Vintage Fender power cords/red ends? and CTS speaker question

[gbazinet]

New amp day! Just bought an early 70's Fender Bassman Ten. 50 watts no mid control on the left channel. Love the amp and am suprised they get a bad reputation here on the TB forum... After playing my SVT it is refreshing to have an amp you can crank up to ten for some grind but not kill your hearing. Most likely my new recording amp!

Anyway, my question is really about power cords on these silver face fenders. I noticed that my Bassman and Twin have red cord ends. Is this a stock feature? If so is there a specific period of time that fender used them?

Just curious since i have not seen it mentioned before when trying to date one of these amps.

Also! i read somewhere that some of the Bassman Tens had CTS speakers stock. I believe the speakers in this amp are 32 ohms. So would this make them the same CTS speakers used in a vintage Ampeg square back cab?

[johnk_10]

yep, they had red ends on all the 70's silverface models and many of the 80's ones too. they came OEM that way.

[gbazinet]

Thanks John. Any thought on the speakers?

[christw]

Get the codes off of them and it won't take long to find out. Try using this: http://www.webervst.com/acodes.html

[johnk_10]

the bassman 10's that i've owned (four of them) had four ceramic 32 ohm CTS speakers in them wired in parallel for an 8 ohm load.

Prowess Amplifiers - Fender - Schematics - Bassman 10

the 32 ohm CTS 10's in vintage SVT's were alnico:

2 vintage 1970 Alnico 10" Ampeg SVT bass guitar speaker | eBay

so IMO, they are not the same speakers, but would probably sound really good in an SVT cab.

[gbazinet]

The codes in mine started with 465. Seems as though they are blue Fender label Oxfords.