USED Music Man 112 RP One Hundred 100w 1x12 Combo Guitar Amp w/Cover

When Music Man was formed in the early 70's Leo Fender was still under an non-compete agreement with Fender owner CBS. Leo Fender initially participated as a silent partner, and Fender's influence was clearly felt at Music Man in everything from amplifier designs to some of the first active pickup guitars and basses. But the first Music Man products were amplifiers, and are best described as evolutionary continuations of Leo's blackface amps.

Leo Fender was never fan of distortion, and the Music Man amps employed a hybrid design of a solid state preamp paired with tube power amp section. While today this may seem backwards, the theory at the time was that solid state was best in low power applications while tubes were still king in terms of producing high wattage. And while this Music Man RP-112 has just (2) 6L6 power tubes somehow it squeezes out 100 watts. Once Ernie Ball took over ownership of the company in 1984, the company phased out the amplifier line to focus on guitars. 

This RP-100-EVM is a brute of an amp, weighing almost 60 pounds. The cosmetics are clearly blackface-inspired and while the amp does have some corrosion on the hardware and a couple of grill cloth snags, the tolex is in very good condition. The electronics are quiet, and everything works including the built-in phaser, which has a great deep and swirly effect. By the way, the "R" in RP stands for Reverb, and the "P" stands for Phasor. 

Leo Fender's own personal preference was big clean tone, but the RP-112 does make concessions to the times and features a Gain/Volume setup that can be adjusted to overdrive the preamp. The big benefit of the gain/volume setup is that the RP-112 is capable of some really great clean tones at reasonable volumes, and avoids the common issue of many Fender amps that sound anemic below 3 and way too loud past that. 

It's hard to describe what a "big" amp sounds like, but the RP-112 has the depth, warmth and presence that only comes with a lot of power. It does not have to be loud to sound good, and the heavy cast frame EVM speaker translates all that power into an effortless display of musical energy. It's an experience you can't get through a Katana or Blues Junior.

Rather than describe all the controls, we've included some archive photos of the manual. We've also included pages on what is probably one of the earlier inclusions of an effects loop in an amplifier (the send/return jacks on the front panel).

Players today are conditioned to much smaller amplifiers or in some cases no amp at all. But there is something about power, and the RP-112 has it. At 60 pounds it's a chore but not impossible to gig, and the gain/volume control makes it way easier to dial into a small setting than a Fender Twin; or even the 40 watt Hot Rod Deluxe which gets silly loud way too easily.

Because it's 60 pounds, once it's properly boxed it will likely exceed the UPS 71 pounds limit....so it's local pickup only.