Concert Amp

[Jeff Scott]

Joe Osborn was right in using one of these, they sound great. I bought a 1962 Concert Amp today; it sounds amazingly good with the 4-10s, and even much better through my LDS 2126.

[dhsierra1]

those are beautiful amps, good score

Please be careful, though, w/those 49 y/o 10" speakers when you're pumping bass through them, Joe (and Carol) could do it back in the day in the studio but as you know, things age

Very good idea putting the amp through your LDS cab.

What's the wattage on those? If memory serves that's a 2-6L6 power section (no idea how big the output iron is relative to the other models) so that should be in the 40-50 watt range, plenty to do elegant damage w/efficient speakers

[dhsierra1]

pictures?

[Jeff Scott]

The original speakers are long gone, there are some Mojo Tone speakers in it. 5881, so supposedly 40 watts. I have a gig tomorrow during the day, I will try and do some quick pics tomorrow evening, if I remember.

[dhsierra1]

sounds about right re watts, you're fine re spkrs, pity the originals are gone but that's OK, so many nice choices these days

Under these circumstances could even reload w/some drivers more bass friendly if you like but that's another can of worms.....

Good luck w/gig, looking forward to some more pics

[Jeff Scott]

As far as I can tell, the amp has been restored to great working order. Probably this week I will take the chassis out and examine the work. The cabinet might have been recovered/regrilled as it is in excellent condition, which is fine by me as it looks great in the rough blond Tolex and Oxblood grillcloth; I am not interested in a collector amp as I will gig with it. The knobs are probably not original as they are white instead of brown, in the correct style, was this something they may have been available with? I understand that there was a special run of white Concert Amps, perhaps this is one of them? Just to clear, this is a brownface era amp, not the later blackface version.

Something I may do is have a headcase made for the chassis to use with either of my LDS cabs (the other is my 286 2-8 cab), then I will store the cabinet to keep it looking wonderful.

I thought about different speakers but whatever these MT speakers are they can do the B string on my Martin Keith basses justice, I was amazed when I heard this nice, deep, smooth, clear tone come out of the amp when I first tried it at the store with both a G&L Tribute L-2500 and a fretless Yamaha TRB 5 string bass. I can see why these worked well for recording.

[dhsierra1]

Originally Posted by Jeff Scott

Something I may do is have a headcase made for the chassis to use with either of my LDS cabs (the other is my 286 2-8 cab), then I will store the cabinet to keep it looking wonderful.

This is a great idea

If the spkrs are holding up to your low B then why mess w/a good thing? But for gigging you'll likely need the efficiency and low end from a proper cab, it's frightening how loud 50 watts can get under the right conditions. Unless of course you're in an acoustic gig or recording, sounds like you're good to go there as is. Options are good

Not sure on the correct knob colors etc for the early Tolex series, but you can find out and swap them out for the correct ones easily enough if that's important to you, lots of repro ones out there.

[Jeff Scott]

I don't think the open back cab would sound good enough cranked up, but at moderate volume it is great sounding.

As to the knobs, I love the way it looks with the vintage white knobs, they are staying!

[1958Bassman]

Originally Posted by Jeff Scott

As far as I can tell, the amp has been restored to great working order. Probably this week I will take the chassis out and examine the work. The cabinet might have been recovered/regrilled as it is in excellent condition, which is fine by me as it looks great in the rough blond Tolex and Oxblood grillcloth; I am not interested in a collector amp as I will gig with it. The knobs are probably not original as they are white instead of brown, in the correct style, was this something they may have been available with? I understand that there was a special run of white Concert Amps, perhaps this is one of them? Just to clear, this is a brownface era amp, not the later blackface version.

Something I may do is have a headcase made for the chassis to use with either of my LDS cabs (the other is my 286 2-8 cab), then I will store the cabinet to keep it looking wonderful.

I thought about different speakers but whatever these MT speakers are they can do the B string on my Martin Keith basses justice, I was amazed when I heard this nice, deep, smooth, clear tone come out of the amp when I first tried it at the store with both a G&L Tribute L-2500 and a fretless Yamaha TRB 5 string bass. I can see why these worked well for recording.

Leo used what he had in stock, so it's entirely plausible that the knobs are original. Some black face amps even came with white knobs and if you ask me, they look better than the numbered ones. I have a Tweed Bassman and have been playing my Ibanez fretless through it- the speakers are Eminence RI, which I got when I bought the Fender RI cabinet in about '91. It sounds great and if you decide to look for alternatives to the Mojo speakers, the blue frame Eminence is a good way to go.

[Jeff Scott]

Thanks for that info 1958Bassman.

Here are a couple of quicky photos I did; look past the dust, I have not had the chance to clean the amp up after it sitting in the store for a few years. Plus, I have been having too much fun playing through it to take it apart for a good clean up.

[Caca de Kick]

Nice score. For that certain sound they do work great. I have a '63 black face that I use on occasion, mostly for just when we're doing stuff with acoustic guitars. It has three original speakers but the cab doesn't appreciate being cranked trying to keep up with electric guitars, but I have plugged it into my 810 and it still sounds great and works suprisingly good. I always said this nails the Bill Black sound.

As far as doing a check up; I chased buzzes for several years in this amp. I did a cap job, 3-prong cord, and installed new power and standby switches. It ended up it had cracked solder joints that wouldn't rear it's ugly head until it was cookin'. Once I finally discovered them I went with a magnafying glass looking and re-flowing any questionable solder joints and it's been noise free since.

[Jeff Scott]

Cool bass with matching finger rest!

I think the amp has already been serviced/updated with new caps, etc.; it sports a 3 prong power cord and the amp is super quiet once the crappy Mesa/Boogie tubes have warmed up a bit. I do plan on replacing all the tubes at some point, the 5881s are Mesa as well as most of the preamp tubes, a few are Fender branded but probably modern ones.

Are the two channels on yours voiced differently from each other? The Normal channel on mine has a more pronounced mid bass bump, whereas the Vibrato channel is slightly scooped in the mids, making for nice tonal choices. Something I am playing with is using a short patch cable to connect the two channels together; they are out of polarity with each other, but depending on how i have each channel's volume control set relative to the other I can get some very cool and useful sounds out of the amp.

[pgk]

be very careful using that head with different cabinets. all concert/super reverbs are a 2ohm load and i don't know of any new cabinets that come pre-wired that way. with a 4ohm load you won't really "hurt" anything, but be aware that you're only getting about 2/3rds the power and punch that the amp is capable of. you'll beat up your output tubes a little bit but your trannies will be safe. killer bass amp btw!

[Jeff Scott]

No problem. I'll connect my two LDS cabs to it then, they are each 4Ω. This should sound pretty killer.