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Is this a Hazlab pre?

Basstovsky

Basstovsky

Stuck on those 4-strings
Feb 29, 2008
3,144
1,005
Massachusetts
www.last.fm
#1
So I bought a 9V EQ off ebay, the guy had no information about it whatsoever but I was just looking for something to put in my Ibanez beater, when I got it I realized it really reminded me of those older Spector pre's, the Hazlab. Its definitely 2-band Volume Blend Treble Bass. Part of the battery holder has been hacked off and the 9V plug needs resoldering, but everything seems functional.

DSC00782.gif


DSC00783.gif


DSC00784.gif


As far as I can tell looking at it from the last pic here, the left is blend, bottom is volume, and the top and right are the 2 EQ knobs.

Maybe this is a copy? Anyone know how to tell or maybe I'm just crazy and its just some random junk. :ninja:
 
#4
Kramer Era Korean Haz Copy. Common in the Korean-made Spector Basses from 1986-late 1989... the last Korean-made Spectors actually had USA *Haz Spector Circuits in them.

This probably came out of a NS-2A or NS-2B Korean-Made Spector Bass.

On the side with the insultation cover (the knob side), does it have "Kramer" stamped on it?
 
#5
Also... I forget this... this is important.
The NS-2A/B Haz copy (and we don't call it a Haz or Hazlab... they are the vendor that makes it to Stuart's specifications... it's referred to as the SPECTOR® USA 9v Tone Control™)... the Korean Kramer copy is for PASSIVE pups. So look at the volume pots.
They will be 500K pots if this is the Korean version.
Which also means you can't use this board with active pups unless you remove the 500K pots from the board and install 25K pots as required by Active EMG pups.
Not impossible but a delicate procedure. You need to be really good with a soldering iron.
It's not junk at all. It has a nice warm tone. With the right pups it's one of the major components to creating (the SPECTOR® Sound).
 
#6
Well the junk comment if this was NOT the spector preamp and if not it was probably random junk this guy had. Now that I took off the insulated part I can see over the battery holder is where it would have listed info, but since someone chopped the end off it just says

_Spect
E2-003

So obviously it would have said Spector had it not had that bit chopped off. The volume pot is 500K, the 2 EQ knobs are 100K, and the balancer pot says 25K.

Regardless it just barely doesn't fit in the bass I was gonna put it in, the knobs are in the same diamond shape and spacing, just tilted. Rather than the top and bottom of the diamond being aligned vertically like on a spector, each pair of knobs (volume tone volume tone) are aligned vertically. Unfortunately it is in such a way I can't trim the board or rout out a bit of my control cavity to make it fit.
 
#8
JPSBassist said:
Also... I forget this... this is important.
The NS-2A/B Haz copy (and we don't call it a Haz or Hazlab... they are the vendor that makes it to Stuart's specifications... it's referred to as the SPECTOR® USA 9v Tone Control™)... the Korean Kramer copy is for PASSIVE pups. So look at the volume pots.
They will be 500K pots if this is the Korean version.
Which also means you can't use this board with active pups unless you remove the 500K pots from the board and install 25K pots as required by Active EMG pups.
Not impossible but a delicate procedure. You need to be really good with a soldering iron.
Click to expand...

Are you sure about this? Unless I'm misunderstanding your post, a selling point of the NS2A is you can drop in active pickups. Says so right in the 1988 catalog I have. I'm not sure on the pots for the board, as my NS2A is in the shop, but I have (and many others have) just had active EMG's dropped right in.
 
#10
So...any way to nail down exactly what it is?

Since I can't currently use it I'm setting it aside, but seeing as how my finances are I may have to sell it or trade it off if I don't end up using it, and it might find better use by someone restoring an old spector or something anyways.
 
#11
NS2A said:
Are you sure about this? Unless I'm misunderstanding your post, a selling point of the NS2A is you can drop in active pickups. Says so right in the 1988 catalog I have. I'm not sure on the pots for the board, as my NS2A is in the shop, but I have (and many others have) just had active EMG's dropped right in.
Click to expand...

I ended up taking the one out of my NS-2A (the one I had coverted to a fretless) and I put a new TonePump in it.

