1965 Magnatone X-20 Typhoon
Magnatone built guitars for about a decade, but they made
little impact compared to the brand’s amplifiers and lap steels. The Mark series
of the ‘50s were never produced in large numbers, and the numbered models of the
early ‘60s are all quite rare. The most well-known Magnatone models are the
Starstream series, though even these were never manufactured on a large scale.
The Estey Organ Company purchased Magna Electronics in
1959, acquiring the Magnatone name and product lines with it. After a few years
continuing to outsource guitar production, Estey decided to move it in-house and
revise the guitar line in an attempt to increase sales. Paul Barth, who designed
the bulk of Magnatone’s previous guitars, was again hired to create the
Starstream models. Simultaneously, engineer Larry Ludwick was brought on board
to create the necessary tooling. Everything was set up at Estey’s factory in
Torrance, CA. Production started in late 1964, and it seems to have ceased by
the end of 1966.
Unlike previous Magnatone
guitars, all of which looked solid but in fact had large chambers inside the
body, the Starstream models were true solidbodies. Built of poplar with maple
necks, they were light in weight and easy to handle. Visually, they owed some
debt to Fender, especially the belly and arm contours, headstocks and vibrato
plates, but they never appeared to be straight copies. The X-20 Typhoon was the
top of the line with three pickups and four sliding switches; below it was the
two-pickup X-15 Tornado and ¾-scale X-5 Zephyr. Rounding out the lineup was the
X-10 Hurricane bass. They were initially available in sunburst, blue, red, black
sparkle, and white; black was replaced by green by 1966.
The Typhoon listed for $290, in the same range as a
Stratocaster at the time. While both guitars had three pickups, any electrical
resemblance between them ended there. The Typhoon’s circuitry ranks among the
most complex of any vintage guitar, to the point that the average guitarist
would find the switching arrangement highly unpredictable. The three sliders on
the treble side act as series/parallel, phase reversal, and on/off switches for
the pickups, sometimes adding capacitors to alter the sound further. This would
seem logical enough, but the fourth switch (on the bass-side horn) completely
re-wires the circuit so that the functions of the other three switches are
completely changed. This fourth switch is termed a “lead/rhythm” switch in the
catalog, but none of the switches
is a conventional pickup selector.
The pickups are rather unusual as well. The bridge and
neck pickups have bar magnets and adjustable screw poles, while the center
pickup uses an older Barth design of pin magnets underneath non-adjustable
poles. Due to the complexity of the switching, it’s never obvious which pickups
are active without tapping on each of them – and even then, it’s not obvious
whether any resistors are in the circuit. All three pickups are fairly
microphonic, to the point moving any of the switches sends an audible click
through the amplifier.
The hardware is innovative, if
not particularly revolutionary. The “Lever-Lock” vibrato allows the player to
anchor the arm by swiveling it into a ~45°
range marked on the base plate. Combined with the “rocker” bridge – an
interesting take on Fender’s “floating point” system – the vibrato is better at
keeping the guitar in tune than most of its contemporary units. There is no
conventional nut, but rather a zero fret and an adjustable string tree that
“prevents strings from jumping.” The “Tilt-Neck” system adjusts the neck angle
by the turning of a screw; this was not uncommon at the time, but Magnatone was
sufficiently proud of it to point it out using a sticker on the neck plate.
Due to the wide range of sounds available from the switching system, it’s
difficult to compare the Typhoon to other guitars. The pickups all have low to
moderate output, with more mid-range and less treble than most Fender guitars on
the loudest settings. Some settings resemble Rickenbacker solidbodies with
“toaster” pickups, others recall the “quack” of a Strat, and others are simply
unique. The neck is similar to older Magnatone models: it stays fairly narrow
toward the body, with a medium C profile. This particular guitar retains all its
original parts including the often-missing bridge cover.
