Summer NAMM 2017: Supro 5 watt Reverb and Super guitar amps
Expensive recreations of two amplifiers from 1964
The new Supro 5 watt Reverb and Super guitar amps are both reissues of their small combos, these super simple amplifiers are all about the simple pleasures of playing through a low wattage all tube amplifier, so expect less to equal more with these two.
Supro Reverb 1605R and Super 1606
Both of these combos are as simple as it gets, one volume knob and a meagre 5-watt output via an 8″ speaker on the Super 1606 and an ever so slightly more complicated gain and master volume control on the Reverb 1605R model as well as a two-band EQ, oh and reverb of course.
Supro 1606 Super control panel · Source: Supro
Custom cones
Both models have a custom designed 8” speaker made by Eminence, this little speaker tries to emulate the original Jensen speaker of the original models where possible, but using modern speaker technology.
Supro Reverb 1605R 5 watt control panel · Source: Supro
The Reverb model also has three line outputs – one for the preamp only labelled Dry, one Wet for the reverb added signal and a blend which combines the two.
Overpriced?
My only issue here is they aren’t exactly cheap and I’m pretty sure you could find an alternative for a lot less these days, with similar features. Okay, they do look nice, but I feel that the price here is way off the mark for such simple amp designs.
I would be tempted to go and buy something from Friedman or Blackstar for this sort of money and feel that Supro may be asking a bit too much for both of these models, even though they are admittedly very nice looking amps. This doesn’t mean they can really justify these sorts of prices and they may end up having to discount them if they want to actually sell enough worldwide.
For a reissue of a 1964 guitar amp, they do look cute though.
Supro Super 1605R RRP – USD 699
Supro Reverb 1606 RRP – USD 999
Supro Super and Reverb main page
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