What's the funniest/most useless amp or music product you've ever seen?

[Freight Train]

There was all kinds of wack stuff out there 1940's thru early 70's, but still manufacturers can come up with insane ideas even today. The craziest thing I ever saw was in Dallas in 1966 or 67 there was an event called "Teen Fair", which was kinda like a big trade show for kids - everything from musical equipment to clothing or whatever, with all of the major music manufacturers being there with big booths. Well, some company, I want to say it was Plush (Plush made the button-and-tufted amps to compete with Kustom's roll-and-pleated look) was showing a monster amp that covered the entire band - it was guitar amp, bass amp, organ amp and p.a. all in one. From memory this thing had to be 6' tall and probably 12' wide or more. Not sure if it was just a bit they did for shows, or if they actually tried to market it, but the thing worked 'cause at one point during the day they had a band set up and play through it. I've googled all over the place and can't find anything about it.

The craziest thing that I would love to see would be John Paul Jones' first amp, which he says he took an old TV with a tube amp in it and mounted a baffle with a 15" speaker in place of the picture tube. Now that would be a collector's item!

[bassbully]

Behringer Ultrabass setting on their bass heads and the Sonic maximizer pedal

[lug]

The 2nd cab on a Marshall stack.

[Freight Train]

Originally Posted by lug

The 2nd cab on a Marshall stack.

+1 on that! I was also going to say the first bass cab with a tweeter in it, but I didn't want to get a lot of flack. Oops! Did I say that out loud?

[paparoof]

Lately?

This: Ernie Ball Gig Bag with Onboard Marshall Amp | GuitarCenter

[Bass Unique]

In the Hi Fi world, in the late 80's there was a small "puck" made of Indian blackwood with a small hole drilled in the edge.

It was supposedly mounted on top of your speaker cabinet and you fine tuned the stereo "image" by twisting the puck pointing the hole in the direction that you wanted the sound fine tuned.

Although it sound crazy, (it is), the mad reviewers at the time reported they did find some audible difference in the sound but could not explain it.

It is amazing how marketing something totally mad and with a review can make it sell and that a psychological effect can be so powerful.

In the Hi Fi world, it needs to be expensive for people to take it seriously. If it is too cheap it is labelled a budget product. Add a few hundred quid to the price, it is "mid price" and then it is taken seriously enough that sales increase....

Still that was all before the music industry has pushed compress sound formats so much that quality has actually dropped since the good old days. Bring back the vinyl and tubes if you ask me (I still use them!)

[I<34080]

Originally Posted by Freight Train

The craziest thing that I would love to see would be John Bonham's first amp

John Bonham used an amp?

[Codger]

Kinda diggin' on Shakti Stones. The Bedini Clarifier is also right up there.

[billfitzmaurice]

Audio & Video Tweaks - Room Acoustics, Vibration Isolation, Damping, Crystals

[Freight Train]

Originally Posted by I<34080

John Bonham used an amp?

WOOOOPS!!!! Did I really say that? JPJ, of course. May the bass Gods forgive me.

[Crater]

Originally Posted by lug

The 2nd cab on a Marshall stack.

Oh, I disagree with you here. I was in a band once, d00d had a Marshall half-stack (head + 1 cab). He eventually got a 2nd cab, and it actually made the sound more spread out and less punishing and piercing to my ears in our tiny practice room. 2nd cab for a marshall is 100% winsauce, in my experience.

Fender used to sell (maybe they still do) a "thingy" that clamped on the headstock and was supposed to improve a guitar's sustain. It was called the Fat Finger I believe.

