Sears LA15 combo amp repair

This is a rare vintage solid state combo amp. It was sold by Sears decades ago in the USA and it was a starter guitar amp. The output power of it was less than 15Watts. I think the 15W rating at the back was just the consumption power and NOT the actual output power of this amp.

It was made for a 110Vac/60Hz input voltage.

This amp was brought to Greece at some point but the voltage here is 230Vac/50Hz. The power transformer was connected to a step-down 2:1 transformer and the stock 10"speaker was replaced with a Celestion G10L-35. This was a real tone improvement.

The amp has a single clean channel with tremolo effect and volume, depth, speed, tone controls.The tone control acts as an On/Off switch as well. It's a pretty basic class A transistor circuit (no opamps here) that works like a small tube amp and it sounds like it.
The input transformers failed at some point and the pots became scratchy. The On/off switch didn't always work either... This was a pretty easy fix: I replaced the transformers with a proper 230Vac/30VA rated one.
The dodgy cables inside the amp were replaced as well. A set of new electrolytic capacitors was installed as usual. The indicator light did not work so I placed a new red LED light with a series resistor in its place. The amp is ready to rock and its tone is pretty decent. It sounds like a simple 5w tube amp due to its class A design.






-Thanos