Whew boy did Gibson cause a stir re-releasing a Falcon line of tube amps this week.
I don’t personally have skin in the game — I think a company should do what they want — but it has been funny hearing everyone’s opinions. The biggest issue most guitarists seem to have is that the Falcon 5 is $1499 and the Falcon 20 is $1799, so these are targeting a wealthier crowd and/or professional musicians. That’s perfectly reasonable as far as I’m concerned considering that’s what the Gibson Guitars are targeting as well.
Beyond that, after coming out of bankruptcy in 2018 Gibson acquired Mesa Boogie in 2021 and why not put that stellar engineering team to work on revamping a classic? You could make the argument that these aren’t classics since Gibson was not known for amps and these amps are completely re-engineered. So they’re classics in name and style, but not the circuit or even reputation.
But you know what? Based on what I’ve heard so far these amps sound fantastic. To be fair, that’s only from the official Gibson promo videos, one of which I’ve shared below. I’m looking forward to hearing what buyers start putting on YouTube with these amps.
Anyway, let’s break em down:
The Falcon 5 specs
- One Class A 6V6 power amp tube
- Three 12AX7 preamp tubes
- 7 watts, but switchable to 3 watts
- One 10-inch Jensen Blackbird 40 Alnico speaker
- Volume and tone controls
- All-tube spring reverb
The Falcon 20 specs
- Two 6V6 power amp tubes
- Switchable 12 watt, 5 watt, and a bedroom or apartment friendly 1 watt Class A power modes
- One 12-inch Jensen Blackbird 40 Alnico speaker
- Volume and tone controls
- All-tube spring reverb
- Onboard all-tube tremolo
- Includes a 2 button footswitch
So what do you think? Are you buying a Gibson Falcon?