Old Burns 1 x12 Steer Combo

[John Boyd]

Does anyone know anything about these amps?
Just came across this on our NZ auction site.

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing ... =321004562

Cheers,
JB

[RayL]

The Steer 50 was produced in the period 1979 - 1983 when Jim Burns was given backing to start again as 'Jim Burns (Actualisers) Ltd'. It was the time when he produced the designs for the Steer guitar, the Black Scorpion guitar and bass, and the Magpie I, Magpie II and Magpie Bass models.

About the amplifier, the leaflet says:
A highly advanced combo, capturing the traditional valve sound, but using 80s technology and equally suited to live or studio applications. Features include: One 12" speaker, two inputs, controls for Volume , Bass, Middle, Treble, Presence, Reverb and Master. Field effect transistor circuitry including two MOSFETS at power stage. 3 spring Hammond reverb unit.

The original UK price was £220.

Also part of the 'amps and effects' range at that time were:
The Bullfrog Bass Combo (100w)
The Bullfrog Bass Head (100w)
The Bee (15w)
The Snake (800milliwatts!)
The 'Smooth' effects pedal ("could be described as a 100w stack in a box")

Ray

[dusty fretz]

The Steer looked better than it sounded, as the tone cicuitry wasn't very effective and the amp was equally lacking in output. My advice is to leave well alone!

[cockroach]

Paul,

I have always considered it a fun challenge to try and get decent sounds out of gear that most people think is a load of rubbish..it's good fun and I've had a lot of horrible gear that I was able to use -and surprised many folk with top line stuff...

And such stuff has usually been cheap too

[JimN]

I have always considered it a fun challenge to try and get decent sounds out of gear that most people think is a load of rubbish.

Getting a good sound of most 1970s solid-state amps certainly would be a challenge, "fizz", "valvestate" and "saturation" circuits notwithstanding.

JN

[cockroach]

Jim

I suppose what constitutes a good sound is a very subjective thing- but I have been getting reasonable results with transistor amps since about 1975 up to the present day- before that I always had valve amps as there weren't a lot of tranny jobs about then, and the early ones were really dire. After a long Peavey period I now use a Marshall 50 - made in India of all places..although I still use a Peavey bass amp.

Back in the mid-late '70's , just like Japanese guitars, the tranny amps started getting much better in quality and performance, as well as rugged build, value and reliability. I would recommend Peavey (American), and Yamaha, Roland, Ibanez and some other Japanese tranny amps unreservedly to anyone. ( For a number of years I had a great Jap tranny copy of a Mesa Boogie called an Evans)

In my opinion, even the small cheapo tranny practice amps with built-in effects which are available today beat the hell out of the equivalent expensive small valve amps of the past.

Same with guitars- as Hank said in the advert for his signature model Squier Strat some years ago, 'I wish I'd had one of these when I was starting out'!