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60's Solid State Bassman

squirefan

squirefan

Nov 22, 2009
476
353
64
Lansing, Ks.
#1
Hi TBers, I have an old solid state Bassman head and was wondering if anyone knew anything about them. I've had this thing for years and last time I plugged it in was probably 15-20years ago. It was noisy (hummed), but it worked. It also didn't seem very powerful and the overload light came on without turning it up much.
I'm taking it to rehearsal tomorrow night to just to check it out and will update the thread accordingly. I'm not set up to put up a pic yet but I'll work on that.
Anybody think it might have any vintage value? Thinking of getting rid of it but can find no info, nor anyone that even heard of one. The only thing I've seen was a copy of an ad in a Fender book, and the article stated that there was very little interest in them and production was only a year or two.
That's all I know about it. Any info will be appreciated.
Thanks.
 
#3
GeneralElectric said:
I had a Fender Bassman SP3100....... It was a piece of crap.
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+1

over the years, i had three of them (back in the 70's). cool to look at, but horrible to play thru. i never bought any of them as they were all given to me (one wasn't working but the other two did).
 
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#14
lbwdog said:
Oh Yeah! :confused: I remember now!! :rollno: They weren't even popular then! :spit:
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That was the question all us young gear-heads would ask back in the early '70s: How is it that Gibson can't seem to make a decent bass (aside from the T-bird), and neither Fender nor Gibson can make a decent bass amp? Fender made fine guitar amps, but their bass amps were *awful*. Acoustic, Sunn and Ampeg were the big three (with a smattering of those horrid old Peavy cheap SS rigs). I recall playing at a place that had an old Vox Beatle rig that, as I recall, sounded like a giant mud-fart...

Man, even good bass amps back then were no where as nice as they are now. For bass amps in particular, old does NOT mean good!
 
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#16
There were some bleak days in bass amp land before Ampeg and Acoustic came with the big rigs that could do us justice. One other however, that appeared on the scene was Kustom. With a fairly powerful head, and two JBL fifteens with tuned ports, they rocked the house before the SVT and 360.
 
#17
I had a "Plush" 100 which was a Kustom knockoff. It had a tuffted black vinyl 215 bottom and a 4 tube head that did barely OK in my Highschool 5pc rock band in mid 70s. I played an early all Maple Fender Jazz with black PG. That amp was the envy of every bass player I knew (not may back then either) but would be a joke now. Ahh the memories............
 
#19
Rebmo said:
I had a "Plush" 100 which was a Kustom knockoff. It had a tuffted black vinyl 215 bottom and a 4 tube head that did barely OK in my Highschool 5pc rock band in mid 70s. I played an early all Maple Fender Jazz with black PG. That amp was the envy of every bass player I knew (not may back then either) but would be a joke now. Ahh the memories............
Click to expand...

Those tuck&roll Kustoms were pretty cool looking... I had a buddy who had a sparkle blue rig -- but it was a complete mud-fart tone wise.

Those old solid state amps were just plain bad. I had one of the better ones, a sunn concert bass head, and it wasn't nearly as nice as a cheap GK is today.
 

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