The Gretsch Pages

<p>6160 Country Gentleman amps were packed with more features than you can shake a Bigsby arm at: treble brilliance switch, footswitch-activated tremolo with speed and intensity controls, a built-in tuner, the obligatory standby switch with pilot light and--if that wasn't enough--a phonograph input. </p> <p>Luckily they were also great sounding, durable amps. Packing 35 watts and twin 12-inch Jensens into a surprisingly svelte 44-pound package, the only thing the Country Gentlemen really had going against them was price. They weren't cheap, and they didn't sell new, so they're hard to find now. </p>

Comments

1. Danny May 14, 2007 9:18 p.m.

   The 6163 is a stereo amplifier with a pair a 6L6's per side delivering 35 watts to one 15" and 35 watts to one 12" Jensen (gold and brown label) in a single separate cabinet via a stereo speaker cable. One reg. channel and one with Rev. and Trem. and a 3 position "tone" selector switch that reads Normal, Accordion, and High. Each channel has two inputs, Volume, Bass and Treble controls. It also has a stand alone stereo input that accesses both channels and seems to be the only way to get a true stereo signal. Plugging into either of the channels on their own turns it into a 70 watt mono amplifier. 6163 also features line (power)and standby rocker switches and pilot lights for both power and standby. Reverb and tremelo can be activated manually by turning either the reverb or Tremelo intensity knob clockwise and turned off by turning counter clockwise till it "clicks" off. or once clicked on, can be controlled by footswitch via two 1/4" jacks in the panel under the R/T knobs. The tones of the two channels are vastly different. Channel one, sounds much like a cross between a Showman and an old Marshall plexi 45. The R/T channel, or channel 2 is tuned much brighter and the tone settings will not duplicate channel one. My amp tech tells me that's normal according to Valco's design for this very rare and seldom seen amplifier. My understanding is these amps were very expensive in their day (over $1,000) and very few were sold. This fact makes this one of the rarest Gretsch amps in the field. Valco also produced a version of the amp for Supro. My amp came to me in almost perfect condition except for tubes being old and gassy and the reverb choke had shorted out over the years. It's so clean I'd say it's never seen the inside of a night club. Some one cherished it and kept it very clean all these years.

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   — May 14, 2007 9:18 p.m.

2. Danny May 14, 2007 9:23 p.m.

   The text at the top of the page does not describe the 6163 piggyback amp...

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   — May 14, 2007 9:23 p.m.