ToneQuest Report: June 2022 – Vol. 23, No. 8

What's Inside This Issue:

Vibrolux Deaux – Looking for a good FBVR amp is a tough and pricy search. A desire for another blackface amp and with a little help from our friend Terry Dobbs, AKA Mr. Valco, we encounter a one-owner mint 1966 Vibrolux Reverb amp. All in original condition —Sounds all there and it’s a hot shower of tone blasting.

Mr. Valco & The BFVR Lowdown – Another revelation of genius from Mr. Valco’s vintage amp repair. Terry Dobbs gives us the lowdown on our bone stock all original blackface. He examines our Vibrolux Reverb and describes the mods and restorative repairs he made, along with a few “no harm, no foul mods.”

Vibrolux Reverb Enhancements – Dave Boze – “Vibrolux Reverbs are meant to be played out loud where you can crank them up. Just a few minor enhancements can make this wonderful amp even better.” Dave Boze takes you through the personal choices and enhancements that can make your VR sound as good as it can sound —electrolytic caps, power tubes, midrange control, speakers, tremolo, AA964 specs and more…

The 1958 Supro Rhythm Tone – The 1958 Supro Rhythm Tone is an inspiring and hip vintage off-the-radar guitar with the single neck pickup that is a legendary flame thrower. Researching these amazing pickups, we invited Jason Lollar to join in the conversation about the original Supro pickups.

Lollar Summertime Catch Up – While having Jason Lollar on the horn about Supro pickups, we thought it would be fun to catch up on what he’s doing. He told us about a couple of new products from Lollar Custom Guitars & Pickups —The LaPrima mini-bucker with a crazy chimey sound and the El Dorado touch a sensitive pickup.

State of NOS Tubes & Homegrown Honey – We got Mike Kropotkin of KCA NOS Tubes on the phone for his tube wisdom and to discuss what’s happening now and the future in the world of tubes impacted by the pandemic, war, and empty shelf mania.

Tom Guerra – Sentimental Junk – No stranger to The ToneQuest Report, Tom Guerra has just released his fifth solo album since 2016, the rocking Sentimental Junk. We caught up with Tom and as he is making the rounds to promote his new album that has a “summertime, top-down driving song mode.”

The Allen Accomplice Amp –  What could be better than scoring a new amp with classic tones, is supremely well designed, overbuilt and actually two amps in one cabinet? David Allen of Allen Amplification has created an enhanced version of the Deluxe Reverb called the Accomplice that offers groovy tones of a Deluxe with some exceptional improvements.

The Beautiful Gift – David Wilson, The Author of Tone Emeritus and Riverhorse shared some texts about a lightweight magical sunburst strat body David had recently purchased and was looking forward to building. We shipped it to Riverhorse. He used only the best parts, including a set of Slider ’57 pickups from David’s desk, and added The ToneQuest decal. This guitar is perfect— Ringing and vibrating as pure and true as a good friend.