There have been all kind of equipment fads that have gone the way of steam trains. In the 80's, there were lots of guitars with coil-splitting and phase switching for pickups, you hardly ever see those on modern guitars (because they're pretty useless). HIGH powered guitar combos? Music Man HD-212 (150 watts), Fender "Super Twin" - 180 watts. With modern PA systems, guitar amps are mic'd and no one wants to lug around a 100+ watt tube guitar combo amp, and used prices reflect this. A used Deluxe Reverb (22 watts) is generally worth as much or more used than a Twin Reverb (100 watts)

[Freight Train]

Originally Posted by Bass Unique

In the Hi Fi world, in the late 80's there was a small "puck" made of Indian blackwood with a small hole drilled in the edge.

It was supposedly mounted on top of your speaker cabinet and you fine tuned the stereo "image" by twisting the puck pointing the hole in the direction that you wanted the sound fine tuned.

Although it sound crazy, (it is), the mad reviewers at the time reported they did find some audible difference in the sound but could not explain it.

It is amazing how marketing something totally mad and with a review can make it sell and that a psychological effect can be so powerful.

In the Hi Fi world, it needs to be expensive for people to take it seriously. If it is too cheap it is labelled a budget product. Add a few hundred quid to the price, it is "mid price" and then it is taken seriously enough that sales increase....

Still that was all before the music industry has pushed compress sound formats so much that quality has actually dropped since the good old days. Bring back the vinyl and tubes if you ask me (I still use them!)

Love it! And of course they had to be made of wood or otherwise your improved image would be brittle sounding.
The most Rube Goldberg product I've seen a guy brought into a tape recorder specialty shop I worked in mid 70's. His company had designed a cassette dictation machine that had an adjustable threshold where it would first quickly pause and release to remove spaces between words, but then could be adjusted to where it would eliminate vowels! You can imagine what a workout that cassette transport was getting, and how unreliable the thing must have been. We played with it some and at the higher settings your voice recording would be just a constant string of guttural sounds. He claimed they had worked with stenographers and court reporters and after a few days they could understand the recordings, thereby being able to listen to an hours worth of dictation in less than 15 minutes. That's a wacky idea for a digital recording, much less trying to pull it off with a mechanical transport.

[rapidfirerob]

Before I purchased a decent surround sound system, I bought a surround sound simulator, the name of which I can't recall, very silly.

[Exxcell]

Originally Posted by Crater

There have been all kind of equipment fads that have gone the way of steam trains. In the 80's, there were lots of guitars with coil-splitting and phase switching for pickups, you hardly ever see those on modern guitars (because they're pretty useless). HIGH powered guitar combos? Music Man HD-212 (150 watts), Fender "Super Twin" - 180 watts. With modern PA systems, guitar amps are mic'd and no one wants to lug around a 100+ watt tube guitar combo amp, and used prices reflect this. A used Deluxe Reverb (22 watts) is generally worth as much or more used than a Twin Reverb (100 watts)

I had a band mate who had a 300watt 2x12 combo guitar amp. What a d.bag.

Lol

Or 'Select Tone' on the old Kasino amps. Provides huge tonal variety. At low levels.

[CraigTB]

Originally Posted by billfitzmaurice

Audio & Video Tweaks - Room Acoustics, Vibration Isolation, Damping, Crystals

Oh my goodness. First I laughed, then I got mad, then I got sad.

Then I saw this and laughed some more



Yep. Buy 4 bags of pretty pebbles for 100 bucks and tape them to your cables. Guaranteed to open your sound up.

[JimmyM]

$100+ AC cables.

[CL400Peavey]

Originally Posted by JimmyM

$100+ AC cables.

They are worth it if you are using them to power a SVT...

[JimmyM]

LOL! Hardly. I use a $10 AC cable to power mine. Got one a little thicker than most. Works fine. The $100 power cable I tried made no difference.

Just in case anyone actually took you seriously

[paparoof]

Originally Posted by JimmyM

LOL! Hardly. I use a $10 AC cable to power mine

and you paid about $9 too much for it.

[CL400Peavey]

Originally Posted by JimmyM

LOL! Hardly. I use a $10 AC cable to power mine

yep. I have one I took off of a computer that was made in the early '90's... Still works just fine.