Red Bear Mk60

[xtian]

Here's a photo of the cap cans with the doghouse cover removed.

And another photo showing some nice construction details in the head cab. Funny that they made the effort to put in angle iron, nice foil with straps, etc, but the side walls are made from 1/8" ply!

[sonicmojo]

As I remember with this amp, the footswitch was tied right into the preamp board and a real problem as the signal went all the way to it and back. If you plan to enhance the amp, I suggest you put a switching relay in there.

[xtian]

True about the foot switch, and you can see it in my photo, above. But the did a great job with shielded wire, nice lead dress, and it's nice and quiet.

[Structo]

Looks like a well built amp, nice and simple as it should be.

Does it sound like a Marshall?

[xtian]

Tom, I only got to play it a little before I started blowing fuses in the small 120-to-240v transformer that came with it. One of the preamp tubes was bad, and coming in and out. But I did get a good impression. The tone stack is very active, and worries about the Bass being too big is unfounded. Yes, there's LOTS of bass on tap, but the Bass control is good and easy to roll it out. Starts clean and punchy, gets pretty well wound up on the Hi sens input, though not as much gain as my JCM 800 2203 (though this could be the weak tubes' fault).

The wiring and lead dress is so nice, I don't want to rewire the preamp sockets for 12ax7, so I'm just going to be patient while new 6n2p tubes ship from Russia, and a new transformer from Parts Express.

[sonicmojo]

There are lots of bass available on these for sure, great for closed cabs in that direction. But as stated, you can turn the knobs down if you want. You just don't want to go full bore on mid AND bass or you may be in need of some new speakers quickly.

For the brief time I had mine last year, it was definitely in the Marshall camp, up to searing EVH type leads. I found it for $250 thinking I'd use the cabinet for a 2550 I built and save some parts for later. But then a guy posted on Craigslist trying to find one and I passed it along for the same price. The cab was a little big for my 2550 anyway and it was a nice operable amp so why destroy it......

[xtian]

Nice tube story: I ordered eight 6n2p pre-amp tubes from Ukraine, via eBay, and they arrived in 10 days.