Description

You are purchasing a mid 1972 Sears and Roebuck tube amplifier model 5xl in excellent freshly serviced condition. Model number displayed on back is 257.14203200.The amp is all original including original branded silvertone tubes with original Dukane 8 ohm speaker measuring 7 ohms and original cone. Speaker is stamped with date code 767223, so 23rd week 1972. All pots and Transformer date codes agree to this. As well, so the amp hasn't been messed with at all. Current Internet wisdom says that these amps were made by Harmony, but nobody really knows for sure. Cabinet tolex condition is excellent. I just recently replaced all the filter caps, I left the original multi-lead cap in for visual appearance. Pots and Jacks cleaned and lubed with Deoxit. Also including a schematic reprint. These little amplifiers are pure tone, I would say the best tonality is achieved by running the amplifier wide open and controlling the volume from your guitar to give you just the right amount of crunch and touch sensitivity that these amps are known for. These amplifiers based on the way that they are designed inherently have some amount of 60 cycle hum that you simply can't get rid of, however running the volume wide open on the amplifier seems to reduce this, but if you're looking for an amplifier that is devoid of all line hum, these amps aren't for you. I have included some sound clips made with a Telecaster so that you can hear some of the range that this little amplifier is capable of. The volume and tone on the amplifier are set to full and the volume on the guitar is adjusted to somewhere between 1/2 to 3/4 volume in the various sound clips. None of the clips are with the guitar volume wide open as I would hate to damage the original speaker, but if you really want to play in that mode, many people have upgraded these with a higher performance speaker, but I'll leave that up to you. FYI, I have taken a black Sharpie and marked one of the lugs on the AC power cord with a small "H". When plugging in the amplifier I would position this as the small narrow lug went plugging it into an AC outlet, this seems to facilitate the least amount of grounding Buzz. The amplifier will be shipped double boxed for safe transport.