Trace Elliot Speed Twin C50

i believe my amp is a 1998 i cant remember why i think that but im close,ive been searching for years for my perfect amp last amp i was still trying out was the twin by fender the heavy tank sounded good but just good to me this amp the speed twin was like holy crap its my dream sound i play in a loud band this thing has power to spare,the reverb is not the best ive heard im sure i can modify if i want,mine has a couple marshal el 34,s love them.... el-84,s in my previous amp this amp highlights good tone, i use no effects i noticed a major differnce with my quality of tone from any amp ive ever used . ive been playing 28 years

i play country,country rock and classic rock i have a 1982 fender squire strat mij (jv strat)this is the best sound ive ever had period like studio quality.....also 1989 tele sounds killer ive always been told im way to fussy when it came to amps...if i ever have to replace this amp it will be with the same amp period....no issues whatsoever . i wished i knew why this sounds so good to me is it the el-34s ,components i don,t no whats different from other amps .....wished this elliot dude never sold out im a big fan

2 months so far so good

28 years, also own peavey classic 50 ,fender bass amp m-80?love everything about this amp tone quality the best ive ever played through i hate not one thing about it,my classic 50 is not even in the same league as this amp and i like my peavey,if you have been searching forever like me looking for serious tone give one of these a try when i tried this amp out i was thinking they would want around 600 or 700 i stole this thing cuss i would have paid that no questions .......i sure wish i new what was different about this amp?i was on a doctor z forum reading comments seemed funny these guys were trying to help a guy with his new amp their comments were like pushing him to like it also many of them were like it took me a couple months to get the sound i was looking im thinking why did it take a couple months did they see it on tv or something ? this thing was sold 10 minutes after i plugged in cause i felt it i herd it i love it.....

more than you'll ever need

the most responsive,natural sounding amp I ever heard,good for blues up to metal,best ever distorsion

no problems in 5 years

I've been playing for 21 years,had tons of gear,owned many Marshalls,fenders,peavey 5150,etc but this one is trully special.Sounds very good with a Peavey wolfgang,but with an old Charvel with j-90c pickup is out of this world.I don't use any efects,guitar straight into amp

I bought the amp (model II with push/push switches) a week ago in a musicstore here in Holland. It was for sale for a special prize. Therefore I expected the amp to be in a heavily used state (showmodel). I was surprised that it appeared to be brandnew (nos).
It has 2 EL34 powertubes (General Electric) and 5 12ax7a preamptubes (Sovteks). The Drake transformers are dated 1998 so I assume the amp was build in that year.
I never had played a Trace Elliot tube amp before, but I was surprised by the great sounds of this combo while I was testing it in the store with my strat. The features are already known. They are all very useful to tweak your sounds both in clean- and leadmode. Especially the 2 switchable mastervolumes, the serie/parallel fx-loop with level controls, the speaker damping control on the leadchannel, the triode/pentode switch and the bias measure- and adjustpoints on the rear panel are great extra features, a customshop amp worthy.
A 2-way footswitch came with it for switching channels and mastervolumes. They don't deliver the 5-way pedalboard anymore so I have to build it myself in the near future to operate all the switchable functions. But for now the 2-way switch will do the job.

I have several strats and a Cort M700 with 2 splitable Mighty Mite humbuckers. Both types of guitars sound very good on the amp. The size of the combo helps to produce a full sound, even massive when you turn the volumepot further up to max. The Celestion G12T75 sounds great (both clean and overdriven sounds).
The amp has 2 mastervolume controls (footswitchable) working on both channels. So you can switch between 2 preset volume levels on both channels.
Channel 1:
you can dial in any sound from warm, thick jazzy to bright funky. The treble and bass controlls influence the tone noticebly by turning up. The mid control has less influence. The (pull-treble) bright switch adds an nicer bright tone then when turning up the treble control. With the bass control you can always add the right amount of bottom-end and warmth to the clean sound.
Channel 2:
this channel has 2 preamp-settings, low/medium gain and medium/high gain, switchable by a push/push button. When activating the medium-/highgain-mode an extra valve-stage is added to the 4 valve-stages, resulting in a lot extra overdrive.
In low/medium-mode the sound is voiced with less bass-response, where in the medium/high-mode it's voiced with more bass-response. This results in a good, well defined, crunch sounds in low/medium-mode. Especially with the Cort it sounds great.
In low/medium-mode, breakup starts with the gain control at nine o'clock. Before this setting you got a thick clean sound.

