The earliest guitar amp I worked on was a small Ace Tone, back in the 1970s. My neighbor bought it, not working and asked me to get it running. This was apparently from a foreign country, probably Mexico because at was rated for 230 VAC. It had two tubes, a 12AX7 and a 12AU7, that had been swapped around which caused them to not work. Once I fixed that I had to get it to work on 120VAC. I made a voltage booster by connecting two Radio Shack transformers, each having a secondary of 18VAC, back to back and boosting the 120VAC to 240VAC. It worked okay!
But I have never heard of the Ace Tone name since that time way back in the ’70s.
2026-07-25 Ace Tone Guitar Amp – My Story
