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Vintage threads from the first ten years

Re: Sears Silvertone Twin Twelve

10/20/1999 4:19 PM
Mike	Re: Sears Silvertone Twin Twelve Yes, the reverb does suck. Is there anything wrong with upgrading the reverb? I'm sure I could make the mod reversable. I'd rather disable the tremelo, to have a nice reverb. Does this amp sound like any of the old Fender amps?

10/20/1999 5:10 PM
Psycho Bass Guy	Believe it or not, I have a Sivertone 1482. This is the sweetest little amp in the world for clean Strat sounds. The trem doesn't sound bad, but the trick is to have a microphonic tube in the trem circuit. The sympatheic vibration from the chassis gives it more depth and phase cancels out all of its honkiness. The Silvertone tubes are Sylvania rebrands. Sylvania's are generally more microphonic than other old US brands, and they give the amp a nice little edge. My amp uses 6V6's and I have run Sovtek, Marconi, as well as it's original Sylvania's and RCA's (JAN and non) in it, and can honestly say it sounded good with all of them, just a little different in each case. Did I mention the Jensen 12"? Great low wattage,very, very, sweet speaker. (9/10's of the amp's tone IMO) Feed it a Strat and with judicious use of the onboard trem, you get a close approximation of Jimi's clean tone. (Bet you never thought you'd hear me singing the praises of a low wattage amp!) Psycho (really, it's me!)

10/20/1999 5:10 PM

Psycho Bass Guy

Believe it or not, I have a Sivertone 1482. This is the sweetest little amp in the world for clean Strat sounds.

The trem doesn't sound bad, but the trick is to have a microphonic tube in the trem circuit. The sympatheic vibration from the chassis gives it more depth and phase cancels out all of its honkiness.

The Silvertone tubes are Sylvania rebrands. Sylvania's are generally more microphonic than other old US brands, and they give the amp a nice little edge.

My amp uses 6V6's and I have run Sovtek, Marconi, as well as it's original Sylvania's and RCA's (JAN and non) in it, and can honestly say it sounded good with all of them, just a little different in each case.

Did I mention the Jensen 12"? Great low wattage,very, very, sweet speaker. (9/10's of the amp's tone IMO)

Feed it a Strat and with judicious use of the onboard trem, you get a close approximation of Jimi's clean tone. (Bet you never thought you'd hear me singing the praises of a low wattage amp!)

Psycho (really, it's me!)

10/20/1999 7:40 PM
Doc	I probably had this same model amp a few years ago. It had a compartment at the rear base of the speaker cabinet to carry the amp head. It was silver-gray with that cheap paper suitcase/ cheap record player covering. Mine was in pristine shape, it only had one small corner blemish (it must have been kept in a living room closet) but somebody already had pilfered the brown Jensens before I got it. I think the two twelves substituted were CTS. They sounded OK, but not as sweet as I imagined the Jensens would have. I couldn't believe that the amp had as much bass as it did with an output transformer no more than twice the size of a Fender reverb driver. Most of the tubes were original. A friend just had to have it, so I sold it to him. I had contemplated replacing the miniature reverb tank with an Ampeg-style unit, since if I remember correctly the Silvertone circuit is R-C coupled, but I think push-pull 6CG7 which is a little unorthodox. That's the only "improvement" I was thinking of performing. I wasn't going to rework the entire amp. It's kind of a classic, made by Danelectro, right? I still have a small combo Silvertone of the same vintage. It's silver-gray with white grill cloth and vertical knob array, P-P 6V6s with a single 10" (or 12"?). You can see through the grill cloth (because of the clean vs. dirty areas) that the speaker is masked by a diamond shaped (actually 45 degree rotated square) cutout that covers 30% of the useful cone area. What's that all about? Well, I'm keeping this little baby. It doesn't take up much space and it sounds equally good for guitar or harp. I might, however, eventually rework the cabinet to a normal round speaker cutout. Anyway, as the others have voted, I wouldn't use that Silvertone 1482 as a platform for a home-brew amp. The cabinet's way too thin to support heavy transformers, and the speaker cabinet would vibrate if you raised the power input. Besides, yours has the cool Jensens. Get a new Dan-o guitar with three lipstick pickups, maybe do Psycho's recommended improvements, and pretend you're in the '60s. Lipsticks sound pretty good with slide. It's a pretty cool amp. Keep it in good shape. If you get tired of it, someone will be dying to buy it from you in a few years.

