SOLD: Egnater Rebel 30 2x12 combo

vasselmeyer · November 2017

This is a 2x12 Egnater Rebel 30 combo. It includes a soft cover, detachable casters and a footswitch. It has recently been serviced and completely revalved. It's been gigged regularly but looked after exceedingly well. There are a couple of minor scuffs and marks on the tolex, but otherwise in very good condition. There are links in this listing to a Soundcloud playlist of clean, crunchy, classic and modern sounds with both the EL84 and 6v6 valves plus a video of Bruce Egnater talking about how he designed the amp.

I thought this was my amp for life until diagnosed with a spinal condition which prevents me from lifting as well as I used to. I've gone lightweight and sadly I need to move this one. Price is £350 and I'm based in SE Manchester. I'd prefer not to ship a heavy item such as this but would be happy to deliver if reasonably local or meet halfway plus appropriate fuel costs.

Amp

With cover

Footswitch

This is a two-channel amp. Channel one, the clean channel, features volume, bass and treble; channel two handles overdrive with a familiar layout of gain, master volume and three-band EQ. Both channels feature sub-miniature toggle switches to operate 'bright' and 'tight' functions, making it easy to add a little extra snap to a Les Paul or girth to the low-end of a Strat or Tele.

Both channels have separate attenuator controls, varying the amp's output from a maximum of 30 watts down to just one watt. The output stage features a pair of EL84s and a pair of 6V6s, which are linked to a front panel mix control that lets you fade from one pair to the other, with both pairs on in the centre position. At either extreme you can get about 20 watts, going up to around 30 with all four valves working. There are lots of amps with more than one type of output valve but as far as I know nobody else has that mix control. You can really hear the change as you fade from the EL84s to the 6V6s and back again. ext to the mix control is the standby switch, which has a third position for silent recording. This mutes the custom Celestion Egnater Elite 80 and Celestion V30 speakers, but leaves the rear panel XLR output active.

Top panel

The XLR on the rear panel is balanced and speaker compensated, to get a consistent recorded tone or easy connection for a sound engineer when playing live. Other rear panel features include external speaker jacks, an effects loop, a socket for the two-button footswitch, switchable impedance and mains voltage (carefully protected under a screw-down cover) and separate channel level controls for the digital reverb.

Rear panel

Soundcloud link to a playlist with clean, crunch, classic and modern tones with both EL84 and 6V6 valves
https://soundcloud.com/lordroberts/sets/egnater-rebel-30-2x12-combo

The clean channel is rich, responsive and warm, with an extended glassy treble and nicely contoured lows that are easy to whip into shape with the bright and tight switches. As you turn up the volume a little more, it develops a subtle edge that's highly rewarding for big chords.

The lead channel is quick and easy to dial-in with its three-band EQ and the gain control has plenty of overdrive range, with all the monster distortion happening in the last quarter of the knob's travel.

At higher volume levels, the attenuator controls make it easy to add just the right amount of power amp drive, while being able to fade from the boxier mids of EL84s to the fatter bass and airy treble of the 6V6s is an outstanding feature. There's so much colour to be had from these two features as well as the EQ section there are a huge ranges of sounds here.

This a seriously loud amp when you need it. It easily copes with an unmic'd drum kit. For a 2x12 it's very compact; smaller than a Twin or an AC30. It has a top handle and two sprung side handles for easy lifting. The weight is around 40kg or 88lbs, around average for a 2x12 valve combo.

Here's Bruce Egnater talking about how he designed the amp