I have the amp for one week now and play it daily at home. All functions work well and the pots operate noiseless. Only the preamstyle push-switch now and then fails to function immediately: sometimes you have to push a second or third time beore it switches to heavy leadmode. When I tested the amp last week in the store for 2 hours, I also kicked its ass from time to time on near-max volume. The combo and the speaker could handle the massive volumes very well. No rattlin' from the powertubes. We'll see how it maintains when gigging with it. But because the combo is well build with quality components, I trust that it will last.
The Drake transformers are also used in my Koch Twintone combo. And because they've never failed in my Twintone (have the amp for 11 years), I trust that they will do their job in the C50 too.

Can't say anything about it yet. It also depends on how helpful the store will be when malfunctions appear. I got a warranty of 3 months from the store itself.
It's a plus that a manual is available on the Trace Elliot site under "Support".

I've been playin' guitar of 35 years. Always played Fender and Squier strats. Last year my first humbucker guitar, a Cort M700 with splitable Mighty Mite humbuckers, was added to my gear. My main amp since 1996 was a Koch Twintone combo (EL34, Celestion Vintage 30). So now I got 2 equally great tube-amps.
I love the versatility and sounds of the C50. The extra soundshaping features are well chosen by the custumshop-techs from Trace Elliot. The amp is well, solidly build. Still has a portable weight. Wish I got the 5-way pedalboard with it.

My amp was made in 1996. The story goes that Gary Moore ordered some in red and then didn't take them all. I have one of those red ones. The amp has enough power to play clubs. I play in a band that plays modern country, modern rock, and classic rock. This amp sounds great on all of them.

I use an Ibanez 550. The amp has a distortion sound that is unbelievable. If you've ever played a solid state amp you realize you've been listening to a buzz. This has a roar if you want it to. Or you can step it down to play music that doesn't need the best sounding distortion. Just some sustain if that's all you want. The amp set on high gain does make some noise so I'll drop my score to a 9.

This amp is the most unreliable amp I've ever owned. I bought it used from a person whom I know. He almost never ever used it. The audio transformer died within one month. I had it changed for almost $300.00. I've changed all the tubes at least six times in two years becuase even when biased correctly they fade away. Now the amp has died again. It had a great sound out of the shop and slowly but steadily lost it. Some nights when playing a gig it sounded great. As soon as it got hot it lost all of it's power.

I tried to get support for this amp and I was emailed a schematic. I asked if there were known issues like I was having and I didn't get any response.

I keep getting it fixed because it sounds great. But after the initial $625.00 then about $350.00 in tubes, $300.00 in repairs and now it's completely broke again, I think I'll shop for another tube amp.

Pretty much everyone else has listed it, but just for the record:

just about everything you could ever want. The clean channel has seperate eq and a bright 'pull' switch. The drive channel has a pull 'shift' switch and a lead boost switch. It has two master controls allowing you to switch from clean rhythm to clean lead.

Pentode triode switch on the back for reduced power and adjustable damping. Spring reverb and master presence. Switchable FX loop with series/parallel option and adjustable send and returns. Switchable bias for 6L6 or EL34s.

Mines is the preferable early no-MIDI version. Celestion Vintage V30 speaker

Whoever below said this amp sounds digital needs to get their ears de-waxed - I recommend a car key. Either that or their amp was broken or it's a prank listing.

Some pretty good sounds on this. The clean channel has a Boogie Mark series type clean, rather than the sparkly clean Fender sounds, although the bright switch goes some way towards this. At about half way, this channel starts to break up and goes into a nicely rounded blues type distortion.

The Drive channel has two modes and seems to favour Marshall with a little Boogie. In drive mode, it gives a great crunch sound with humbuckers or, with the 'shift' engaged a more focussed mid-biased
sound that sounds reminiscent of the Boogie Mark series 'crunch'.

With the Lead mode engaged it goes into a much more aggressive Marshall style lead sound or, with the 'shift' engaged, Santana/Boogie endless sustain.

Built like an absolute tank. Solid steel construction; heavy duty double sided through plated PCBs, 18mm ply lock jointed cabinet.
This would survive a direct nuclear strike.

Ha ha ha! Bought out by Gibson, asset stripped then closed down. Useless. Fortunately, there's a bunch of dedicated enthusiasts
at GM Audio keeping the spares going. I'd give GM a 10 for service but as Trace are gone, it has to be zilch.

