As rock started hitting the big time in the mid ’60s, it became clear to guitar-amplifier manufacturers that 100 watts or more was the way to go. The best approach to big power, however, would follow several paths.
The stories of the high-powered amps introduced by Fender, Marshall, and Vox through the ’60s have been thoroughly told, but there were plenty of alternatives for attaining mega volume from 1965 to ’75 with histories that are less deeply documented. Some used tubes, while others pursued the newer solid-state technology as the way forward. Most perceived the introduction of a brave new world of amplification and hoped to set the standard for 100-watt guitar amps with their groundbreaking designs… even if the results failed to achieve lasting success.
Here, we survey a handful of interesting big-wattage vintage alternatives we’ve covered over the years. Among them lurks a largely-promotional monster that would never be bested and a behemoth built by one of the most-respected names in circuit design.
1967 Kustom K100
One of the best solid-state-only manufacturers of the mid ’60s and ’70s was Kustom, and triple-digit-output ratings were a big part of their repertoire right from the start. Founded in 1966 by inventor and entrepreneur Bud Ross in Chanute, Kansas, Kustom amps are best-known for their unique tuck-and-roll Naugahyde cabinets and robust sound.
The look of the latter on stages of the late ’60s and ’70s must have appealed to plenty of big artists, but clearly, they were happy with the sound, as Kustom earned endorsements from the Jackson 5, James Jamerson, and other major funk and soul acts of the ’70s along with Carl Perkins, Waylon Jennings, Roy Clark, Leon Russell, the Carpenters, and Creedence Clearwater Revival. Johnny Cash even toured with a tuck-and-roll PA for many years.
The Kustom K100 1-15L-2 was a major workhorse with controls for Volume, Bass, and Treble on the left, Reverb, Speed and Intensity on the right (the latter two for tremolo, with footswitch connections for both), and the “Solid-State Energizer” with “resonant treble boost circuitry.” Whatever they named it, the discrete solid-state circuitry sounded surprisingly fat and rich, and its effects were delightfully hypnotic.
The 1×15″ speaker cab was sold with a JBL D130F driver (though the example shown might have a replacement, as it lacks the JBL’s silver dust cover), and had a closed back with a pair of ports. It’s an unusual cab to partner with a guitar amp, but the design projected well and presented plenty of low-end kick. So enamored of the sound were Tom Petty and Mike Campbell that they often turned to Kustom amps for their solid grind and evocative tremolo decades after the company ceased production.
- Solid State
- Controls: Volume, Bass, Treble, Reverb, Speed, Intensity.
- Speakers: single 15″ JBL D130F in a ported cab.
- Output: 100 watts RMS.
1968 Rickenbacker Transonic TS100 and TS200
The shorter (but equally star-studded) list of guitar gods playing through Rickenbacker’s Transonic TS100 and TS200 amps of the late ’60s is further testament to the notion that these solid-state powerhouses were once seen as the way forward.
Transonics populated the back lines of U.S. tours by Led Zeppelin, the Jeff Beck Group, Steppenwolf, and others at the time, and Cheap Trick cottoned on to the stacks a decade later. Early on, Jimmy Page recorded with small Supros (though the main guitar riff on “Heartbreaker” was purportedly tracked through a Transonic), then mixed in the Marshalls and Hiwatts he would later tour with; on more than one occasion, however, he mentioned being impressed with the sound of the Rickenbacker amps.
Outside of major tours, these hefty creations were rarely seen, perhaps because “…they were just so expensive, most artists couldn’t afford to buy them,” the amps’ designer, Bob Rissi, tells us. “You could buy three Twin Reverbs for the price of a Transonic TS200,” the 200-watt sibling that was many pros’ choice for the biggest stages.
The hulking trapezoidal cabs are likely the first thing to capture one’s attention today, but the circuit and features boasted plenty of originality, too. Two channels, Standard and Custom, each with Volume, Treble, and Bass controls. In addition, each carried a trio of big, white “Rick-O-Select” switches with different colored indicator lamps for each of three voicing modes – Pierce, Mellow, and Hollow. The Custom channel had Reverb and Tremolo, and another clear nod to tonal fashions of the times – a Fuzz-Tortion circuit (we advise donning ear protection before engaging the Pierce and Fuzz-Tortion features together). The TS200 also had a stereo preamp so each channel could be split to a separate power amp for stereo “Rick-O-Sound” with the use of a second powered speaker cab.
- Solid State
- Output: 100 or 200 watts RMS
- Controls: Volume, Treble, Bass controls and Hollow, Mellow, and Pierce switches on each channel; Tremolo Speed and Depth, Reverb, and Fuzz-Tortion on Custom channel.
- Speakers: two 12″ Altec 417 (in the TS100)w
1971 Dumble Special 16
Original amps made by Howard “Alexander” Dumble breathe such rarified air as to be a thing entirely unto themselves, but when the circuit guru began plying his trade, a big part of the objective for any designer was volume, and he knew how to get it. Best known for his 100-watt Overdrive Special introduced in 1972, Dumble had been doing modifications and custom-builds since ’63, and this 200-watt beast from 1971 is just such a creation.
Dubbed the Special 16 (serial number 0001, and likely “one and only”), the design cobbles the transformers from four 50-watt Bassman amps, implying it must be a multi-output-stage bass amp of some sort. But as per our premise this issue, high-powered guitar amps were all the rage at the time. The front-end circuit resembling Fender’s 5F6A – a.k.a. late-’50s tweed Bassman, by then known as a top-tier guitar amp – indicates it was a stage-worthy creation for a six-stringer. Furthermore, the Special 16 carries individual Standby switches for each power stage, plus individual speaker outs, allowing power staging with multiple speaker cabs of 50, 100, 150 and 200 watts, as required.
