp is twenty watts, with a single ended circuit. Pure Class A hand wired clean tone.

My tone is so very specific. For distortion it's really a mix between old and new Jeff Beck, and all the Jimmy Page tones. I used this amp with a ProCo Vintage Rat, a pedal I would recommend to anybody who likes those players, and it had a very raw crunch with p-90's and single coils, and a very high definition distortion with humbuckers. As far as what I actually play goes, I'm a gigging musician. On my pedalboard is every overdrive/distortion tone. Because of my effects loop I can take anything from clean boost to higher gain sounds. On top of that an analog delay, wah, Voce organ pedal, Lo-Fi, Compressor, and Reverb. With this amp I can go for that clicky clean tone, archtop clean tone, any sound from the 60's and several others. Like I said before, you get out what you put into this amp.

I would say it's very reliable. That being said, I did inspect the hand-wired board myself, and re-soldered anything that looked funny. I found a schematic for this amp and fixed everything myself. When I bought it, it was broken down a little. It needed a new set of tubes, re-biasing, and a new set of wires in the circuit. I would trust my work, and I've seen several Supro that still are in good condition.

Supro has been gone since the early 70's.

I've been playing for a while. I'm a session player in Atlanta, and have used this and my Fender Bassman for a large majority of my studio gigs. I own several 'boutique' amplifiers, and heads. Dr. Z Maz 38 and Carmen Ghia, an old Fender Princeton, 'Tweed', Several Bassmans, and a new Hot Rod Deluxe, Matchless HC-30, and Pheonix, Vox Ac30, and then this litte Supro. This amp is probably closest to the Ac30, just smaller and a tad more transparent. This is a real deal amp. None that I see are that expensive, either. If I ever see another one for sale, I would like to be able to buy it. Chances are it will only be about $500, at most. A very good amp, I highly recommend it.

I HAVE OWNED MY VALCO/SUPRO SINCE 1977, AND IT WAS A VINTAGE GEM BACK THEN.IT HAS 2 SIMPLE CHANNELS (TONE,VOLUME,2 INPUTS),WITH TREMOLO ON ONE.I ORIGINALLY PUT A VINTAGE JBL D120-F 12"SPEAKER IN IT, BUT IT PROVED TO BE TOO LOUD (AND HEAVY!), SO I OPTED FOR A BROWNFRAME/GOLD LABEL JENSEN FROM THE 60'S.ONLY GRIPE-WIERD OUTPUT TUBES.

I HAVE USED THIS AMP IN THE STUDIO WITH ALL KINDS OF GUITARS-HAMERS,PAULS,STRATS,ETC.ALWAYS AWESOME TONE!I AM A RECORDING ENGINEER WHO TRACKED DEMO'S FOR .38 SPECIAL,SKYNYRD,AND MOLLY HATCHETT (I JUST GAVE AWAY MY AGE!)AND EVERYONE WAS FLOORED BY THIS AMP!RAW AND VERY DYNAMIC WHEN PUSHED.PLUG IN A DIGITAL REVERB BETWEEN THE AMP/GUITAR AND THE TONE GETS TOTALLY JAZZED AND CLEAN-LIKE JECKYLL/HYDE,BUT ALWAYS SWEET!TONE TIP-THE STANDBY CIRCUIT IS A VERY STRANGE AFFAIR,NOT LIKE A SIMPLE "B+" ON/OFF LIKE A FENDER'S...PUT THIS PUPPY IN STANDBY AND CRANK IT ALL THE WAY,MAYBE ADD A BOOST AT THE INPUT-TOTAL OVERDRIVE YOU CAN TALK OVER!

I HAVE ON A COUPLE OF OCCASIONS USED A DRY AIR DUSTER TO BLOW OUT THE COBWEBS AND DUST...REPLACED A TIRED FUSE IN '91..KNOCK WOOD, THIS BABY CAN'T BE STOPPED! I JUST WORRY THAT THE CHROME PANEL WILL RUST SO BAD THAT I WON'T BE ABLE TO READ THE MODEL!I'VE EVEN USED (ABUSED?)IT TO DRIVE A TALKBOX!

I DARE SAY THAT THE WARRANTY IS PROBABLY EXPIRED! THE 6973 OUTPUT TUBES ARE A REAL PAIN TO FIND...AND$$$$$$!I HAVE REPLACED A 12AX7,ALSO IN '91.

I HAVE BEEN PLAYING AND RECORDING MUSIC SINCE 1964.I HAVE A ROOM FULL OF VINTAGE FENDER, MARSHALL,KUSTOM,SUNN,& GIBSON AMPS,PLUS NEW ONES-LINE 6,AND JOHNSON.NOT TO MENTION HAMMOND ORGANS,LESLIES,ETC.THIS BABY IS ABSOLUTELY KING OF THE STUDIO!IF THIS AMP GETS STOLEN-AND IT'S BEEN ATTEMPTED BEFORE-I WILL SELL MY SOUL FOR ANOTHER ONE!

2 channel with bass and treble inputs/ volume and tone for each channel. Has tremolo operated via footswitch with speed and intensity knobs. also has standby. Amp uses 3 12ax7 preamp tubes 1 5y3gt rectifier and 2 6973 power tubes. The speaker is a 12 inch special design jensen. I give it a 9 on features because there were not too many on amps in the '60's.

I am using an Electra les paul with '59 seymour duncan humbuckers. This amp has the kind of sound that can not really be described. You just have to hear it. I think it is 25 watts and it is pretty loud, but the tone is killer. Nice deep bass with bell like highs. After half volume it starts to distort very nicely, with plenty of sustain. I don't have a pedal to activate the tremolo so I can't comment on that. If you play blues or rock you could not go wrong with this or any supro for that matter.

I would gig with it without hesitation. I have never had a problem. The power tubes are kind of hard to find and a bit expensive but they are really sweet souding tubes. These are the same tubes the used to put in wurlitzer juke boxes.

Supro has been gone since the early '70's I think.

I have been playing for about three years and yes I would replace it if it were lost or stolen. It can be had for a lot less money than a Fender or some other more popular amp, but you will not get a better sounding amp.