| Musicman HD150 new (used) amp day
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Just picked up a used mint condition all original early 1980's Musicman One Fifty amp head. Lovin the sounds I can get out of this thing! It's a 150 watt 2 channel hybrid amp with a SS pre and a Tube power section (kinda reverse of what most hybrid's are). Channel one is for guitar and channel 2 for bass. It has a power cut switch that I think is supposed to cut the output power in half but I really don't notice much if any difference in 75watt or 150watt mode.
On the guitar side it simply kills. I can get a great clean Fender amp tone or leave the master volume low and crank the channel volume up to get a dead ringer Marshall fuzz/grind/distortion - even at bedroom volumes! Really plays well with my Les Paul humbuckers as well as my Strat single coils. And this thing loves pedals. Wish I had a preErnie Ball Sabre to try with it, maybe that's the next purchase.
On the bass channel it's very Ampeg in tone with maybe a little more growel and plenty loud for small venue and clubs. No fan means it should be a good SVT type tone option in the studio. I've run active and passive Jazz, Precision and Soapbars thru it and all sound fantastic, again very much like my SVT with less volume. Just plugged my preEB stingray in and wow - now I know how the bass was meant to sound.
Running the head thru a Bergantino HT-322 cab right now for both the guitar and bass channels but looking for a vintage Musicman guitar and bass cab to pair this up with.
For now, really enjoying it. These things are getting fairly hard to find but the price is dirt cheap compared to an Ampeg flip top or SVT plus you get the guitar channel to boot. If you see one for under $500 grab it, you wont be dissapointed. If anyone has any past or current experience with the Musicman HD150 head chime in (this is the one without the reverb, it's the dual guitar/bass head) they made other ones that were guitar only and had reverb.
Now, let's see - 2 vintage MM cabs (a 2x12 guitar and 1x15bass would be perfect) and a MM Sabre next on this aquisition list.
BTW - I know, no pic no amp. Sorry, my camera is shot, most likely a few weeks before a pic goes up. In the meantime I'm playing the heck outta this thing. |