Pawnshop find: Traynor Bassmaster

[Benton]

I have a head just like that. I use it for lots of different situations. I gig with it when I don't need lots of volume or have PA support. I also have used it for guitar and as a small PA. At low volume it is very high fi sounding but as it get turned up it goes nicely into distortion.

The price seems kind of high and have no experience with the cab. I also had to recap mine but it was very easy to work on. it is built tough.
Best of luck.
Ben

[snowblinder]

Awesome amps. Is that a YBA-1 or YBA-1A? The former is 45 watts and the latter is 90. As people have already said, they make great lower wattage bass amps, and are amazing for guitar. The circuit is apparently almost identical to the original Fender Bassman and Marshall JTM-45 plexi. I personally think the tone for guitar is somewhere between a Marshall plexi and a Hiwatt. Sounds really good (and loud) when cranked up. $799 is too much though for that setup, despite how clean it is. I got the same setup, albeit a little more roadworn, for $450 just a couple of years ago. The heads, on the higher side, never go for more than about $600, more often closer to $500. The Marsland speakers in the cabinets are nothing to write home about. With a couple of 400 watt EV-15L speakers or reasonable facsimiles in there though, it would probably make a stellar bass rig.

[Vincent P]

Great find; I would haggle the price and purchase if it were me. Great old school vibe, and built to last...

[Jeff Scott]

My first bass amp was a YBA-3, and I have also had a YSR-1, which was basically the same as a YBA-1 but with reverb and tremolo added; I used that amp for recording a bunch of songs in the early '80s with my old 4005WB into either a Bullfrog 2-12 guitar cabinet or a front loaded folded horn that i built in our theatre's scene shop at OSU that I put a JBL 2225 driver in. Great sound but don't expect tons of volume.

[derrico1]

I also had an old Traynor as one of my first amps. Not magical, but a nice tube amp.

+1 to that looking like an early 70's amp (I could be wrong about this, but either way I suppose it's unlikely to affect the value significantly).
+1 to the cab not being appealing.
+1 to paying ~ $400 (max) for the amp.

Compared to more modern gear, the head is bulky and modestly powered. (As others have said, I'd think about the head either as a studio piece or as a stage amp for guitar.) In terms of tone and sound-per-pound, I wouldn't bother with the cab.

[Thornton Davis]

The cabinet appears to be either a YC-610 or YC-15 (2x15). This rig is definately 1971 - 1974.

TD

[BassmanPaul]

As a word of caution, if you want clean and loud this is not the amp you want. As noted these do make good guitar amps but for bass, not so much. best thing is to try the amp and see if it can fill your needs.

If you decide to go for it you'll have to put some money into it. A recap, most likely, and some TLC from a tech. The Hammond transformers Pete Traynor used were way over spec'd so you should have no trouble with those.

Edit: The price is very high IMO for what the amp is.

[DWBass]

Looks like the first rig I ever owned my mom bought for me back in the early 70's. Most likely built in the late 60's.

[BassmanPaul]

When I first arrived in Canada and saw the brand name I thought they were for beginners. Sort of like Traynor wheels on push bikes!

[zortation]

When it comes to Traynor and bass, the monoblock II is considered the holy grail for clean, brute force BALLS...

. I wouldn't pay $800 for an 30-40 year old underpowered anything.

[jastacey]

That video of Glass Harp brought back memories of seeing them play at the Chesterland, Ohio Hullabaloo , Dan's bass rig was a Traynor YBA-3 with 2 810 cabinets .... he used that same rig when he moved on to play with the Michael Stanley Band

[GreaserMatt]

Tell us what you think!

[KrisHayes]

Great heads. Poor man's, Canadian made SVT, really.

[craig.p]

Back to the original OP, I had one of those rigs back when they were new. Purchased new. In terms of quality, the head was well built. The problem was, it didn't do much. It was weak, very "middy," and the tone controls did almost nothing meaningful. The cab was very light weight, which made it easy to move, but it ran out of steam early when used with a head with more power. I unloaded the cab at the first opportunity, but kept the head around as a spare. The only use it got in that role was when my (then) guitar player tipped over a Schlitz beer bottle and it leaked into his 50W Marshall and the head quit working, so we put the Traynor into service. It couldn't hold a candle to the Marshall. There were no more than a few dozen hours on the factory tubes, too. I guess that's the long way 'round to saying I wouldn't give you a dollar for that rig, unless I considered it a collectible and were buying it solely on that basis.

[DiabolusInMusic]

Very cool to see a Traynor that far south.

Traynor are a budget brand in Canada, they are the poor man's Ampeg in terms of sound. Somebody earlier in the thread compared them to Peavey which I would say is a proper description. You get a solid meat and potatoes amp for cheap, you don't get steak out of it, but it gets the job done. Long and McQuade, Canadian GC basically, makes Yorkville/Traynor in house, so it is the gear they push the most as they make the most off of it.

If you pay even $400 for the whole stack you are already paying the MOST I would expect anybody to pay for it, granted their gear is super common here, but you can get a used, current, top of the line Traynor rig for about what they are asking.

[Bulltrout]

Many Traynors are much better than just good - that particular amp is only a couple of capacitors different from the Marshall JTM45 circuit. It is a fantastic guitar amplifier but not their best bass amp.

[DWBass]

I found out quick how much power my rig lacked when I joined my first band! Complaints about not being able to hear me were abundant! Lack of quality gear cost me a nice gig while I was a teen! Other cats were using Acoustic & Sunn rigs running about 200w-250w (lots of power back then) into folded horn bass bins while I had a Univox POS bass into my Traynor rig! To add insult to injury, I think my amp wasn't grounded properly as I would get shocked on a regular basis! LOL

[Bulltrout]

Originally Posted by DWBass

I found out quick how much power my rig lacked when I joined my first band! Complaints about not being able to hear me were abundant! Lack of quality gear cost me a nice gig while I was a teen! Other cats were using Acoustic & Sunn rigs running about 200w-250w (lots of power back then) into folded horn bass bins while I had a Univox POS bass into my Traynor rig! To add insult to injury, I think my amp wasn't grounded properly as I would get shocked on a regular basis! LOL

What you needed was a YBA3A into two Big B cabinets.

[joelb79]

I have played through one of these at a loud open mic and it held its own. The whole rig was there just like this one in similar shape. My guitarist has stored it since in the basement. I was skeptical 50w and 2 old 15's would do anything but that rig was more than able to hold its own against 4 guitarists, 2 harmonicas and a loud drummer. You just couldn't get a modern tone out of it, it was more mids, mid lows and that's about it. For recording it might be great in a context of a song blended with a clean.

[Edword]

Originally Posted by Bulltrout

What you needed was a YBA3A into two Big B cabinets.

Hear, hear!