Vintage 1960 Gibson GA-80 Vari-Tone Amp - Tweed - Very Rare

Here's a very cool Gibson GA-80 Vari-Tone tube amp from early 1960. Many parts are date-coded 1959.

This model was only made in 1959-1961 with only a few hundred made. A lightweight single 15" combo with 15-20 watt output makes a perfect amp for a lot of musical situations.

The Vari-Tone feature refers to the 6 preset buttons, which offer a wide variety of tones. The first button selects the regular tone control to its left for a more conventional control. However, even that tone control is more of a parametric eq control rather than a simple treble roll-off. Very cool.

There are two channels with 2 inputs each. The second channel has a tremolo with speed and depth controls.

That said, how does it sound? Amazing. You can get the "clean yet dirty" tweed Bassman thing, but also glassy clean and a bunch of stuff in between. This is a really fun amp to play.

The Jensen P15N is in nice condition and sounds great.

The original wooden footswitch selects the tremolo on/off.

This amp has been recapped and a 3 prong grounded cable is installed. The logo is a reproduction.

The brass corner protectors are held in place with small flathead screws and are likely from the same era as the amp. Easy to remove, but I think they look cool and tell a story of an amp that is 66 years old.

If you are looking for a cool and unique vintage tweed amp, this is a great choice. Thanks for looking!

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