Guitar Gear Forum

Worked out a nice easy trade plus cash for a couple of nice gears!

The amp is a 1965/6 Gretsch 6161 and sounds very nice so far. Only got to turn it up a little because of where we met. But all indications are good and is all original to boot.

And the Echoplex… it has basic function but does need some attention. It’s missing the copper and felt tension spring and is in serious need of cleaning. But it’s alive and well worth the long 3+ hour each way trip to snag both of these up.

Would still like to find the other model plexes and a TTE but this will tide me over for now


(My phone makes images too large to upload here so this link will have to do for now)
https://flic.kr/p/2oLyKwi

Hot damn is right!!!!!

Very cool man. What's the deal with those old Gretsch amps? Where do they fall tonally?

Damn!! Congrats !!

Beef wrote:Very cool man. What's the deal with those old Gretsch amps? Where do they fall tonally?

Tbh I’m not too sure yet. The amp was supposed to be fine and the plex have problems. But once I got ‘em home for a deeper inspection it turns out that the plex is fine (needed the spring and a wire was being hit by the cooling fan causing lotsa noise) and the Gretsch is the one with problems. But based on what I’ve heard from it so far I’d say it has the basic characteristics of an EL84 amp (has 6973s) but maybe a prettier clean sound.

When I first got it home the output was super low. Cleaned the pots and got what I think was full output for a few minutes and then it started crackling like a motherfucker, so it needs some attention. But for those few minutes the clean sound was very nice with a somewhat tight, not huge, very toneful bottom end and very nice somewhat bright top when played clean. The break up sound was a good type garage/zep like sound.