any polytone experts here ?

Karen Sarkisian · From: Boston, MA, USA

Last night I played a gig thru my Poytone Mini-Brute. I used my tech 21 blonde pedal to warm up the sound. Everyone in the band commented on how much nicer my tone was than when I have used my nashville 112. However, if it wasnt for that blonde pedal i would have been in some serious trouble as the polytone alone wasnt nearly loud enough. both the polytone and the nashville are supposed to be 100watts, but the polytone alone wasnt nearly as loud as my nashville. according to the back of the polytone, its 100w 3 ohm 12" speaker. something doesnt add up. I may consider adding an extension cabinet if it would make the amp louder. also i'm not sure how safe it is to boost the volume with the blonde pedal, but that is what i had to do to get the proper volume.
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Emmons, Franklin, Mullen

David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

For sure, pushing a SS amp real hard doesn't lead to anything good. That type of distortion can eat speakers as well as being non-musical. I'll ask the obvious - have you tries the Tech pedal in front of the Peavey? Have you tried running them both, and using the Polytone to add what the Peavey seems to be "lacking?"

One thing that would work is if the Polytone has a line out or effects loop, you can plug that into the effects IN on the Peavey. This would bypass the Peavey preamp, and basically use it as a powered speaker unit. However, you can't plug a SPEAKER out from the Polytone into anything but a speaker without blowing things up. Now, if the Polytone has two inputs, you might be able to plug your guitar/pedals/whatever into one input of the Polytone, then take a cord from the other Polytone's input and "bridge" it to the Peavey - start with everything at zero and check it sensibly. If the Polytone's inputs are isolated from each other it won't work. I just don't know about that amp - you may be able to find some info online.

Eric Philippsen · From: Central Florida USA

I have 5 Polytones, three of which I bought in the last two weeks. Two of them that im refurbishing have their guts spilled open on my workbench now. I know some about them.

A Polytone does have plenty of power but I wouldn recommend pushing it beyond it's limit with any kind of booster pedal. You'll blow the speaker, especially when using a steel. Pure and simple and don't think your playing will be the exception. I mean, there's a reason you find so many used Polytones without the original speaker - their speakers were blown a long time ago. Then, what you end up with is putting some spare 8-ohm in as a replacement because you can't find an original 3 ohm speaker. And when you do tht the amp's great tone is gone.

And Polytone customer service? To be blunt and opinionated, it's worth the call to them to experience how truly (legendary?) bad it is. Amazing.

So, if it's got those negatives then why do I buy almost whatever kind of Mini-Brute I can? That's an easy one. That is, they're hard to beat for jazz guitar. They also are small and don't weigh that much. Put another way, Joe Pass, Herb Ellis, George Benson, Jimmy Bruno, and a whole slew of others sure knew their stuff when they used the amp. Pretty easy to haul around.

Need more power than your Polytone can provide? Sell the Mini- Brute and get a NV400. I used a 400 last night at a gig with a loud band. No problem whatsoever.

Karen Sarkisian · From: Boston, MA, USA

can I add an extension cab to get more power out of it ?
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Emmons, Franklin, Mullen

Karen Sarkisian · From: Boston, MA, USA

I will add that I like the polytone for size, weight issues, also the reverb tank doesnt make any noise when the band leader jumps around like he tends to do right next to my amp (we play on a tiny stage)
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Emmons, Franklin, Mullen

Len Amaral · From: Rehoboth,MA 02769

I had a polytone with one 12 " speaker and two 8" speakers and it had a stereo switch and some kind of phasor switch that sounded terrible. But the over all amp sounded great and i had it for 20 years before i sold it. It did not not great with a pedal steel but was OK for small gigs.

Poly tone amps are a one trick pony but what a trick indeed. I saw geaorge Benson and he used Two Mini Brute amps and what a nice jazz vibe.

Eric Philippsen · From: Central Florida USA

Karen asks if she can hook up an extension speaker to her Polytone to get more power.

When you say "more power" I'm guessing you mean "can I make it louder?". Well, from a technical standpoint an added speaker won't get you more power. But it will allow you to push more air and that's a big thing. Essentially, by doing so, the amp will sound louder because, again, it is pushing more air.

Go ahead and try it. Why not? Just be careful about blowing that speaker when playing with the amp's volume control up there.

One last thing which you might already know. Polytones do not stay clean all the way to the top of their output. Put another way, if you turn that poor old volume knob all the way up you're gonna' get some distortion. And it isn't a pleasant kind of distortion either.

Think Nashville 400 for steel and use the Mini-Brute for when you play jazz 6-string.

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

Here are some manuals for Polytone amps - http://www.murchmusic.com/polytonemanuals.htm

The old Mini-Brute manual says it can handle a 4 ohm extension speaker. If the internal speaker is only 3-4 ohms, that means that the parallel combination of the two is less than or equal to 2 ohms. I am very wary of running solid-state amps at 2 ohms. One does typically get marginally more (10-30%) power out of smaller load impedance with SS amps like this, and certainly you move more air from two speakers. But the cost is that the amp runs hotter, and I think these amps run hot enough stock when pushed hard (which it sounds like you're doing). Maybe I'm overly conservative, but I wouldn't do it.

I also agree with a previous poster that if you like the Polytone with the blonde pedal, then you probably should try that with the Nashville 112 also, before you conclude you prefer the sound of the Polytone. BTW - is this for PSG? If so, I'm very surprised. I've played lots of Polytones over the years - I guess it's a matter of taste, but for PSG, I can't imagine it's even in the same ballpark as a good PSG amp. My NV 112 takes effects like a champ - Pod, Peavey Pro/Tube-Fex, Duncan Twin Tube Classic OD, you name it. With a Pod and/or Duncan Twin Tube Classic, it works fine for guitar too. I also rarely if ever see used Polytones with good original speakers - I used to see them a lot, the originals were routinely fried.

FWIW - I also believe the NV 112 is rated at 80 watts RMS, not 100. But that's an honest 80 RMS watts. You could probably isolate the reverb pan more if you need to, but I can't imagine how someone would be rattling my amp enough to trip the reverb pan without basically stomping on me too. I play with some serious footstompers (classic country back to serious old-time frailin' banjo crazy-footstompin' stuff) and they sometimes unnerve me, but never set off my NV 112 reverb pan. But wrapping the pan some more or perhaps setting up some kind of shock mount for the amp would probably deal with that.

Karen Sarkisian · From: Boston, MA, USA

thanks for all the responses. Probably gonna ditch the polytone.
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Emmons, Franklin, Mullen

David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

The manual for the Polytone MiniBrute V says it does have a "preamp out" - so you could used that as a "effects in" on the Peavey. It would still be adding whatever tone the Peavey's speaker has, but their power amps is pretty flat. But you're still carting two amps. Maybe a dolly is in order (the kind with wheels, I mean Smile

).

Karen Sarkisian · From: Boston, MA, USA

yeah, i was hoping that i could lighten my load with the polytone, so adding it to the nashville isnt really an option. the polytone sounds like crap without the blonde pedal though. the tone i was getting with it was tighter than the tone i get from my peavey, which i really liked. Maybe i just need to mess around with the settings on my peavey, but the other issue of the reverb making noise is another problem on the small stage that i play at often. I sit beside the stage and the lead singer is right next to my amp. when he jumps around my amp makes a lot of noise. its aggravating.
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Emmons, Franklin, Mullen

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