FAL Phase Forty late 60s - Black basket weave Tolex

FAL (Futuristic Aids Limited) amplifiers, were an amplifier manufacturer in the 1960s and 1970s.

This is an early 60s amp, which is not listed or catalogued anywhere else, and is of solid construction (unlike their later 70s). The main devices are solid state, and the amplifier stages, drivers and power transistors are germanium. That makes this one big germanium dream.

It was given to me by Andrew Mills at Curvy Sounds in Heaton, Newcastle upon Tyne, who in turn got it from a some time partner of one of Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich.

Very few modifications have been made to this amp, one of which was converting the outputs to standard 1/4" jacks.

It's in a beautiful condition for its age, it has some marks, dings and stains, which is to be expected of a working amp, but you can see that the basket weave Tolex is in good shape, as are the faceplate and metalwork.

One of its peculiarities is that it has and output transformer, even though it is solid state, so it is quite heavy.

Both channels work fine. The tremolo only works on Channel 1, and only if a footswitch is engaged, and only if you spend a bit of time tuning it. This is probably because the transistors in the oscillator circuit are either weak, or the circuit was designed that way. It didn't seem worth finding out at the time.

This is a really interesting piece of amp history, and deserves a good home.

Watch the video for much more detail, discussion and audio examples.