Ok, so I just pulled this one out of storage, and thought I'd put it up here to see if there's any interest.
The best I can tell, this is a very early production Ampeg V4, SN 005320. It is in top working order, with lots new tubes in the pre, and a matched quartet of 6550's in the power section. Andrews Amp Lab in Atlanta also replaced several caps in the power section. The power cord was upgraded to a three prong, and the three switches on the front were replaced (the polarity switch is just a dummy, this feature, along with the "death cap" was removed with the addition of the power cable) This amp has very little hissing/noise. Everything works as it should, including the reverb tank.
Under the "Linden, NJ" label, you'll notice that it says "Patent Pending." This leads me to believe that this amp was probably among the first V4's to be manufactured, as I've never seen that printed before (not that I look at ALL the V4's on the internet, but I've seen several).
Previous owner installed a computer type cooling fan, and there is an on/off switch (as you can see in the pictures) for it on the back of the amp.
For a nearly 40 year old amp, I'd say it's in pretty good condition! A lot of the paint/labling on the front has worn off, and there are some rough spots on the tolex.
One thing to note, is that the previous owner removed some metal braces that hold the amp inside the headcase. For what reason, I cannot imagine, but it's quite unfortunate. So, Andrews Amp Lab also installed some right angle braces that do a perfectly fine job holding the amp in place.
Not an original specimin, for sure, but it's still very cool! This thing sounds great for bass! You can get awesome old school tones, or crank the gain and it really starts sounding mean.
Looking to get $575 shipped CONUSA SOLD
As a side note...
the Ampeg V4 was labeled and sold as a guitar amp, and the V4B was labeled and sold as a bass amp. Having said that, the two amps are extremely similar. The two most notable exceptions are the
a) addition of a reverb tank and additional reverb level knob on the front of the V4, neither of which the V4B has, and
b) the addition of a "Deep" switch on the bass pot for the V4B that the V4 does not have.
There has been a lot of discussion on Talkbass and other forums about this very issue, and to my knowledge there are no other confirmed differences between the V4 and V4B.
The best I was able to gather, the "Deep" switch is mostly a low pass filter; attenuating the highs and making the lows sounds louder. I could be wrong about this, though....
