Jim Kelley Amplifiers

Jim Kelley Amplifiers is the trademarked name for the vacuum tube guitar amplifiers manufactured by Active Guitar Electronics of Tustin, California between the years of 1978 and 1985. Approximately 600 of these amps were built during that time. The single channel version of the amplifier employed modest gain preamp stages, Baxandall bass and treble controls, a split load phase inverter, and four 6V6GT output tubes. An improved version was released in 1980 which included reverb and an additional stage of gain. These guitar amps were the first to employ a matched quartet of 6V6GT output tubes. They were also first to come with an optional power attenuator.

Further innovations were incorporated into the FACS (foot activated channel switching) model, which built upon the single channel design by adding switchable preamps and tone stacks, and providing relay switching for the power attenuator. Another novel feature was the LED Bias Indicator.

The final model to be developed and produced was the FACS Line Amp. It had all the features of a FACS amp, but the lead channel also employed a low power push-pull output section. The miniature output transformer was followed by the Main Gain control, which functioned as a Master Volume. The lead channel also had a unique post distortion passive LC tone control which could either cut or boost mid-range.

An all FET stereo amplifier with analog delay reverb was developed but never brought to market.