There was an issue with the pots and the newer EMGs. I had a brand new (in the box) set of EMG P/J's and once wired in, there wasn't enough juice to power the board and the pups... the signal was really weak and distorted.

We put the passives back on that board. Wham! It sounded great again. The only thing we could figure was the impedence ratings on the pots as recommended by EMG (25K for the actives) whereas those old Kramer boards have 500K pots in them... or at least the one in my NS-2A did.

Not saying there weren't variations. Kramer was notorious for that.

And many of the NS-2A's brought into the USA the last 6 months they were in business (late 1989 to March 1990 when they closed their doors) had real USA 9v circuits stuffed into them.

I'm just going by my first-hand experience (my NS-2A is a late 1988 early 1989 model... number 6171). Really it's no joke when I say that anything is possible with the Kramer models.
 
#13
Basstovsky said:
So...any way to nail down exactly what it is?

Since I can't currently use it I'm setting it aside, but seeing as how my finances are I may have to sell it or trade it off if I don't end up using it, and it might find better use by someone restoring an old spector or something anyways.
Click to expand...

Yeah sorry I could be of more help.

I gave the one out of my NS-2A to a friend for his ReBop bass. He installed it... didn't like it (it wasn't powerful enough for his tastes) and I think he sold it to someone else.

I know they are good boards... but like anything that's 4 or 5 generations removed from the current technology (and 20+ years old), you have to have a need/want of it to be able to use it.

Best of luck to you.
 
#14
NS2A said:
Are you sure about this? Unless I'm misunderstanding your post, a selling point of the NS2A is you can drop in active pickups. Says so right in the 1988 catalog I have. I'm not sure on the pots for the board, as my NS2A is in the shop, but I have (and many others have) just had active EMG's dropped right in.
Click to expand...
JPSBassist said:
I ended up taking the one out of my NS-2A (the one I had coverted to a fretless) and I put a new TonePump in it.

There was an issue with the pots and the newer EMGs. I had a brand new (in the box) set of EMG P/J's and once wired in, there wasn't enough juice to power the board and the pups... the signal was really weak and distorted.

We put the passives back on that board. Wham! It sounded great again. The only thing we could figure was the impedence ratings on the pots as recommended by EMG (25K for the actives) whereas those old Kramer boards have 500K pots in them... or at least the one in my NS-2A did.

Not saying there weren't variations. Kramer was notorious for that.

And many of the NS-2A's brought into the USA the last 6 months they were in business (late 1989 to March 1990 when they closed their doors) had real USA 9v circuits stuffed into them.

I'm just going by my first-hand experience (my NS-2A is a late 1988 early 1989 model... number 6171). Really it's no joke when I say that anything is possible with the Kramer models.
Click to expand...


FWIW, I dropped an old set of active EMG JJ's into one of my NS2A's that had some kind of Haz or Haz copy pre and it was a major improvement in tone and volume. No mods other than running the wire for the active JJ's to the battery.
(Did you remember to do this on yours, JPS? ;))

Fretless conversion also. The smudge on the (whole new/ebony) fingerboard is camera glare:
SpectorNS2AFretless.jpg
 
#18
Finally got to hear this preamp, and I was definitely impressed. I opened up my Millennium 5 (import version, passive J pickups) desoldered the pickup wires from the harness, and soldered it to the leads on the Spector 9V tone control here, and I was surprised how organic and warm it sounded. (You weren't kidding JPS!)

Most of the Spectors I've heard were around the time when tonepumps were in, and sounded somewhat crisp, with overboosted mids (which worked on a lot of recordings, but not quite my style). This Spector preamp didn't have any of that 'too-digital' coldness I've found with most active preamps, and is now one of 2 preamps I can say are very natural sounding (the other being the Aguilar OBP-3 currently in the Peavey I tested this in), and now I know I just gotta play an actual Spector with one of these in it. :bassist: And I'm definitely interested in hearing if this preamp can take out that "too crisp" sound I've found with most EMG pickups.

I'm probably (since now I'm sure it works, and it works great) going to be putting this up in the classifieds at some point in the near future. I have no basses it fits in, but perhaps I can put the money towards getting myself one of the Korean spectors that used one of these :D
 

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