Grouse Guitars, your favourite vintage guitar dealer
Grouse Guitars - previously your vintage guitar, bass and amp dealer (now closed). Click the 'back' plectrum to go back to the previous page, or click the "Grouse Guitars" nameplate above to go directly to the Grouse Guitars homepage.

Most of you will know I am a big fan of Fi-Sonic amps, hand made by Phil Dreoni in Marrickville, Sydney, in the 1960s. I've never before seen a vintage Fi-Sonic like this one, however. It's a big, solid 2x12 combo, putting out probably 70 watts or so from its big (KT88?) output valves. The previous owner informed me that it was built in 1964, and that the amp used elements of both Fender® and Vox® in its circuit.

I have had the amp serviced at my tech of choice in Melbourne, where the non-functioning tremolo was fixed and some general service and tidy-up work performed. The amp came to us with mismatched speakers, so a healthy pair of Celestion G12T-80 speakers were fitted, which suit the power and output characteristics of this vintage valve amp really well.

This Fi-Sonic ROCKS! A very gutsy amp with bucketloads of tone. The tremolo is also great. Tone controls and tremolo circuits are very Fender®-influenced, according to the tech, and this shows through in the amp's characteristics. It's almost like a big Aussie Twin®, but without the Reverb and a slightly darker tone (definite Marshall® hints to the tone - maybe the Celestions?)

The amp won't win any beauty contests, having some cigarette burns and drink stains to the top of the black 'carpet' covering (rock and roll!), but it is a very rare, point-to-point wired, vintage Aussie tone monster, just back from a leading Melbourne amp tech! Extremely giggable, and with loads of stage cred.

Note that at the time of photography, the original back panel was removed for clarity. This has now been re-fitted.

It's no lightweight, weighing in at 31kg. Dimensions are 75cm(W) x 60cm(H) x 23cm(D). Shipped dimensions and weight will be slightly higher.

Sold to Paul


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