Solid dependable amp. The only thing it doesn't do is that sparkly clean Fender sound, but that was never its target. These are outstanding amps. Grab one if you see it for sale, if nothing else it'll be a future investment too.

loads of features in the layout:push-pulls,double function switches and even a midi loop for remote controlling!
definitely designed to make life easy when you need a variety of sounds at the flick of a button

i use a mex tele,u.s. strat,an ibanez with humbuckers and an SG copy.
here is where i TOTALLY disagree with every other reviewer:
my amp sounded completely digital,odd as it may seem,since it`s an all valve amp.
i tried every combination that was possible,changed the valves and had the biasing adjusted,all to no avail.
it kept sounding digital and plastic.even my friend`s little tranny sounds better that that!
now,with all the positive reviews below,i came to the conclusion that my model might have been defective or perhaps the latest models
(i bought it new in jan 2004)are designed differently from the older.
fact is that i manage to get rid of it and i`m quite happy to have done so.don`t miss it a tiny bit!

haven`t used it for long ,but is built like a tank.
the construction is neat and it seem to be sturdy enough to withstand even heavy punishment(and it weighs accordingly!)

did not deal with them.

many good and useful features,very solid construction,but the most important thing was awful:worst sounding amp i ever tried,including trannies, and i tried some pretty bad amps(good ones too!).

This is a follow-up to my earlier review.
I received an email from someone I will call J_____.

October 13, 2002
--- J_______<emailaddress.com> wrote:
>Well I read your review of the Trace Elliot Speed Twin:
> Do you still have it? Is it working fine?
> Well, I was just wondering how does the amp sound at
> lower volumes? Does it sound good or do you have to
> really crank it to get a nice tone?
> Sorry to bother!'
> J______

trudgepronto replied:
Hi J,
Yes I have several C50s and some H100s.
They all still work perfectly even though two of them
were damaged in shipping.

An H100 head was dropped so far by UPS that the reverb
tank was knocked completely loose. No damage to
electronic components or cabinet at all.

A C50 was dropped so far by UPS that one of the bottom
feet was ramrodded into the cabinet causing it to crack
both the bottom and side of cabinet. Also the top
chassis mounting bolt on the above that foot was
stripped. No damage to electronic components at all.
This is the amp I use all the time. Never had any
problems at all with it. Amazing.

Unlike the Velocette, the Speed Twin sounds fantastic
at lower volumes including the clean channel.
I could rave about this amp all day long.
I use Celestion Vintage 30s with it most of the time
but the stock speaker is pretty good too.
I have had great luck with both 6L6GC power tubes and
Sovtek EL34s. However I only play Strats w/single-coil
pickups and sometimes Bill Lawrence L280s pups.

I also have a Fender Prosonic, Hughes and Kettner
Edition Tube, Marshall DSL401, Fender CVR, Soldano
Astroverb, Digitech 2120, and a Line6 POD V2.
95% of the time I just use my TE C50 Speed Twin.

And thats all I have to say about that. lol

Take Care,
Trudge Pronto

Last of the British made models, but puchased new on closeout (what a steal)
Versatility is it's middle name. Here are some examples: Series or Parallel Effects loops, Diode or Pentode (both tubes or just one) two channels, but really three (standard distortion and extreme distortion), a mute switch, pull knobs for brightness and two master volumes (one for standard volume and another for footpedal), a bias switch giving the user the option to replace the EL34's with 6L6's if Fender sounds are your game. A nice Celestion speaker and I'm sure I've left off some stuff.

As far as what I wished it had....Well, the footswitch would have been nice, but right now, I'm not needing it.

This amp will be used for practice, gigs, writing, recording....I got a POD for practice and recording, but this amp sounds sooo freaking good, I haven't touched my POD since I brought my amp home.

Just when I was ready to sell my Strat, I found out why my guitar wasn't giving me the sound I was looking for. A strat needs a good tube amp like a Hun needs meat. I can't believe the clarity even at low levels and the great sound that amp produces with the standard american pickups. Not only does single coil sound good, but my Guild Bluesbird sounds great through it also. I really get a distinct separation of sound by switching the pickup positions. I've had some nice amps prior to this, but never with the versatility and the unbiased tonal characteristics. This amp lets your guitar do what it was designed to do with the wood it was made with. I never thought wood and pickups made that much difference until I got this amp.

Clean or distorted, this amp is a sonic champion.

