Valco 1696TN

valco - chicago 51 SUPRO model 1696tn

This perticular amp was made in 1960. The 15" Jenson speaker i dated at 1950 by the code on it.
It has two 12AX7 preamp tubes an additional 12Ax7 tremolo tube two 6L6 power amp tubes and a 5U4 rectifier tube.
It has two channels each with a volume and tone control. The first channel has a guitar/accordian switch and the second channel has a guitar/bass switch.
The amp has tremolo on channel one with a footswitch jack and two knobs to control the tremolo.

The output transformer on my amp doesnt appear to be original.

Nice antique lets you get that authentic old tube amp sound ,too bad it doesnt have reverb then it would be totaly awesome.
The amp is pretty powerful. I jam with freinds with it and it's loud enough to be heard over the rest of the band.
I play styles from Metal to blues with it. I has a nice clean sound, that clean tube sound I find is much better sounding than what you get from a solid state amp. Lot of dynamic range. Playing guitar through channel two with the bass switch on gives a more powerful bassy loud sound which is pretty cool sometimes. I use a distortion pedal for playing metal, and i also use a delay pedal with the amp.
The amp with a distortion pedal is not bad for metal but could be better. With my distortion pedal, leads sound very nice and smooth through the jenson speaker.

At full volume clean u get a tube distortion that sounds good and powerful for an old distortion.(nothing like the black sabbath or slayer I listen to now of course :) hense the distortion pedal)
Playing clean at full volume I notice a little rattle, possibly a tube needs replacing.

When i originally bought the amp i needed to replace the rectifier tube which was burnt out.I've owned the amp for a few years. I've had a power tube that needed to be replaced and a loose tube socket that needed to be tightened up.
I think its pretty reliable, no major problems.
I cant believe that old jenson speaker is still in perfect condition, I guess they built those well.
The amp will still run with only one power tube, just at a slightly lower volume but sounding fine.I don't know if this would be harmful but i ran it that way for a while without a problem.

the company is not around anymore.

Ive been playing guitar for about 12 years.I like this amp, partly because its an antique. It has a very good clean sound, better than the solid state amps ive played. Probably best for blues or hard rock. Would be better if it had reverb.

This is a '62 two channel with tremolo. Bought it in need of work for $200. Replaced the power tubes and reconed the 15" Jensen. Also regrilled it. It has tone!. Plays great clean and makes my '86 strat sound very thick and SRVish. It has bass/treble switch on the one channel, which adds to the versatility. Breaks up real nice when pushed all the way. Not to versatile, but add I some tube reverb (Torres unit), and tweak the tremolo and go for hours just doodling.
Don't really take this one out of the house. I've got other stuff for the road. This is one of those ones you keep around for fun. Easy on the ears and eyes.

The amp is pretty quiet. Really a great clean sound. I put in some Svetlana 6l6's. Not much variety, but great tone.

Funny, I have tube amps my whole life, and I've found them more reliable then the solid state stuff. I never had a back up, and I've never had a problem on the road.

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If you like to collect you would love this. If you need a main amp, I would go for something more versatile. I've $300 and a lot of time in it, but it is well worth it.