Kalamazoo Model Rebuild and Mods
Hi there!
I was lucky enough to get my hands in a 1966 Kalamazoo Model II this weekend.
It's currently with a local (Toronto) expert who will give it the full once -over (3-prong plug, death cap removal if present, the caps etc) and he will also add a line out so I an use it at jams and plug into the PA.
He comes very highly recommended and he knows his stuff. But he's never worked on one of these. A local harp player sent him pics of his own model 1 with the same mods for reference (and it had been rebuilt by Greg Heuman himself!) so he has that as a reference. Plus, I also sent him this link I found :
http://www.rru.com/~meo/Guitar/Amps/Kalamazoo/Mods/
I was wondering, Skip ( or Greg?) if you had any recommendations that I could pass along to him about working on my new 60 year old amp?
Thanks!
Eric
Hey Skip,Thx for your note.I picked up the Amp yesterday with new capacitors, but the Tubes and speaker were good, so he left them as-is.I played it at at home and it sounds awesome! I will play it this way for a while to see how it goes before I make any other mods. Thanks,Eric
Hello Eric- Thanks for writing. Well, those amps have been a harp favorite for years. Why? Because they sound pretty lousy for guitar due to low gain and a fairly dark tone- perfect for harp! I say all they need are new electrolytic caps and a better speaker. If you feel like a mod of some sort, I would suggest a beefier output transformer.
530-771-7345
www.skipsimmonsamps.com