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Old 12-06-2020, 04:34 PM
Steve DeRosa Steve DeRosa is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dc. View Post
... I have a 1960s Sound Electronics Corp X305R amp with a single Jensen 15" speaker. There's not much information about these online but my understanding is that they were built by John Dougherty, a former Ampeg employee. The quality of the cabinet is quite high, and the amp has a very nice reverb and a spectacular tremolo. I'm guessing it is similar to Ampegs from the same period.
As you said there's very little information, but I do remember seeing them in some of the Brooklyn music stores that couldn't score an Ampeg franchise; unfortunately I never tried one myself so I can't attest to its tonal merits, but it does bear a passing resemblance to the '68 Ampeg B-22X Jupiter 55W/2x12" vertical combo owned by our last band's bass player (who used it for both guitar and bass):



FWIW it's the vertical 2x12" version I remember from this time - slightly taller than yours, and IIRC also equipped with the then-trendy metal-dustcap speakers seen in the Jupiter photo...

I'd be very interested in the tube complement - if it's a true Ampeg-derived circuit you're probably looking at 7027 or 7591 power tubes running Class AB (7868's were generally used as a 7591 substitute in lower-powered Class-A amps like the Jet/Rocket, and I suspect yours is closer to the Gemini/Jupiter topology), as well as a couple of oddball preamp tubes; FWIW I understand from word-of-mouth info the other Ampeg offshoots like Oliver and Andre might have used more conventional glassware in their circuits (TMK Teneyck was strictly solid-state) - again, I've never examined the latter two and it's been about fifty years since I last saw anything with the Oliver name, so don't regard this information as hard fact. Although Jess Oliver, Gene Andre, and Dennis Kager are unfortunately no longer with us (FYI Dennis was my amp tech, the guy who built my '64 top-panel/no 'verb Rocket - told me it was one of the very first amps he worked on when he came to Ampeg - and the last living link to the blue-check era) Gene Andre Jr. has a LinkedIn page where he lists himself as owner/operator of Andre Audio-tronics, the firm founded by his father; might be a long shot, but here's the page link if you think he can shed any light on your amp:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/gene-andre-9b24b166
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