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This amp is currently on hold for a pending sale, but the Swanson cabinet is still available at a special price.

Want tone? Here's an amazing combination of a rare and mint example of one of the best sounding, most versatile, and most full-featured 30 watt Class A tube amps ever produced, matched with an ideal custom made 2 x 12 speaker cabinet. This is the spectacular UK Gibson "Super Goldtone" 30 watt head, and a matching Jeff Swanson built 2 x 12 cabinet, that can be used as either closed or semi-open back, loaded with a tasty combination of Weber VST speakers.

In the late 1990's, Britain's Trace Elliot's Custom Shop operation turned out some of the most innovative and best made amps in the world. Gibson took over the operation, and for a couple of glorious years, the "Super Goldtone" line was built in the UK by the brilliant team in the Trace Elliot Custom Shop. Unfortunately, Gibson then tried to bring production of these designs stateside, the quality collapsed, and the short-lived run of British Super Goldtone amps now have achieved a cult-like following among those who know about their many virtues. I love them all, but the model that I think has the very best feature set and overall player usefulness is this 30 watt head, the GA-30RVH model.

The amp features two channels, clean and ovedriven, each with a footswitchable boost circuit. The rare optional 5 button footswitch, which is included to the buyer, also allows you to bridge the two channels, for an even fatter and more overdriven tone, much like having a third channel. The circuit is all tube, Class A, using stock EL84 output tubes (but the amp can also accept a variety of other tubes with appropriate bias adjustments). The amp has an onboard real tube driven Accutronics spring reverb pan. The back panel is as full featured as the front, with an effects loop with selectable series or parallel connections, line level output, and send and return level controls for the loop. There are connections for 4, 8, and 16 ohm speaker loads. Basic functions can be controlled with a generic 2 button footswitch, but I am including the hard-to-find full featured 5 button foot controller, which adds the "third channel" effect of combining both channels, and which also allows control of the fx loop, boost and reverb functions. These rare switches often sell for as much as $400 on eBay. This amp is dead mint. I recently had it inspected and serviced at British Audio Service, the only authorized service center for Super Goldtone amplifiers in the USA. The amp comes with the original Gibson owner's manual (extremely informative and unusually well-written), and an original glossy Gibson sales brochure about the Super Goldtone amps.

Features aside, what I love about this amp is the fact that it does both clean and overdrive so well. Most amps will excel at one or the other (if you are lucky), but not both. With this amp, you can get a very pleasing blackface Fender style clean with reverb, or a very nice Marshall-esque overdrive. With the boost up and both channels cranked, you'll get a very fine hard rock distortion too. The control set really lets you shape and refine the sound, both in live or studio settings. The amp gets good and loud as needed, but the 30 watts also is not so overpowering that you can't get great tone for practice and recording. It is hard to find one amp that can do so much, and do it so well. And these hand-made gems are over-built for extreme reliability. Easy on the eyes too, with the Les Paul style knobs, big Gibson logo, and the classic vintage styling that recalls great Gibson amps of the post-war era.

The speaker cabinet was designed specifically with this amp in mind, and they are truly the perfect pair. Cabinet builder Jeff Swanson is an artist, making the most solid and best sounding early Marshall styled cabinets around. Look him up on the web (and contact me if for some reason you can't find him on Google). This is one of his "Bluesbreaker" 2 x 12 cabinets, which features a nice green Marshall levant that compliments the look of the Super Goldtone head. The back panel is segmented in two pieces, so you can remove the upper panel whenever you want to hear the cab with the different sonic properties of a semi-open back style. The cabinet is loaded with a killer combination of speakers: the Weber VST Blue Dog and Silver Bell models. These speakers combine to reproduce shimmering clean or milkshake thick overdrive with equal perfection. The speakers together carry a 16 ohm load, which means the cabinet taps all the windings in the transformer on the Goldtone for the richest possible tone. The Swanson cabinet is also in like new condition, with the exception of one lost cabinet screw and cup washer on one of the back panels, which can easily be replaced for about one dollar (and I'll be glad to give you references for a supplier, if you care).

This amp is currently on hold for a pending sale, but the Swanson cabinet is still available at a special price! Contact me if interested, and thank you!

PLEASE REMEMBER: This guitar is ready to ship NOW!