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Once serviced these are top amps.ĭean Markley has reissued the CD-60 and CD-30 tube (valve) amps. But for anyone willing to go to the trouble T-120s will produce close to Mesa like sound with the right set of tubes and the caps refreshed.

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The bottom line is these are excellent amps, but since they were made in very small numbers for the professional market not a good choice for someone without electronics experience. I would follow the schematic and convert to Point-to-point turret log construction. In fact the schematic is worth using to build a top guitar amp.

Once a Signature 120 is brought back to top operating condition is it an excellent sounding amp. I have found that a Dean Markely Signature 120 produces a nice fat bottom end and sweet floating top end with Winged C 6L6GC power tubes and Electro Harmonix 12AX7.

Note that you get vast differences in sound depending on the tube manufacturer and model used in any amp. The other components generally don't have to be touched unless 'blown,' with the exception that all the tubes need to be tested to check if they are in spec. Otherwise Sprague Atoms are also a good choice. I've had good results with Swiss Rifa axil electrolytic caps in these amps. It is also important to use high-quality capacitors to obtain good sound. Swapping the caps out is required whether or not the amp is tube (valve), solid-state or hybrid. Capacitors generally only have a service life of 10 years and most of the Dean Markley amps discussed in this chain are in neighborhood of 25 years old. They were also the OEM supplier to Fender, Marshall, early Mesa Boogies, Lowery, Balwin.Īnyone buying 'any' old amplifier needs to be aware that in all cases the capacitors will need to be swapped out.

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The transformers were made by Woodward-Schumacher (Identified by 606 code and now called Schumacher Electric), which are high quality. The Dean Markley schematic available was hand drawn and lacked this level of detail. The only difficulty I've had working on these amps is finding the specifications for the power transformer to convert an USA 120V amp to Australian 240V. This schematic is better quality and more detailed than the other version floating around the Internet and also on the Dean Markley site (earlier alternate). Schematic for T-120R - Dean Markley Signature 120 reverb model All the rest of the components in the amplifier are identifiable by examining the component labels, so should not present any issues if an amp requires service without access to a schematic. The difficultly presented in maintaining these amps is obtaining replacement control pots, as they are vertical mount rather than the more common horizontal PCB mount pots (e.g. The control pots (PCB mount potentiometer) on this amp are mounted directly on the pre-amp board, which was a fairly unique technical innovation in the 1980s for tube instrument amplifiers. The power board is mounted in a horizontal position and the pre-amp board vertically. Each section consists of a phenolic circuit board. These amps are made around a pre-amp section and separate power amp section. The schematic on the Dean Markley site vintage section only covers the reverb version. The T-120 version I completely stripped all the old components out of and proceeded to make schematic using a visual examination. The only visual difference is the T-120 has one less pot on the front panel. I suppose they just couldn't compete with the bigger, more popular manufactures.Īny other TGPers have experience with these? It would be cool to see your rig or hear your thoughts about them.I've had both the T-120R (reverb version) and T-120 Dean Markley Signature 120 rackmount tube (valve) amps. Smith, Alex Lifeson, and even Eric Clapton have all been confirmed DM users but the line never went anywhere. I did a search on Harmony Central's product review database and everyone whose owned one has absolutely loved it. The speaker was made by Celestion for Dean Markley, I think it was called a Magnum or something similar.

They're so cheap it would have been a viable option. Maybe I could/should have bought another one. I could easily find great sounds, but switching to the other channel forced me to constantly twiddle knobs. The only reason I didn't hang on to it was that darned shared EQ. The distortion was incredibly flexible and could go from an excellent blues crunch to some metal territory. The clean channel was absolutely beautiful, it ran on 2 6L6's and sounded like my older Hot Rod Deville. I've only owned one, a 2 channel monster call the the CD 60, but it was amazing! I sold it looking for something better and still regret it. I thought to myself: Someone needs to let people here know about Dean Markley's amazing line of tube amps from the 80's. Fellow TGPers- I searched Dean Markley the other day here and all I could find were posts about guitar strings.

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