This little booger screams! Naturally, as a single-ended 6V6 amp with a single 12AX7 preamp, the comparisons to a Fender Champ are tempting ones to make, but it would be unfair to this amp, because this beats the pants off a Champ from this same era, hands down. First of all, the speaker is a 10" as opposed to the Champ's 8", and the surface area of the speaker baffle is about 2.5 times the size of a SF Champ, giving a much better bass response and a more 'open' feel, less choked off.
The tone is very clear with excellent midrange and a bass response that, again, belies the size of the speaker. It's easy to get good breakup even with weaker pickups, yet it will stay clean even cranked with just a slight change of pick attack. It's all right there at your fingertips! In other words, it does precisely what you should expect a good, vintage tube amp to do - be a direct conduit for your guitar's pickups through a good speaker.
The speaker is the original, magnificent-sounding, Alamo-labeled CTS ceramic square back, date coded 1973. Everything else appears to be original as well except the knobs, which are replacements of a similar type. Tubes are one RCA 5Y3, an Electro-Harmonix 6V6, and an RCA 12ax7.
Cosmetically, it's excellent. There are a couple tiny tolex tears around the bottom, but other than that, it's very clean.
Alamo amps were built in San Antonio, TX, USA! They began producing amps in 1949 and did so up until 1982. All their amps up until about 1973 were all tube. Alamo amps are often overlooked, as are so many of these old makers who simply went out of business so long ago that an entire generation of players have grown up in a world without them. But even in their day, Alamo wasn't exactly a household name, and for this reason, they rarely get the respect they deserve. I have owned several Alamo amp models over the years and can say with some confidence that just about all of their tube amps have good tone, and some have exceptional tone I can easily put in the "sleeper" category. This is one of them. Another great amp no one talks about or seems to know exists. It's a shame, but it also means a vintage bargain.