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Also, it sounds, like many great clean tube amps do, wonderful with pedals in front of it. You can toss in blinking X-mass lights and have a light show while you play. Plus, it has that cool light-up panel on the front. If you want to feel it under your Chuck Taylors when your descend-throb that low E-string, but you want gas money left over to get home from the show, this is the amp for you. Why You Want It: Your surf band is starting to play bigger clubs and you need to Dick Dale the crowd into submission with your mega glissando.Price: While it’s become hard to touch the Silvertone heads in good shape for under $275, their Montgomery Ward counterparts can be had in the $100-200 range with some regularity for the two 6L6 model and a little higher (50 bucks) for the four output tube model.Very interesting sounds available from this amp, and a killer rockabilly or surf tube amp. A monster depth accompanies a wide speed control. Also, the tremolo has a harder clipping than the smooth tube driven tremolo common in the early to mid-60’s. These Montgomery Ward heads, however, use Hammond-Gibbs reverb pans (2 and 3 spring) that are driven by a 6V6 tube and they have a wonderful depth and texture. Not even really usable as an odd effect, even after you have long given up on it as a useful reverb. Their reverb pan is the side of a small tissue box. Anybody who has owned (and loved) the Danelectro-made Silvertone 1484s and 1485s knows that, great as they are, they have some of the cheesiest reverb ever produced. The big surprise on these amps, as alluded to earlier, is the reverb.This makes it quite the sleeper for the club-sized bass head, as well. The 80 watt version of this amp will stay clean until your neighbor’s neighbors are begging you to turn it down and calling the local authorities. But it’s a very tight-bottomed, snappy and crisp high-powered overdrive (partially as a result of the solid state rectifier). Can you get these into overdrive? Well, yes, the two 6L6 version, at any rate.Try plugging your Eko or your Rangemaster into this and see the cool/rare envy pop in the crowd. These amps offer huge bottom and tons of clean (unusual in the bargain tube amp business) that would be positively great for the surf band on a budget. Sounds Like: Well, if the Silvertone 1482 is the poor person’s Tweed Deluxe, these heads are the poor person’s Dual Showman head.The smaller head has the two 6L6’s for output while the larger one has four 6L6’s. The particle board case for the head, however, tends to get stripped by the wood screws if it’s been taken in and out too much and/or jarred hard on the road. Much better than one might expect from an amp that could be ordered out of a Montgomery Ward Catalog. Really beautifully structured and very easy to work on. The layout inside of these amps is stunning. Geek Love: Both amps (the 40 watt and the 80 watt) use three 12AX7’s in the preamp, a 12AU7 for the Tremolo, and a rare choice of a 6V6 to drive the surprisingly good Reverb circuit.I have never seen one of these with its original speaker cab, but I have run them into cabs with two twelve inch speakers and into cabs with fifteens, and had great luck. The knobs are huge (silver-dollar sized faces), and with the lights on, they are easy to see and set on a darkened stage. All housed in a really cool looking head that has three lights (and a separate switch just for the lights!) that run across the top of the head like a 60’s dashboard.
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These are great amps, somewhat rare, but if and when you see them, they can be had for some really great prices. So, what’s a gear freak to do? Look to the Montgomery Ward/Valco two and four 6L6 heads. They may be worth the prices they’re commanding, but they are no longer sleepers or unknowns on the used market. In the wake of Jack White and the White Stripes success, the price of the Silvertone 1484 Twin Twelve (with the two 6L6’s and the 2X12′ cabinet) and the 1485 (with the four 6L6’s and the 6X10′ cabinet) have gone through the roof. Montgomery Ward / Valco Two and Four 6L6 Amp Heads