As the rest of us Im a surf guitar player. Im 28 and been surfing for 10 years. my rig over the years has changed quite a bit....when I was first started buying gear and in my first band I had a crate full stack (you guys were young too) My dad has a brown concert (that I thought was stupid when i was little...again you were young too) when I stared surfing I used the crate head and a 412, and the concert at the same time. I got a preimer 90 reverb unit and put that in front of the concert and played the crate dirty and ran them both at the same time. I did that for the first year in my surf band (that Im still in) after buying selling and trading I ended up with a refined 1955 ES 175 that I never played and traded that to brian pool (torpedoes guitar player) for my first fender reverb unit (1965) and an G&L ASAT. Brian ended up trading the 175 for a car later in life. My first fender amp that I owned is a fender hot rod deville 212, I dug it and ended up with a second one. That was my rig for the next 6 years or so, two 212 devilles running at the same time, one clean with the unit in front of it and the other dirty with no verb and a voulume pedal in front of it so I could change the gain (amount of signal i sent to it). My main axe all this time was a cort triggs 1 hollowbody loaded with rio grande tallboy in the bridge and muy grande in the neck. I allways buy guitars and amps and spent alot of time trying to change my rig to a more traditonal surf tone.
I have a jazzmaster and love it but live I hate it. It hates gain and I LOVE to be loud. Last year I picked up a univox hi flyer phase II (mosrite copy) and fell in love with the pickups, killer surf tone that likes gain. the sad part was the guitar is a kind of a piece of junk, i put klusons on it and spent about 20 hours trying to make it stage worthy but no dice. I started freaking out about mosrites and spent about 6 months looking for one and ended up getting a good deal on a 65 ventures mosrite. I love it! its now my new #1 guitar. I would like to change my amp rig but am not sure what to do...

here is my queston
I have two devilles 212
two super reverbs (68 and a 79...I like the 79 better)
A dual showman reverb
Hiwatt dr103 (71)
Vibro champ
50's harmony tube amp
blues Jr
little fender blackface 212 cab
Marshall JCM 800 212 combo (80's)
two 1965 reverb units
and lots more guitars and odds and ends...I work at a used guitar store...enough said.

I want lots of volume and clean head room
I have yet to play a twin i dont hate

I think I want a blackface showman...I just burrowed a buddys and played through it, I think it needs some tubes but not as loud as i would like. I noticed that the blond ones are a diffrent circut, and also cost a million dollars i think, i saw the gomez thing but two grand! come on

dose anyone out there have a blond one? how dose it compair to the black? is there a diffrence between the black showman and the black dual shoman. is it that much better? any blonds for sale? Dick Dale uses two blonds they are loud, we opend for him twice....stupid loud!
I think the dual showman reverb is the same as a twin and thats probably why I dont like it so much. I did play a super 6 once and Loved it and I think thats the same as a twin. Brian pool has a dual professional and i dig that....f*&)ing loud!
I think the super reverbs are too quiet but sound great. at higher volumes break up (in a cool way) but not when you dont want break up. i wish they had more head room.
I should learn to play at lower volumes....

Looking for a rig and some answers
Thanks for reading this long thing and your info would be wonderful.
Thanks
Scot

Give me reverb or give me death!
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Blonde circuit is 6G14 (6L6) or 6G14-A (5881) output section at 100W (1960-1963). Blonde cabs continued in 1964 with a blackface transition. The later Blackface chassis contained circuit AB763 similar to the Twin without reverb at 85W. The Dual Showman has a different output transformer and a .100uF cap instead of the .047uF cap in the Showman. It was designed to run 2 speakers, although I don't know the ohmage that it was designated to run.
I run standard Blackface Showman's through 2 X 15 cabs, but my 15's are each 8 ohms wired in series to give me an 4 ohm load. That's perfect for the standard Showman output.

Side by side, I couldn't tell you the difference as I have never really listened to a 60-63 Showman.

I believe Dick Dale's Showman's have been modified. I had read that the transformers were designed for 180W outputs. I don't know how true this is however and what difference it really makes.

If a BF Twin or Showman doesn't cut it for you, then it sounds like you'd probably prefer the mid-late 70s Fenders with all their extra power filtering and huge ultra linear output transformers.

Some of those late 60s 100+ watt Sunn heads are nice to work with. I fixed one of those up for a bass player I know and thought it would make a great surf amp.

If you can afford it, a Standel would be a nice combo amp. Ultra clean and plenty of high end cut, which is probably what you're really looking for.

Consider grabbing a second 2-12 Fender cab, toss a cooling fan in the back of your Dual Showman Reverb head and go with 100 watts and 4-12's. If kept cool, that head will do a 2 ohm load. I wouldn't subject it to a bass guitar at that output load, but lead guitar would be a piece of cake. You could re-wire them to 16 ohms each and let the Showman head "see" an 8 ohm total load. That would work well also. I really dig those small 2-12 cabinets..........ed

Traditional........speak softly and play through a big blonde amp. Did I mention that I still like big blonde amps?

scotstandard
I should learn to play at lower volumes....

That's probably your best bet.
If not, go for a blonde (brown, brownface, whatever you wanna call it!) Showman. They're the "holy grail" of loud surf amps (if you got a million bucks to spend)

Tubes can make a big difference at achieving clean headroom. Get power tubes with a high hardness rating (7 to 10). Long plate pre amp 12ax7's are extra bassy. And if you only use the vibrato channel, you can remove the V1 pre amp tube and get a little extra headroom.

Also, the other big thing are speakers. High watt rated ceramic magnet speakers will break up later.

You should be able to get your Dual Showman set up to be all you need, unless you usually play Civic Centers.....!!!!!!!

Hey thanks Eddie. I order from McMaster all the time. Sounds great. I'm going to get working on it. Thanks for your valuable description!