Watkins Joker
Click for larger images
Original catalog pages: onetwo
Zodiac
30 Watt
Zodiac
50 Watt
Selmer
Zodiac The giant of Selmer's range
in the early 60's, "with built-in tremelo
AND reverb", and serious competition for
the Vox AC30 which, at a similar price, didn't
have the reverb feature of course. Output was
30 watts using EF86 (2), ECC83 (3), ECC81 (1),
KT88 (2) & GZ34 into a pair of heavy-duty
12" speakers (probably Goodmans Audiom 70's).
Size 29" x 20" x 10", control panel
inset into the top and identical to the Selector-Tone
Automatic but an extra rotary knob for reverb
intensity replacing the pilot light. It had castors,
so it's a heavy beast at 67lbs. A centrally-positioned
gold Selmer script logo was fitted to the speaker
grill initially, but later blue-grey models had
a smaller grey plastic logo fixed in the top corner
of the speaker cloth. Price charged was 105 gns,
including footswitch and plastic cover.
Read up on the History
of Selmer
Selmer Treble-N-Bass
Fifty
Selmer Bassmaster Fifty
Some people regard these amps as the same as the
Vintage Marshall JTM45, but really they are their
own sound. Some say vox but to me each
of these amps have their own sound - a great
sound. They have been a favorite of many bands
and myself .
Selmer
Twin Selectortone (30 watt) he giant of Selmer's
range in the early 60's, "with built-in tremelo
AND reverb", and serious competition for
the Vox AC30 which, at a similar price, didn't
have the reverb feature of course. Output was
30 watts using EF86 (2), ECC83 (3), ECC81 (1),
KT88 (2) & GZ34 into a pair of heavy-duty
12" speakers (probably Goodmans Audiom 70's).
Size 29" x 20" x 10", control panel
inset into the top and identical to the Selector-Tone
Automatic but an extra rotary knob for reverb
intensity replacing the pilot light. It had castors,
so it's a heavy beast at 67lbs. A centrally-positioned
gold Selmer script logo was fitted to the speaker
grill initially, but later blue-grey models had
a smaller grey plastic logo fixed in the top corner
of the speaker cloth. Price charged was 105 gns,
including footswitch and plastic cover.
Read up on the History
of Selmer
Watkins Dominator
(click for more images)
Watkins Westminster
Watkins Copicat
Tape Delay
(Click for more)
Watkins
The Watkins amps are very rare amps. Mostly the
Watkins Vfront Dominator. They are dated as early
the 50s. They are great sounding amps. Very much
like a small Marshall, unlike the Selmers that
sound closer to Vox amps.
The Dominator is really a 17 watt watt amp that
Marshall copied when they came out with the 18
Marshall. It is powered by two EL84 power valves
and three ECC83 pre amp valves (tubes) and a EZ80
or EZ81 valve rectifier. They orginally came with
two Elac speakers. The Dominator I have is fitted
with two 10 inch Celestion speakers. The 18 Watt
Marshall is very rare and very much in demand.
It goes for as much as $2000.00 on eBay when you
can find them. The Watkins Dominator you never
see.
I was lucky I got this one from Mitch Colby,Senior
Vice President of Product Development and Support
for KORG USA. I met him through another friend
who works for Mitch. His name is Ryan Rhodes.Ryan
is Jim Marshall's right hand man in the States.
These are great studio amps and have great tone.
These too were the amps the Beatles and most other
bands use back before Vox and Marshall were around.
In the new "Beatles Gear" Book can can
see these amps, The westminister.
Selmer
Stadium We used the Selmer Stadium
for the first time this week on a session with
a Tube u47 so creamy so full and rich sounding
(not like Korn or any thing like that).These are
some of my Fav. British amps. They have a very
close sound to Vox and early marshalls This was
George Harrison's first guitar amp that he used
in Hamburg Germany.Click image for larger pics.
