1988 Laney Linebacker 100R

Overview

I purchased this solid state amp at my local Guitar Center purely for the purpose of taking the Celestion G12-H100 speaker out of it. This is one of my favorite speakers and sounds great, but is no longer made - some say it is either the same or very similar to the modern K-100 speaker. The amp itself is a solid state 100 watter, with two channels with separate inputs, as well as a mix input - very unique. It also has a true, accutronics long spring reverb - pretty nice for a “cheap” amp. Similar to the AOR series amps, Channel “A” has pull switches on the EQ and Gain controls which engage various boosts that change the tone, and I actually think it sounds pretty good, especially boosted with a tubescreamer. However, the high gain tones leave something to be desired in terms of note clarity and low-end punchiness. I find the mid gain tones charming however, in the same kind of way people use 60s Silvertone amps and such for a kind of vintage lo-fi sound. That’s not to say this amp sounds like a 60s Silvertone, I only mean the feeling of that - using an old, budget amp that was never that well regarded to find some new sonic ground.

This amp was available as a head, and I’ve contemplated converting this combo to a mini-head. It’s fairly small in width and not too heavy, and resilient since it lacks tubes - this predates digital amp circuitry so this is a more traditional “caps and resistors” type circuit which makes it unique for my collection (which is otherwise all tube or digital amps).