These items are built by modifying vintage radios, and as such each one is unique. As well as the ones that I have already converted, I have a large stock of unmodified radios.

If you wish to know exactly what is currently or potentially available, please contact me before placing an order.

The original “Deacy” amp is a small, solid-state amplifier that Brian May used to create his distinctive multi-layered guitar harmonies. The amp was built by John Deacon, the bassist for Queen, using a circuit board from a vintage transistor radio. It was used on many famous Queen recordings and was apparently popular in the studio because of the small size and relatively low volume making recording easier.

In much the same way, I create amps using vintage transistor radios as a base, and re-wiring them to accept a guitar input. By examining schematics of many such radios, I have identified a variety of circuits that work extremely well as guitar amps. Each one is slightly different, sometimes including an additional custom pre-amp board.

The topology of these circuits are very similar to those found in valve based guitar amps, except with solid state components. They include pre-amp stages, phase inverters and class A/B power sections, and by virtue of the fact that they use germanium transistors and often feature small alnico speakers, they produce extremely pleasing results when used with guitar.

When plugged directly in to the amp, the guitar sound is somewhat soft and mellow, and to get the best results, you really need to use a pedal of some kind. Brian May famously used a Rangemaster treble booster, but in modern times, an overdrive is probably a better option, even for clean sounds which can be best achieved by setting it for high-gain, then rolling back the guitar volume. Especially suitable are pedals with tone controls which are lacking in the amp itself.

The internal speakers found in these radios are often highly suitable guitar, which is no surprise really when you consider early guitar speakers such as the Celestion Blue were in fact re-purposed radio speakers themselves. However, the internal speakers are usually in the 4” range and by adding a speaker-out jack, these little radio amps can be used with much larger guitar speakers. Despite their nominal power of ~1W, when paired with a larger speaker, they can produce startling volume levels.

The original Deacy was exclusively used with a battery, but I prefer to configure them for a 9V power supply. Any well filtered pedal power supply will work, but please note, being germanium they have a positive ground circuit and so require an isolated output.