Out Of This World

This new design from Supro – with collaborative input from Keeley Electronics and amp legend Bruce Zinky – could well end your quest for the perfect tone

- Nick Guppy

As one of the world’s oldest music brands, Supro’s heritage goes all the way back to the very beginning of electric guitar and a good few decades before the transistor was mass-produced. In the 1950s, Supro’s inexpensive amps were used by a number of Chicago bluesmen, giving them an association that interested many of classic rock’s pioneers, most notably Jimmy Page, whose reputed use of a Supro on early Led Zep tracks did much to sustain the brand’s reputation after production stopped. Now, back and reinvigorated in the capable hands of Pigtronix pedal supremos Absara Audio, Supro’s catalog blends modern designs with tributes to past glories. This issue we’re looking at an all-new model with more than a few boutique twists: the Galaxy.

With its two-channel all-valve design, the Galaxy’s overdrive channel is the result of a collaboration between Absara’s David Koltai and long-time Supro enthusiast Bruce Zinky, who was Fender’s Custom Shop guru in the early 90s, with credits including the multi-award-winning Vibro-King, Tone Master and Prosonic… to name just a few. Meanwhile, the clean channel is derived from Supro’s Keeley Custom model – another collaboration, this time with effects pedal wizards Keeley Electronics.

Visually, the Galaxy is a smart if somewhat understated amp, with an almost square ply cabinet, smartly covered in black vinyl with a suede-textured black vinyl stripe bordered by black piping. The traditionally styled control panel features volume and tone controls for the clean channel, with gain, volume, bass mid and treble knobs for the overdrive channel and a global reverb level control. There are toggle switches to change channels and operate a boost function that works on both channels.