Just pulled the trigger on a Danelectro DM25!

[gerraguitar]

Wicked excited right now, I should have it by next week. I remember talking to a teacher of mine once and he mentioned that out of all the amps he's played this one stood out as one of his favorites. Anyone have any info or things to look out for/be weary of with them. I know a little bit about them, they're along the same lines as the old silvertones, really clean, piggyback style. Anything you can share would be much appreciated!

 

[nmiller]

I had one briefly. To my surprise, it didn't sound much like any other Dano amp I've played. It was brighter, almost Vox-like, with a good amount of overdrive. It was also much louder than I expected.

 

[HawkeyeKane]

Nice! Only real word of caution I have is to keep an eye on that reverb tank. Those Dano verbs are notorious for being finicky. The tanks themselves have replacements available I believe, but the driving circuitry is oddball to say the least. I helped try to fix one on a DS100 a few years ago. Never got the thing running.

 

[HawkeyeKane]

I had one briefly. To my surprise, it didn't sound much like any other Dano amp I've played. It was brighter, almost Vox-like, with a good amount of overdrive. It was also much louder than I expected.

Could that be because its an EL84 amp rather than 6V6 or 6L6? I'm more familiar with the Silvertone amps than the Danos, but I don't recall ever seeing an EL84 Silvertone before.

 

[gerraguitar]

Nice! Only real word of caution I have is to keep an eye on that reverb tank. Those Dano verbs are notorious for being finicky. The tanks themselves have replacements available I believe, but the driving circuitry is oddball to say the least. I helped try to fix one on a DS100 a few years ago. Never got the thing running.

Yeah I was told by the guy who I bring my amps to that the tanks are somewhat the only one of it's kind. He said that he did a job for someone where they put a fender style tank in it and the owner said that it didn't make enough of a difference to justify doing it, so I'll just use a pedal for any reverb needs.

How's the thing take pedals? I'm looking forward to having another vintage amp, and I do intend on using it.

 

[nmiller]

Could that be because its an EL84 amp rather than 6V6 or 6L6? I'm more familiar with the Silvertone amps than the Danos, but I don't recall ever seeing an EL84 Silvertone before.

I assume there's some connection, but I really don't know enough about amps to say for certain. My understanding is that the tube selection is less important than other factors (filtering, biasing, transformers, etc) in how the amp is voiced. I think this was the only EL-84 amp Danelectro ever made for any brand, including Silvertone and Airline.

 

[erksin]

I assume there's some connection, but I really don't know enough about amps to say for certain. My understanding is that the tube selection is less important than other factors (filtering, biasing, transformers, etc) in how the amp is voiced. I think this was the only EL-84 amp Danelectro ever made for any brand, including Silvertone and Airline.

I had a Dano-built 1970 Silvertone 10XL that was 2-7189/EL84s.

And yeah - circuit is more important than the tubes used.

 

[HawkeyeKane]

I had a Dano-built 1970 Silvertone 10XL that was 2-7189/EL84s.

Actually...not quite.

From http://www.tonegems.com/silvertone-1421/

"From about 1968 to 1972 the smaller amps in the Sears XL Series (the 5 XL, 10 XL, 40 XL) continued to be hand-wired tube amps. But by 1973 the entire XL line – except for the little 5 XL – had transitioned to all solid-state electronics. Exactly who built these XL amps for Sears remains a uncertain. We have speculated that the 5, 10 and 40 XL’s were still built in New Jersey with left-over parts from the defunct Daneletro.

The chassis of the 10 XL is all hand-wired point-to-point electronics with a 6X4 tube rectifier, a 12AX7 preamp tube, a 12AX7 tremolo tube circuit and a single 7189 output power tube. The amp has volume and tone controls, Tremolo speed and intensity controls, two 1/4″ guitar input jacks, and one 1/4″ tremolo foot switch input jack."

 

[HawkeyeKane]

If the reverb is broken (they frequently are) don't bother fixing it. The reverb on those amps sounds horrible even when working correctly.

Did they put that same goofy tank in the 9100 outboard unit too?

https://reverb.com/item/58264-1965-danelectro-reverb-tank-model-9100-chrome

 

[Leonc]

Had one. Also had one its big brothers too - the DS-50. The overdrive was a bit on the ratty side but not terrible or anything; it was kind of cool actually. Did not sound that great with pedals; and I'm not sure that C12Q (which sounded good) could be pushed all that hard. Ultimately it was fun but not quite loud enough for me to gig with. So it proved to be not that useful to me and I eventually sold it. Amazing how good some of those Dano pressboard cabs sounded (the DS-50 cab had 3 C10Qs and man...that was one of the best sounding cabs I've ever owned). But that's just me and my taste.



Apologies for all the yapping. Playing starts around 2 minutes in. Wish I had my good ribbon mic (pot-o-fone) back then...

 

[erksin]

Actually...not quite.

Dano parts assembled by unknown still says Dano amp to me, but whatev. I'm here for the minutiae too.

 

[Leonc]

The Jensen C12Q sounds great (if it's not beat to **** at this point...which many of them are) with the amp...you can hear it in my demo. But it's probably not really up to the task if you're going to hit the amp hard with boost/overdrive pedals.

 

[gerraguitar]

The Jensen C12Q sounds great (if it's not beat to **** at this point...which many of them are) with the amp...you can hear it in my demo. But it's probably not really up to the task if you're going to hit the amp hard with boost/overdrive pedals.

Thanks for the input Leon, missed your part about the speaker in the first post!

I actually watched your demo a few times earlier this morning before I decided to buy it. If it's not the best at taking pedals that's fine, I would only want to use ones to add to it's (seemingly) unique sound rather than just lying on top of it.

 

[HawkeyeKane]

The Jensen C12Q sounds great (if it's not beat to **** at this point...which many of them are) with the amp...you can hear it in my demo. But it's probably not really up to the task if you're going to hit the amp hard with boost/overdrive pedals.

Leon....is it just me, or would a C-Rex be a good fit for this amp?

 

[Leonc]

Leon....is it just me, or would a C-Rex be a good fit for this amp?

Probably would be a decent fit...I think a swamp thang (or maybe a G12H30 or even a V30) might make even more sense based on my recollection. The ST is way more efficient and has a nice big bottom end (which the DM-25 could use some help with) and that would be a good thing with the DM-25 IMO. Also the amp wasn't overly bright (nor was it dark)...so it wouldn't truly be "crying out" for the CR benefits if you follow me.

 

[rockometeramp]

I got one of these a couple years ago in almost perfect shape, with all original tubes, etc. I haven't touched a thing on it, not even a 3 prong cord. Mine is dead quiet, and is clean, clean, clean, pretty much all the way up using a Tele. Trem is killer, reverb is what you expect, but works much better than most Dano/Silvertone.

And yes, the cabs do sound great on the piggyback amps, despite being made from particle board. The C12Q is good for 35 watts, should be fine with pedals, unless it's dried/moldy/torn.

This is probably the only Dano built amp I've looked at that had every resistor in spec, amp literally sat most of it's life in a closet. I'd like to recap it, but can't bear to change anything on it, it's too nice! I'm missing the pedal. When I get situated here in Va, I'm going to make a repro cab, just because.

I do have a reverb mod I did on my 1484 that would work on this amp too, haven't checked yet if there is room in the head for the small reverb tanks.

Great sounding amp, especially for country picking. you'll love the trem. Have fun, and post some pictures!

Rocco

 

[ScottySevins]

damn that pig sounds freakin awesome!!!! sweet score. I needa pick one of these up before they get crazy expensive!