Ampeg Gemini II Combo Amp

From Premier Guitar

If you feel like you’ve seen an Ampeg combo in most studios you’ve ever entered, you probably wouldn’t be exaggerating. And there’s a good chance that a lot of those were an Ampeg Gemini or Gemini II, offered starting in the mid ’60s, with a few variations over its life, from 22 to 30 watts, with speaker offerings ranging from a single 12" to a 15", and in later eras with more watts and more speaker configurations.

Because of their size, these are less common on stage than they are in studio, but Bober—who is a proud native of Ampeg’s hometown of Linden, New Jersey—says of the Geminis as well as the smaller, and also very cool, 12-watt Ampeg Jet, “They have their own unique sound, they’re not all that loud to start with so if you’re in a situation where you can crank an amp a little bit, these are really good to do it.”

These full-featured combos have onboard reverb and tremolo, and they use a set of 7591 power tubes. Bober points out these are “more of a hi-fi-sounding, very full-bodied tube” that he describes as “somewhere between a 6V6 and a 6L6 power-wise, but with a different tonality.” He adds, “I think the right person can get their own signature tone from these, and it’s not gonna be one that will come from a Fender, it’s not gonna come from a Marshall.”

While these amps are known for their reliability as well as well as their unique sound, Kauffman points out that the phase-inverter tube, a 7199, has gotten expensive in the modern market: “A lot of times, they’ve been changed out to different tubes, or they have a little converter adapter in, so that’s something to look out for.”