This Special 16 was purchased “as-is” in the mid ’80s by Michael “Miko” Malinao, Sr.
“I had no idea who Howard Alexander Dumble was or that he had a shop in Santa Cruz, when I bought this amp,” Malinao says. “I had intentions of having [it] refurbished, considering it was a unique beast. Well, life happened… married with three kids and full-time job, gigging every week. That project went on hold and the Special 16 went into my garage for storage.”
Saving its story from the cold-cases file, VG reader Chris Croudace contacted us to say, “I think the amp was built for Moby Grape guitarist Jerry Miller. He played a tweed Bassman, and in the ’70s, Jerry or a mutual friend told me Dumble built an amp for Jerry that had four Bassman amps in it. I saw Jerry play with the amp live in 1976 or ’77.”
Mystery solved!
- Preamp tubes: three 12AX7
- Output tubes: eight 6L6GC (most likely)
- Rectifier: solid-state
- Controls: Volume 1, Volume 2, Treble, Middle, Bass, Accent; Bright and Deep switches
- Output: approximately 200 watts RMS
1975 Gallien-Krueger 200GT
Gallien-Krueger is known for its powerful, compact bass amps, but chief designer and co-founder Bob Gallien was a guitarist, and that’s where his creations first focused. Gallien earned an engineering degree at U.C. Berkley in 1966, and was working on his masters at Stanford in ’67 when he designed and built a 226-watt solid-state guitar amp for one of his classes. Thinking it had potential, he consigned it for sale at Draper Music, where an up-and-coming local Latin-blues guitarist named Carlos Santana purchased it the next day. Santana used Gallien’s amp on his first couple albums, and took it to Woodstock in ’69.
In a 2007 interview with Cliff Engle of the Institute of Bass, Gallien said he made 25 more amps in his basement while finishing his masters and working at Hewlett-Packard, selling them through music stores in the Bay Area.
“Initially, I was making guitar amps because I was a guitar player, but Jim Webb, the owner of Webb’s Music, needed a powerful bass amp to power the speaker cabinets he was building. It turned out that bass players liked my bass amps more than guitarists liked the guitar amps, so I saw a market, and that is how I started Gallien-Krueger. I continued making guitar amps until the 1990s.”
Long before the cessation of his efforts in the guitar-amp realm, though, and after Gallien’s Hewlett-Packard colleague Richard Krueger added his name to the company, this impressive 200GT exemplified the innovation for which G-K would become known. Its predecessor, the 200G, was the first production guitar amp with actual channel switching (Mesa/Boogie and Dumble amps of the time didn’t switch channels, but added an extra overdrive stage to the signal path), and it’s an impressively featured amp in many other ways – not to mention it’s whopping 200 watts of power.
- Solid-state preamp and output stage
- Power: 200 watts
- Controls: ChA: Volume, Treble, Middle, Bass, Bright switch, Reverb switch. ChB: Volume, Treble, Contour, Bass, Master Vol., (tremolo) Speed and Intensity; shared Reverb and Current Lim.
- Speakers: Four 12″ Eminence ceramic
- Output: approximately 200 watts RMS
1967 Magnatone Monster
Better-known Magnatone tube amps were manufactured in California by Magna Electronics in the mid/late ’50s, but by the early ’60s, Magna’s new owner, the Estey Organ Company (later Estey Electronics), aimed to go big on solid-state designs. The availability of a large corporate-owned facility in Harmony, Pennsylvania (about 30 miles north of Pittsburgh), provided the space for a new factory and a better-located distribution hub, so Estey moved Magnatone in 1966 and got down to building amps.
Around that time, the bassist in a local teen band called The Sequins saw a story about the factory and relayed it to his bandmates, who decided it might make a good opportunity to replace their Vox amps “that were routinely blowing up.”
“We called Estey and made an appointment to introduce ourselves and check out the new equipment they were going to be manufacturing,” recalled guitarist/organist and lead singer Drew Moniot. “The head of the company was Hank Milano… he invited us to visit the plant and play for the employees. They loved us and offered an endorsement deal.”
The band’s two guitarists went away with models called M35 The Killer, while the bassist acquired a matching M32 Big Henry – all with a bruising 300 watts of solid-state power. Yet, these were not the biggest Magnatones The Sequins would encounter.
In the early summer of ’67, the band got a call from Milano asking if they’d like to appear on a Magnatone-sponsored flatbed truck in the Fourth of July parade in nearby Zelienople.
“Hank said, ‘No need to bring your amps, we’ve got you covered,’” Moniot recalls. “When we arrived, they took us back to the flatbed and we stood in awe at the sight of this enormous amplifier – a fully functioning guitar and bass amplifier with 1,000 watts of power.”
In addition to that appearance, the Magnatone Monster (a.k.a. “Tiny Tim”) was taken to that summer’s NAMM show, but the few that were manufactured were later called back to the factory and destroyed, for reasons unknown; one escapee Monster speaker cabinet was acquired by Neil Young, who used it as a stage prop for several years.
And Moniot’s recollection of the experience? “We plugged in, set the levels – which were pretty deafening – and braced ourselves for one of the highlights of our young musical lives.”
This article originally appeared in VG’s February 2025 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
