Selmer Amp History | Zodiac Twin 50 | Amp of the Month! 

A world class amp/

@@briankehew579 A world class tech working on it!

That type of "magic eye" tube was typically used as a center-tuning indicator in high-quality radios and hifi tuners of the 1950's to early 60's; The 2 green lightbars would almost touch in the center when you were tuned exactly to the center of the station. Usually there would be a separate, slightly different magic eye that simply extended the lightstrip to the right as the signal strength was increased. These can be fairly expensive and difficult to find nowadays and I don't know if anybody is making new exact drop-in replacements, but at one time various magic eye tubes were even used as VU meters in portable reel to reel tape decks!

That makes so much sense to use them for the L&R of reel to reel tape decks!@@goodun2974

Page played on “Downtown?” Whoa! Classic..

The amplifier that Hilton Valentine (The Animals) used for the intro riff on House of the Rising Sun was this one's baby brother, the Selectortone - and he used a Gretsch Tennessean. They didn't get their deal with Vox until they made number one with the Selmer!!

Blue and Grey Selmers were used by the Beatles in the later 60s. There's a photo of Paul playing through a Treble N Bass model, but one of their crew told me they hired Selmer bass amps for some of their sessions when they rented the Lowrey organ at the same shop.

The Selmer sax, what beauty.

@@karltite128 She is. Bit needs serious rehab. Highschool and college weren't kind to her. Young n dumb....

Yes. If you play that opening to “House Of The Rising Sun” through this, it is the EXACT sound. It’s uncanny!

Addendum: Upon closer look it does appear that the output tubes are EL34's and the rectifier appears to be a GZ34....

Yup. That large grey transformer attached to the cab is the step-up transformer. Mine has a different looking one mounted differently. I’m not sure if Selmer attached them for export or if they were installed stateside by Selmer dealers.

@@sonotdown998 , I also forgot to ask: how loud is this monster? My guess is, LOUD! It, or the owner and his neighbors or bandmates, might benefit from the addition of a master volume. Normally I would say it should be kept as stock as possible but it looks like the preamp has already undergone some modifications. I wonder if schematics are available and if the amplifiers generally match the schematic.....

@@goodun2974 Haha. Your assumption is correct. I have not tortured any bandmates with it-luckily for them it weighs a ton and I don’t wanna have to carry it up and down the three flights of stairs to the practice space. I also live in an apartment complex and do not want to have to deal with complaints from my downstairs neighbors-or those in adjacent buildings. Perhaps more importantly, I do not want to invite any more criticism of my noodling than absolutely necessary. I’ve also never played out with it because, again, it weighs a ton and is most likely “too loud” for smaller venues. (Though an acquaintance has one that he plays an organ through live and it’s not overpowering in that use/setting.) I also don’t wanna spill beer on it. Truth be told, I’ve never had it up loud enough to noticeably break up much at all since I was demoing it in the store I got it at. The other amps I have are a Deluxe Reverb and a Silvertone Twin Twelve. They’re waaaaaaay more practical given my needs. I’ve never played through any of the standard “loud” amps like, say, a (Fender) Twin, so I don’t know how it compares. The Selmer spends the majority of its time as a bookshelf in the rolling Anvil case I had made for it. It is, though, one of the coolest amps ever made and I’ve wanted one since I was a teenager. Sometimes I feel kinda bad about it. Though I guess everyone should be allowed at least one indulgence. Re the master volume: I wouldn’t wanna go messing around and modifying it. I have thought of getting some sort of attenuator for home use. I just never got around to exploring that option. I have schematics around here somewhere that I found online. I kinda remember the most legible schematic I found being for the Thirty and it’s “basically the same” as the Fifty. It has been a long while since I’ve studied them.

@@sonotdown998 , thank you for your detailed comments. I invariably find myself intrigued by rare, unusual and oddball amplifiers. There's a RU-vidr-tech in Britain, Vintage Guitar Amp Repairs and Online Guitar Teaching, who's worked on a few Selmers and a whole bunch of WEM amplifiers lately (and he's a first-rate player as well so he really puts the amps through their paces). I'm a semi- retired audio tech in New England and we never see weird stuff like that here. It's also fun to watch Brad's Guitar Garage in Australia on RU-vid and watch him repair some of the unusual critters that come across his bench.

Replaced output transformer may be or trem?

Its a step down transformer that was put in sometime in the mid-nineties. The idea was to keep the original 60’s Partridge 220v transformer intact (bc thats an integral part of the great sound with these) then it gets stepped down to 120v. However, because there are two output transformers the amp is heavy as all hell. The sound is so amazing though, the weight is worth it.

I saw those in the background and thought the same thing. Solid state pre-amp with a tube power amp deserves a look inside i think.

@@christopherweise438 I had a 65watt Music Man in the 1970s. Used 6CA7 output tubes from what I remember. Wish I could find one in good shape and affordable.

It's fake, synthetic crocodile or alligator skin. American alligators and especially American crocodiles nearly went extinct in the mid 1900s and were put on the endangered species list for a while, but alligator populations have bounced back and they are now "farmed", so nowadays you could probably get real alligator skin to cover an amp cabinet in! I bet you can get python skin from Florida due to the intensive effort to hunt and eradicate invasive Burmese pythons. Back in the 80s, David Lindley (RIP) had a Dumble Steel String Singer that was covered in python skin, which he used to play high gain lap steel slide guitar through for songs like his own version of Mercury Blues, and of course Running On Empty with Jackson Browne.

Mine has Goodmans.

It occurs to me that at the time this amp was built, American crocodiles and alligators had been hunted almost to extinction (especially the Crocs) and their skins would have been rare/expensive or unavailable (at some point they became legally protected against hunting). Now, however, alligators are farmed legally, and if an amp manufacturer wanted to, they could buy real alligator skins to cover the cabinets with.