Carr Rambler and Imperial Amps, Rambler, Imperial Instructions Manual

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Rambler and Imperial Instructions

Thank you for purchasing a Carr Amplifier.
The Rambler and Imperial models employ pure and simple classic
60’s American style pre amp circuits combined with output sections owing
more to the early 50’s. This unique blending yields very open and rich clean
tones with mild overdrives. You will find both models work very well with
pedals – staying dimensional and wringing the best from your guitar. Please
take time to familiarize yourself with this manual.

Volume – adjusts the loudness of the amplifier.

Treble - varies top end from dark to bright.

Middle – varies mid frequencies and is very influential in taking the tone

from a 60’s Blackface sound (off to 11 o’clock) to a pushed tweed mid
sound (11 o’clock to full).

Bass - varies low end from lean to full.

Reverb - controls amount of reverb sound from off to deep and lush.

Tremolo Depth and Speed – Depth controls intensity of the tremolo swell

off to deep. The Speed control affects the rate of the tremolo pulse. You may
here some pulse even when you are not playing while the Tremolo is on –
this is normal and an effect of the late 50s style of output tube bias tremolo
we use. The jack for the footswitch is on the bottom of the chassis between
the third and forth pre amp tubes counting from the left as you look at the
back of the amp.

Boost Imperial only – varies the amount of midrange push and volume
increase. This boost partially bypasses the tone stack so the tone controls
will have less effect as the boost is advanced. The toggle switch on the front
panel is active when the footswitch is not plugged in.

Triode / Pentode Switch – Rewires the Pentode output tubes into Triode
operation. Pentode sounds loud and punchy with great headroom while
Triode is more vintage and warm with very thick midrange.

Standby – Set amp to standby (switch baton down

) to allow the tubes to

warm up after the amp is initially turned on (see On-Off-On below). After 1
minute of warm up, switch Standby baton

up, and the amp is ready to be
played. Using the Standby switch every time the amp is played will prolong
tube life.

On – Off – On – Selects between two ON positions which are reverse phase
of each other and the OFF position. If you receive a shock from another
piece of equipment, a microphone or another amp, or hear line noise static,
switch to the opposing ON position.

Fuse

In the unlikely event that a tube fails the amp is protected by a 1.5 Amp
(Rambler) or 3 amp (Imperial) Slow Blow fuse. Please consult factory or a
qualified tech for further instruction or assistance in the event of a fuse
blowing. The Fuse is located on the bottom of the chassis by the power
cord.

Biasing your Rambler or Imperial

The Rambler and Imperial are cathode bias (self bias) amps and as such do
not require a bias adjustment when changing tubes. Please do use matched
pairs of output tubes for maximum performance and Minimum hum in
Triode mode.

Impedance

The Rambler is designed for 8-ohm loads. Maximum power and tone will be
realized when running an 8-ohm speaker or cabinet. You can use a Y
speaker cord to run another cabinet along with the internal speaker without
damage to the amp. You will loose a little power from the mismatch and the
power tubes will have to work a bit harder and thus age faster but this is the
only negative consequence.
The Imperial can accommodate both 8 and 4 ohms loads. The Impedance
toggle switch is located on the back of the chassis in the middle; 8 ohms
when the baton points to the left (when looking from the back) and 4 ohms
when pointing to the right.

Carr Amplifiers selects and tests the finest current production tubes specifically for each
amplifier model. Caution should be used when buying replacement tubes from any
dealer who does not have a return policy as all tubes can have problems (NOS tubes are
susceptible to microphonics and failure too).