Yikes! Sound City 120 Mark 5 Prototypes! Their owners were kind enough to send me photos. This model appears to be a six-EL34 (octal-socket) model, with reverb and a printed circuit board (PCB) for the preamp tubes.

Please Note: I wanted to keep the photos somewhat large to show details, so instead of having them appear on this page, you'll need to click the links that follow (the largest file size is ~100KB). Sorry for any inconveniences said linking might cause. Enjoy.

Mark 5 120 Number 001

• Front Panel View
  Standard Sound City layout, but no Standby switch.

• Rear Chassis View
  Notice how it appears as if pieces of tape were used for labels on the rear panel. This makes sense when you're not sure what is going to go where.

• Left Rear Panel Close-Up View
  A better view of the tape labels. Just couldn't shake that grounding switch, could they.

• Center Rear Panel Close-Up View
  You just gotta love that serial number. A typewriter is what Sound City used to fill out many of the badges on their products.

• Right Rear Panel Close-Up View
  A reverb footswitch jack; what a novel idea!"Slaving?" I just love marketing departments.

• Rear Chassis Interior View
  Actually, the wiring looks pretty good, even though one resistor is partially disconnected.

• Front Chassis Interior View
  Quite a mixture of pots. This thing just screams proto.

• Preamp PCB Close-Up View
  I had thought this amp's having a PCB was odd, but a friend pointed out that other SC models used PCBs as well: the Studio 20 (probably built for SC by Elpico); the Mark 3 ST50 PA; and the DMI-era PA 200R (which had transistorized preamps). Also, and by this time, even Dave Reeves was using PCBs in his Hiwatts, so... no big deal I guess.

Mark 5 120 Number 006

• Front Panel View
  A standby switch has been added from Number 001.

• Chassis Top View
  The preamp tubes are installed in this example.

• Rear Panel View (SN Plate)
  Makes you wonder how many prototypes of this amp are out there.

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