Paul Stanley

Paul's amp heads are described as "...loosely based on the R. Blackmore model, but powered with EL84s instead of the stock 5881s" in this Premier Guitar rig rundown.

Paul Stanley uses the Randall Colossus Head, a signature model amp head, as verified by a listing on PicClick FR.

A picture of Paul Stanley at age sixteen in his childhood bedroom with a red Gibson SG and ‘65 Fender Twin Reverb Amp. In a 1979 Guitar Player interview Paul was asked, “Is it true that you used to use empty speaker cabinets onstage in the old days just to look impressive?”

“Yep.” Paul responded.

“That is part of the show?”

“Yes. When I couldn’t afford a Marshall—I was dead broke—I had a great pre-CBS Fender Twin amp, and I took the brains out of it and built a little cabinet for it, like a Marshall-type cabinet, and I bought two speaker bottoms that were from Holland. They were called Marquis, and they looked very similar to Marshall’s. The only problem was that they were made out of thick, really chintzy fiberboard, and they sounded rotten. It sounded like we were playing through cardboard boxes with speakers in them. But they looked great. We were playing clubs with 80 people, and we had what looked like a wall of amps.”

Stanley’s amp runs though a Marshall 4x12 guitar cab with V30 speakers. According to his tech (21:16), “they're newer cabs with just vintage 30 speakers in it. We run two. This head runs into a 4x12 that's in an IsoBox. That way the sound's consistent every day. It's controlled, we get the same sound.”

As seen in this Marshall advertisement found on Pinterest.

As seen on this Marshall ad found on Pinterest.

In this YouTube video recorded in Paul’s home, Paul can be seen playing through this amp starting at the 1:58 mark.

In this guitar player interview from 1979 Paul was asked, “What kind of amp are you using?”

“Marshall, a hundred-watt head. The people at Marshall have been really good to us for the most part. I think the days of equipment being given to you have passed. They don’t give us any stuff, but they service our equipment for us, and they keep everything in really good shape. Last year on tour I was using two stacks—two heads through either two bottoms or four bottoms, depending on the situation. For the biggest places I may have 10 or 15 hundred watt Marshalls with 20 Marshall speaker cabinets—four 12s in each.

“Are they stock?”

“Yes. They’re just really well kept. I’ve used the new Marshall heads, which have two inputs as opposed to four. I was using those on my new solo album. They sound very good.”

In a YouTube video of KISS performing "Black Diamond" live on the Midnight Special in 1975, the Marshall Plexi 1959SLP amplifier can be seen behind Paul Stanley at the 0:48 mark, confirming its use by the artist during the performance.