# Carr Super Bee



## matt-griffin (Jan 17, 2021)

Has anyone given the Super Bee a try? Particularly the 10"?

Wondering if this is the amp that hits that small and portable home/small gig clean to grit sweet spot.

Like a Princeton, but more versatile and more gradual breakup? Like my little Supro Keeley 10" but not so dark?

Pricey, I know, but it may be that time for me.


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## Paul Running (Apr 12, 2020)

That would be a sweet sounding amp with the duet of 6BM8s. It's cathode-biased with a 6CA4...great choice of rectifier for this application...an attractive sag. Do you have a schematic for it?
From their website:

What is the 6BM8? The 6BM8 is a 9 pin current production tube containing one high gain triode (pre amp tube) and one power pentode in the same glass envelope. The power tube section has a dissipation of 7 watts. For plate dissipation comparisons in watts a 6V6 is 14, an EL84 is 12, an EL34 is 25, and a 6L6 is 30. This does not tell us how much power the tube will make though it points to it. In the most general sense using push pull (2 tubes) you can expect ~ 65% of the total added dissipation in relatively clean output power. Looking at 2 EL84s we have 12 + 12 = 24 time .65 = 16 watts. Using this very general approach with the 6BM8 we have 7 + 7 = 14 times .65 = 9 watts cleanish. The Super Bee with 2 6BM8 makes 10 watts at full pushed output. What does it sound like? A lot of times the circuit you put a tube in can have as much or more to do with the final sound as the tube itself. In the case of the Super Bee the 6BM8 has a clear - muscular -balanced sound that rolls into overdrive gracefully.


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## matt-griffin (Jan 17, 2021)

No schematic, but apparently it's based on the Super. Nice review on Premier with a talk-free demo video: Carr Super Bee: The Premier Guitar Review


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## zdogma (Mar 21, 2006)

I'm a big fan of the recent Carr amps. I haven't yet tried the super bee but I love the Mercury V and the Skylark. The new attenuator system is excellent and they have superb touch sensitivity and compression. They both have excellent low end retention even with attenuation and don't get fizzy unless you really crank the gain. Probably the best plug and play low volume amps I've used. 

I've also owned a Slant 6V and I have a Rambler but both of those require some volume


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## matt-griffin (Jan 17, 2021)

The other comparable amp that comes to mind is the 10” combo version of the Sportsman, which seems like he stopped making for some reason. I’ve seen a couple of negative remarks about it vs. the 12”, but there’s always some personal preference to speaker size, I find.


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## gbomb (Oct 18, 2013)

I have a Telefunken S81 stereo amp from around 1957. It has 1 6BM8 per channel or(ecl82 in europe) and rated at 2 watts per channel. The tone stack was modified for stand alone use. I use it everyday, sounds amazing.


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