Posted 13 years ago
Doc_Monty
(2 items)
I have owned this amp for years, and continue to play it daily. It has a warm clean sound. Great for jazz and blues. Very little info is available for these amps, however, I was able to find this bit of history about the company.
Sound amps were made in Mineola Long Island NY (1960's) by a John Dougherty, a former AMpeg employee, who later went on to run Marlboro amps, made by MICA (Musical Instrument Corporation of America), in Syosett. They were the original Peavey of their day, making transistor amps from single 6" practce amps, up to 2 X 12 combos. They used transformer driven transistor amps, which actually sounded tolerable.
The Sound amps were pretty well made, sometimes had no NFB, and used similar circuits to AMpeg and Oliver stuff (the DNA didn't fall far from their tree). Using 6EU7's and 7591s, 7868's and so forth.
John also invented and patented the Quadra-Sound Blender, an outboard effect, which combined tremelo, vibrato and reverb, to produce a couple of unique surf-like effects.
Hi Doc.........
Let's trade info and pictures if possible.......I have one of these same amps I purchased on Ebay some time ago. It works well, but I feel as though it could be a bit better. I have been in relentless pursuit of any schematics, chassis photos, and info regarding the stock values of this circuit.
Any info and help you would be willing to share would be GREATLY appreciated. Your amp looks to be in great shape........well kept over the years!
Thanks.........
Hi Darrell,
I took several (aprox 10) Hi Res pic's for you. No schematic inside : (
If you could post an email address I will send them to you direct.
Doc
I have the same amp. My dad got it from a classified ad, pretty cheap i think too.
I play it alot it sounds good, but like you i cant ever find any info on them.
I just got one of these - mine doesn't have the "Sound" nameplate on the grill but is in great shape. It's a really cool amp. I too am looking for a schematic. I found a schematic for a Sound X505r which was apparently a head and it looks similar/identical.. It's hand drawn and lack some details that would be good to know like capacitor values, and test point voltages.
I have one of these as well. The one I have is a X-305R but the faceplace is a bit different. I picked it up for $15 at a garage sale and it needs a good going through.
I am thinking of paying for some bench time to see what a tech thinks I should do to make it reliable (not so now).
I picked it at the garage sale cause I suspected a jensen 15 speaker and thats what it has. I want to either gut it and put a blackface Deluxe or Princeton into it or make it reliable and use it as is. Cant decied
Any tube amp will only go up in value, so my opinion would be to restore it. The tubes are still available as are the caps. I have rebuilt mine and still play it every day. If you had to purchase a tube amp of this type today you could end up spending a lot of money. Vintage equipment made in USA is in big demand. I have a Fender Champ amp I purchased in 1971, paid $99. It's in mint condition and I've been offered $500 for it. Check out the articel in Premier Guitar Magazine (Sept 2011) for some info on this amp.
SirBerg . . . I would discourage you from gutting yours in favor of installing a fender circuit. I've done some initial work on mine (new filter caps, tuning and adjustment) and it's up and running very nicely. The performance of the stock circuit compares very nicely to my 72 Fender Pro Reverb. I do my own work on amps so it's a no brainer for me - but I would say it's worth everything you pay a tech to recap and tune up your amp.
here's some more pictures of mine if anyone would like to see: [url]http://s1128.photobucket.com/albums/m496/braddgr/Sound%20X305R/[/url].
FYI to anyone who needs it - I found a schematic for a Sound X-505r and posted it to the photo bucket album in the link above. Sorry for the HTML tags that didn't work in that post - you'll have to copy/paste. The X505r seems to be a head version of the X305r. I compared the schematic to my amp and it seems close, though as with all amps of this vintage there are changes. Also this schematic is hand drawn and lacks component values and voltage test points, so we're all on our own there.
i just picked up this amp yesterday. I have no clue what that jacks on back are for..anyone know?ive read mention of it being for a footswitch.
I'll look at mine and see if I labeled them. I don't remember ever using them. At first I thought is was for the reverbe, but then I remember those jacks being on the bottom side of the head unit.
the jacks on the back panel are for footswitch control of the reverb and tremolo. I don't recall which is which, and I'm not home to check. Based on the circuit they use a simple on/off switch.
So glad to see this. I have a Reverb A Sound X505R amp I garbage picked about 25 years ago. It works fine. I've been trying to find any information on this amp for a long time. Mine is two twelve inch speakers. Thanks guys.
BTW I'm from Long Island. There were a few amp companies here back in the day. Jess Oliver checked the amp out when I got it. He passed away recently.
Hey there! I just recently found this site due to looking for information on a recently acquired Sound X505R 2x12 amplifier. It has been sitting in a house here on Long Island or quite some time without being turned on or looked after. I took it home and disassembled the amplifier chassis from the box, removed all the hardware and disassembled the cabinet to give it a nice cleaning. I was really surprised at the quality of the cabinet build as many mid 60's amplifiers I have seen have used shoddy materials.
Before I disassembled the amplifier for a wipe down I crossed my fingers and turned on the amplifier and immediately I heard a nice warm, and very quite hum. I plugged in my guitar and what a ripper! The only feature that isn't working is the Reverb, which I cannot seem to trace just yet. When I move the pot I get a bit of a signal boost and then some distortion, and when I bring the pot back to either extreme on the turn it stops this and the amp settles down to normal. It does this both when the reverb pan is connected and disconnected.
The power tubes are RCA 7868's and all of the 12AX7's and one 12AT7 are Mullards. The speakers are nice Jensen with the dated from '65 which are ascetically very clean, however I am noticing a slight buzzing from one of them which I'm hoping is something I can fix.
I can say I am very pleased so far and cannot wait to do some rehearsals with this little guy to see what it's capable of.
More to come!
Hey guys, I have a Sound model 600. It runs on 7868 power tubes, and has two 10" Jensen speakers. I love the amp, but I need more info about it, I hope someone will help me out. Thank you for your valuable time.
What did the x505r go for back in the day?
Wow, that was pretty expensive for then. Mine has the Jensen. Still back in 65 that was probably over a thousand now. Thanks
i have a sound model x-101R i had to replace the input jack, put the amp away for a while because i lost time and now hooked it all up, cannot get sound out, does anybody have a schematic for this, or if they have an amp possibly to take apart, and get me good pictures of the circuitboard and all the wires going to the jacks, and output jacks etc. thank you, my email is andyyerks@gmail.com
Hello, just joined. I have a Sound 505R amp and I really like it! It was floundering in our church basement for the last 6-7 years and nobody knew what it was. I asked for it, took it home and nothing worked, including the speakers.
After a few trips to DBM Repairs (Crossfiresound) in Brooklyn, they did a complete overhaul, replaced the speakers with Jensen MODs, and it sounds sweet!
Very much like an old Ampeg; gee, I wonder how that came to be!
I’d like to post pictures here, but I don’t see where I can . . .