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Hey Doug, The SB-12 was originally designed as a Stand Up bass amp thus the SB in the model number. It does make a great blues guitar amp too with the exception of no reverb. Since the amp only does around 25 watts most 8 ohm 12" speakers rated at 50 watts and above will do well. The SB-12 originally came with a Jensen P12N with the alnico magnet. If you go the the Jensen website they give recommendations for replacements. I chose the C12N ferrite over the P12N because of cost. They both have about the same freq. curves, but the P12N was about the double the price and I had already dumped several hundred dollars into the restoration. Ampeg made 2 different versions of the SB-12. One uses 2 common 6L6GC tubes, and the other uses 2 - 7686 power tubes which are harder to come by. Mine has the 6L6 pair. Some disadvantages of this amp is the lack of a stand by switch , and lack of a regular speaker input jack on the cabinet. The speaker input contacts from the head are actually the latches that hold the head in place. You need to make sure that the latches are tight and make contact or else the amp will not like you. I had Nashville Amp install a stand by switch on my SB-12 and I may go ahead and install a separate speaker input on the cabinet and bypass the latches altogether.

I mainly use my 1967 SB-12 with my Fender Customshop '59 P-bass. It is strung up with flatwounds and I also dampen the strings at the bridge using a sponge. I run the amp with the bass full up, the treble full back, and the volume never above 12 oclock. I pretty much run it for that "old school" sound and it does real well in the studio. It tends to start distorting above 12 oclock - which is where it starts turning into a guitar players dream.

Here are a few pictures... sorry for the bad lighting.