Elk Schematics

Elk amplifiers were manu­factured by the Japanese Miyuki Ind. Co. who started out in 1953 making amplifiers. The looks and features certainly were in­spired by the Fender amplifiers of the day, but the circuits were quite different and original though. The original brand name was Echo. In the early 60’s Miyuki started making pro quality guitars under the brand name of Elk and later changed the brand name of the amplifiers to Elk as well. In the transistion period the “new” Elk logo had a small Echo beneath it.

Miyuki also used the Luxor and Royal brand names for some of their amps in Europe.

In 1969 there was a big fire in the factory, burning many amps and guitars. Quite a shock for the people who worked there.

The later Elk amps had solid state preamps and tube power amps to become completely solid state amps in the end.

I’ve been researching the history of Elk for some time now. It looks like that Miyuki stopped manufacturing the Elk amps at some point in time (probably early 1970’s) and that Gakki took the brand name over. That is probably the same Gakki as in Hoshino Gakki the manu­facturer of Ibanez amps and guitars. If you look at the 1974 Ibanez Accessories Catalog pages 19 to 22, you can see the Ibanez Stage Master and Viking (and other) line of amps. These are identical to the Elk amps of the time. The Stage Master amps look great, but are completely solid state.

The Elk brand was also used for some guitar effects. Gakki made an almost identical clone of the EHX BigFuzz, calling it a Super Fuzz Sustainar. The Elk brand was eventually “phased out” in the late 1970’s.

The Elk and Echo amps from the 1960’s used Atlas oil caps as coupling caps. These will need replacing these days after 60+ years of service, as they will very likely be leaky or are going to leak pretty soon. By leaky I mean electrically leaky! They won’t be physically leaking oil.

Elk article. Japanese Elk partial magazine article. It looks like some sort of timeline stating which models were introduced in which years.

Can anyone translate this to english?

ES-30, Stageman 30

This 15W combo was fitted with 2x 6BQ5 (EL84), 3x 12AX7 (ECC83), 1x 6AQ8 (ECC85) and 1x 6CA4 (EZ81). It was fitted with a 12″ AlNiCo speaker.

Schematic of the Stageman 30

Photograph of an Elk Stage-Man combo.

EL-30, Custom Amp 30

This amp was fitted with 2x 6BQ5 (EL84), 3x 12AX7 (ECC83), 1x 6AQ8 (ECC85) and 1x 6CA4 (EZ81). I’ve heard that the accompanying speaker cabinet housed two 4Ω 10″ speakers.

Photograph of an Elk Custom Amp 30 top on its speaker cabinet.

Photograph of an Elk Custom Amp 30 top.

EB-207S, Custom Amp 45

Photograph of an Elk Custom Amp 45 top.

EL-50, Custom Amp 50

Photograph of an Elk Custom Amp 50 top.

EB-213, Custom Amp 60, 60W top.

This amp was fitted with 2x 6CA7 (EL34), 4x 12AX7 (ECC83), 1x 6AQ8 (ECC85) and 1x 5AR4 (GZ34). This top was often seen residing on a 3x 12″ speaker cabinet.

Photograph of an Elk Custom Amp 60 top.

EB-213S, Custom Amp 75

This amp was fitted with 2x 6CA7 (EL34), 4x 12AX7 (ECC83), 1x 6AQ8 (ECC85) and 1x 5AR4 (GZ34). It has a 2.7Ω output to match with its 3x 12″ Elk speaker cabinet.

Photograph of an Elk Custom Amp 75 top. (Thanx to Dick Sikkema).

EL-150L, Custom 150L

No info on this amp yet.

EL-150S, Custom 150S

No info on this amp yet.

EB-102, Echo-Sonic, 2x 6″ 5W combo

This small 5W combo amp was fitted with one 6CA4 (EZ81) rectifier, one 6BQ5 (EL84) power tube, one 6AN8, two 12AX7 (ECC83) preamp tubes and two 6″ Alnico speakers.