10/20/1999 7:40 PM

Doc

I probably had this same model amp a few years ago. It had a compartment at the rear base of the speaker cabinet to carry the amp head. It was silver-gray with that cheap paper suitcase/ cheap record player covering. Mine was in pristine shape, it only had one small corner blemish (it must have been kept in a living room closet) but somebody already had pilfered the brown Jensens before I got it. I think the two twelves substituted were CTS. They sounded OK, but not as sweet as I imagined the Jensens would have. I couldn't believe that the amp had as much bass as it did with an output transformer no more than twice the size of a Fender reverb driver. Most of the tubes were original. A friend just had to have it, so I sold it to him. I had contemplated replacing the miniature reverb tank with an Ampeg-style unit, since if I remember correctly the Silvertone circuit is R-C coupled, but I think push-pull 6CG7 which is a little unorthodox. That's the only "improvement" I was thinking of performing. I wasn't going to rework the entire amp. It's kind of a classic, made by Danelectro, right?

I still have a small combo Silvertone of the same vintage. It's silver-gray with white grill cloth and vertical knob array, P-P 6V6s with a single 10" (or 12"?). You can see through the grill cloth (because of the clean vs. dirty areas) that the speaker is masked by a diamond shaped (actually 45 degree rotated square) cutout that covers 30% of the useful cone area. What's that all about? Well, I'm keeping this little baby. It doesn't take up much space and it sounds equally good for guitar or harp. I might, however, eventually rework the cabinet to a normal round speaker cutout.

Anyway, as the others have voted, I wouldn't use that Silvertone 1482 as a platform for a home-brew amp. The cabinet's way too thin to support heavy transformers, and the speaker cabinet would vibrate if you raised the power input. Besides, yours has the cool Jensens. Get a new Dan-o guitar with three lipstick pickups, maybe do Psycho's recommended improvements, and pretend you're in the '60s. Lipsticks sound pretty good with slide. It's a pretty cool amp. Keep it in good shape. If you get tired of it, someone will be dying to buy it from you in a few years.

10/20/1999 9:43 PM
John Greene	I inherited one from my uncle last year. It's close to 'brand-new' condition except for the dust and some yellowing. I haven't even plugged it in yet. I have a '71 Super Reverb and a Hiwatt Custom 100 ahead of it in my things to service queue. I seemed to have developed the ability to pickup amps quicker than I can clean them up for use. Ran across the Hiwatt for $100, couldn't pass that up. The the super came along for $300, couldn't pass that up. The Silvertone was free, definitely couldn't pass that up. --johng

10/20/1999 9:43 PM

John Greene

I inherited one from my uncle last year. It's close to 'brand-new' condition except for the dust and some yellowing. I haven't even plugged it in yet. I have a '71 Super Reverb and a Hiwatt Custom 100 ahead of it in my things to service queue. I seemed to have developed the ability to pickup amps quicker than I can clean them up for use.

Ran across the Hiwatt for $100, couldn't pass that up. The the super came along for $300, couldn't pass that up. The Silvertone was free, definitely couldn't pass that up.

--johng

10/20/1999 10:08 PM
T.B. (Terry)	Hi John, Don't feel bad about getting those deals, the more the merrier. I've got a few lying around that need to be put back together all in due time. It's nice having a few amps to work on rather than just one. I have a bad enough problem as it is in tweaking an amp to death and not moving on. My attitude is changing on that now. I seem to be in the mood to do the best I can for the moment but not to be so darn picky. I've come to realize that no one amp is going to do it all. Take care, Terry

10/20/1999 10:08 PM

T.B. (Terry)

Hi John,

Don't feel bad about getting those deals, the more the merrier. I've got a few lying around that need to be put back together all in due time. It's nice having a few amps to work on rather than just one. I have a bad enough problem as it is in tweaking an amp to death and not moving on. My attitude is changing on that now. I seem to be in the mood to do the best I can for the moment but not to be so darn picky. I've come to realize that no one amp is going to do it all.

Take care, Terry

10/27/1999 6:06 PM
dave	Ha Ha, Great trick with the microphonic tube (creative recycling!)

10/27/1999 1:19 AM
Mike	Well, after having the amp for a week now, I must say I'm not crazy about it. I replaced the tubes, which helped, but it doesn't do anything for me. I still want to hook up the cabinet to my Reverberocket clone, but it's hardwired to the head. I figured I should see if the Jenson's are worth keeping. Just the same, anybody want to take it off my hands before I decide to rebuild it? Mike

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