As far as noise, the amp is quiet. At high volumes it sounds great, and at low volumes it sounds great. Use your clean channel with an overdrive pedal, or just switch from clean to channel two and select the distortion you want. Where many vintage amps leave off with subtle saturation or distortion at high volumes only, this amp has no problems delivering the sound you want at any volume, which is great since I still live in an apartment. If you are still worried about noice, switch it to Triode which will give you power running on one tube (25 watts)...This changes the sound completely because at 50 watts clean you have all kinds of head room for a loud, clean sound. Switch it to 25 watts and you can get a clean/breakup on clean channel without having to have it extremely loud. Just play with it, it all sounds cool.

How brutal is the distortion? Oh my God......just trust me on this one.

Trace Elliot has been making quality equipment for many years. Like all machines, they will wear out and some will break prematurely. However, this amp is solidly built. The housing on this guy is the size of a twin speaker amp like a Twin, however it's just one speaker. The multi-layered plywood they use is heavy as it is solid. This not only makes for a unique sound, but really protects the speaker and the internal components. I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope it stays reliable.

Well, Gibson has the unique ability to buy a company and then use it as it's evil stepchild. They have taken the vintage Trace Elliots and put their name on it basically doing nothing to the sound but changing the amp cover and raising the price. They are made in Nashville instead of Britain, and like most Gibson products, don't expect spectacular customer support. I understand Gibson has decided to keep the Trace Elliot namesake for the SpeedTwin series and its solid state amp line along with their acoustic amps, but who knows. I remember when Epiphone was a quality American made instrument...Now they are made in Korea and China and the name is not synomomous with quality and integrity. I hope for the customer's sake, they will continue to manufacture the speedtwin with the materials mine was made with.

I filled out my warranty and left a comment about getting a footswitch...Two weeks and still nothing. Also, I live in Nashville and went to the Gibson plant and asked for a manual and power chord (mine did not come with one which was disappointing) and I received no manual and I am currently using a computer power chord. Unimpressive, but then again, that's whay I play Fenders, Guilds and Paul Reed Smiths.

I've been playing for close to 20 years. I have owned many fine guitars and have gone through many musical taste stages. I don't know if that will ever stop, but I've come to appreciate versatility and playability. I've tried tube-like or tube simulation amps because of their light weight and basic good sound, but I will tell you, nothing replaces a tube amp if you want a tube amp sound. Technology has come a long way, but ask yourself this when you are considereing a low-cost tube amp alternative: They make meat replacement products right? But, does it really taste like meat? Not to me it doesn't. So just remember that. This amp was a steal. It's a shame there are many great products that go un-noticed because of companies buying them out or because of a fad in the way an amp looks. Well, like all scenarios, looks can be very deceiving. This amp is the real stuff. It was made for professionals and not for the weekend warrior(even though the weekend warrior would be very very pleased). Despite its heavy weight, there is nothing substandard about this amplifier. This retailed for around $1,800.00 new, and although that is high for an amplifier, I definitely think it is worth the $1,000.00 and higher price tag. At $600.00, I stole this amp. It should be against the law to sell such a good product for that little a price. I hope if you are reading my review and are considering getting one, please take advantage of getting one at a good price while (and if) you can. I'm glad I have an amp that doesn't look like everyone else's. In addition, it doesn't look like other people's amps, but it definitely lets your guitar be its own individual as well. I hope this helps you in your search for a quality amp.

They say this is a 2 channel amp, with the optional footswitch it is a 3 channel amp. There are TWO seperate master volumes that work with ALL 3 channels.Who ever designed this amp deserves an award of some kind.

I have been playing for 22 years. I have tried just about every amp out there. Why couldn't I have found this amp back when I was really trying to make it? If you are serious about getting great tone, go try this amp. I can't recomend this amp highly enough. Clean channel sounds great, overdrive channels sound even better. Trace is still going to make these, yes, Gibson is still going to keep the Trace Elliot name alive and make the speedtwins only, it's a shame they don't make the vellocette, well you can go buy a goldtone at RIDICULOUS prices, oh well. Find one of these on e-bay for $600 or a little less and you will get the deal of a lifetime.

Built like a tank, no problems.

Never had to talk to them.

I have 3 Les Pauls, Brian Moore DC-1, McInturff Taurus Standard, Gibson SG, Fender Strat, 2 other custom made guitars, ALL sound great through the speedtwin. Go try one out, I bet you buy it in 30 minutes or less. I don't give 10's easily, for the value, this is the best amp out there.

This is correction to my earlier review.
The C50 is a Class AB amp.

The C50, C100, H50 and H100 are all Class AB.
Only the C30 is Class A.