Photograph of an Elk EB-102 Echo-Sonic amp. (Thanx to John Cassidy).

EB-103, Pro-Sonic, 2x 12″ combo

The power amp section is fitted with 2x EL84’s so it’s probably a 15W or 20W amp.

Photograph of an Echo EB-103 Pro-Sonic amp.

EB-103S, Pro-Sonic, 2x 12″ combo

The power amp section is fitted with 2x EL84’s so it’s probably a 15W or 20W amp.

Photograph of an Elk EB-103S Pro-Sonic amp.

ES-60, Pro-Sonic, 2x 12″ combo

No info on this amp yet.

EB-105, Guitar Man, 45W 4x 10″ combo

This 4x 10″ combo uses the same amp chassis as the EB-202 Twin Amp 45. It was fitted with 2x 6CA7 (EL34), 4x 12AX7 (ECC83), 1x 6AQ8 (ECC85) and 1x 5AR4 (GZ34).

EB-105s, Guitar Man, 45W 2x 12″ combo

This 2x 12″ combo uses the same amp chassis as the EB-202 Twin Amp 45. It was fitted with 2x 6CA7 (EL34), 4x 12AX7 (ECC83), 1x 6AQ8 (ECC85) and 1x 5AR4 (GZ34). It has a 4Ω output to match its two 12″ 8Ω speakers.

Photograph of an Elk Guitar-Man 2x 12″ combo. (Thanx to Dick Sikkema).

EB-202S, Guitar Man 50 combo

No info on this amp yet.

EB-202, Twin Amp 45

This amp was fitted with 2x 6CA7 (EL34), 4x 12AX7 (ECC83), 1x 6AQ8 (ECC85) and 1x 5AR4 (GZ34). It has a 4Ω output to match its 2x 12″ 4Ω cabinet.

EB-202S, Twin Amp 50

This amp was fitted with 2x 6CA7 (EL34), 4x 12AX7 (ECC83), 1x 6AQ8 (ECC85) and 1x 5AR4 (GZ34). It has a 4Ω output. Apparently this used to be the Twin Amp 45 but I guess Twin Amp 50 sold better.

Schematic of the Twin Amp 50. (Thanx to H. Wessels, PA2HWG).

Photograph of an Elk Twin Amp 50 top.

EB-202S, Twin Amp 60

This amp was fitted with 2x 6CA7 (EL34), 4x 12AX7 (ECC83), 1x 6AQ8 (ECC85) and 1x 5AR4 (GZ34).

Photograph of an Elk Twin Amp 60 top.

VK-50, Viking 50

Photograph of an Elk Viking 50 top. (Thanx to Mark).

VK-60, Viking 60

The VK-60 cabinet for this top is a 2x 12″ 4Ω cabinet.

Photograph of an Elk VK-60 cabinet. (Thanx to Dick Sikkema).

VK-100, Viking 100

Photograph of an Elk Viking 100 top on its cabinet.

VK-100S, Viking 100S

Photograph of an Elk Viking 100s top on its cabinet.

VKB-100, Viking Bass 100

This amp was fitted with 4x 6CA7 (EL34), 1x 12AX7 (ECC83) and 1x 6BQ8 (EL84). It’s quite an odd design with an interstage transformer as a phase inverter and its dual 4Ω 50W output transformers.

Schematic of the VKB-100, Viking Bass 100. (Thanx to Joe “Fire” Dudzik).

Photograph of an Elk Viking Bass 100 top. (Thanx to Rikkert Gordijn).

Photograph of an Elk Viking Bass 100 top.

VKB-135, Viking Bass 135

No info on this amp yet.

Vocal HiFi 80

This was a 6 channel microphone mixer amplifier. It was fitted with 2x 6CA7 (EL34).

Photograph of an Elk Vocal Hifi 80.

Obviously information on the Echo & Elk brands and the amps is scarce. If you have any material you would like to share, it would be most welcome ofcourse!