All user reviews for the Polytone Mini Brute

Guitar Center. 600 dollars US

Great sound, extremely portable - you dont have to be a weight lifter to move it around. All around great jazz instrument.

This unit suffered from one major defect - poor construction.
The layout of the packaging of the parts was fine, but after the unit kept blowing fuses and wasnt working, I opened it up.

I found that one of the two power amplifier modules (power transistor mounted on a heat sink) was actually not bolted to the chasis frame. It was actually floating around in the unit, which is why the red wire broke off from the transistor pin. I resoldered it and took the whole unit apart and properly mounted it to the chasis ( the screws and locknuts were found also floating around in there).

I should not have had to do this. In an otherwise fine unit, someone who put it together either forgot to do the complete job. Quality control should have picked this up.

This unit, like many others was most likely assembled or built offshore to save money.
If guitar amplifier companies are going to do this (which I dont like anyway) at least make sure the job is done right.

See above comment on what I dont like about the unit.
Otherwise it is constructed well enough.


Great instrument with major assembly flaw.
Wise up!

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com