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Ampeg V4 Club

#1,261
Rocker47 said:
View attachment 3671808
Hello!! I have recently acquired a 1973 V-4b and am absolutely loving the tone of this rig. The cab is a late 70’s B25B. With help from our Ampeg gurus I have learned a lot in a short time about this rig. I have replaced the 15’s with Eminence Beta 15a’s and, wow, what a difference. It came with what was beloved to be CTS speakers, but all the stamping lead me to believe that they were not. Nonetheless, they don’t sound nearly as nice as the Eminence. Thanks to @JimmyM for some good info about these amps! I am the third owner and it has just been recapped and re-tubed within the past year or so. Can I join this club? Thank you!!!
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That's what I've got too, a V4B and a B25B cab.

One speaker is fried though (I've had it and the amp since '77) so I'm thinking of having the speaker repaired, or both replaced to handle the 100 watts as they were originally rated at 55 watts if I recall correctly.
 
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#1,262
Just grabbed a 70-something V4B about a week ago. Been running that with a Fender P and an Ampeg fridge cab, volume on noon to get some amount of power amp saturation.

I found my preferred settings earlier -
Treble 0/Mids 10/Bass 6, Mid Freq Selector in mid position, UH/UL switches disengaged.

I wanted one of these for my guitar rig for years. It just so happened to work out that with a little knob tweaking, my bass rig instantly turns into a huge, rich sounding guitar rig with freq response centers in all my favorite places. My LP with P90s absolutely screams through the V4. IoI cant get enough of this amp!

On a side note, does anyone know what year this was most likely made?

FB_IMG_1594538768910.jpg Polish_20200712_032830566.png Polish_20200712_032920793.png
 
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#1,263
motornap said:
Just grabbed a 70-something V4B about a week ago. Been running that with a Fender P and an Ampeg fridge cab, volume on noon to get some amount of power amp saturation.

I found my preferred settings earlier -
Treble 0/Mids 10/Bass 6, Mid Freq Selector in mid position, UH/UL switches disengaged.

I wanted one of these for my guitar rig for years. It just so happened to work out that with a little knob tweaking, my bass rig instantly turns into a huge, rich sounding guitar rig with freq response centers in all my favorite places. My LP with P90s absolutely screams through the V4. IoI cant get enough of this amp!

On a side note, does anyone know what year this was most likely made?

View attachment 3901569 View attachment 3901570 View attachment 3901572
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It looks identical to my ‘76.
 
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#1,265
When I bought my '47 Knucklehead, this came with it... V4B & SVT 810 flatback.
Fried a 7027 one night while practicing. Why did it fry? Put the meter to the cabinet and found impedance way off. May or may not have been the only cause. Rewired cabinet then did battery test. One driver pushing in, 7 pushing out. Corrected that and heard that famous tone. Ready for re-cap. Its my first V4B. Are there any other items that should be addressed before regular use? TIA
V4b, SVT.jpg
 
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#1,266
KlankTank said:
When I bought my '47 Knucklehead, this came with it... V4B & SVT 810 flatback.
Fried a 7027 one night while practicing. Why did it fry? Put the meter to the cabinet and found impedance way off. May or may not have been the only cause. Rewired cabinet then did battery test. One driver pushing in, 7 pushing out. Corrected that and heard that famous tone. Ready for re-cap. Its my first V4B. Are there any other items that should be addressed before regular use? TIAView attachment 4304767
Click to expand...

I find that the V4B is more difficult to deal with than an SVT. They require a detailed inspection of all the circuits. Start with a good cleaning. Some of these amps can be in rough shape electronically. Solder joints often need to be reflowed because they run so hot. Be careful not to cause problems doing this. The gray cables often have issues, they are fragile and break easily when moved. Check the ground behind the input jacks for oxidation, this is the main ground point to the chassis. It has to be clean and tight. Replace rusted nuts and washers. Check the isolation washers on both speaker jacks. They can be cracked of soaked with sprays. Replace with switchcraft parts. Deoxit the rocker switches, don’t over apply. Again the wires to these boards can be very fragile as can the solder joints. The solder joints to the pots can have issues, they crack easily.

That should get you started. :laugh:
 
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#1,270
Patrice B said:
Hmmm… Late to this club and I’ve read all 64 pages.

Got this one last fall, ‘74 V4. Temperamental tube amp but well worth it! Temperamental in the sense that @beans-on-toast mentioned: serious job to put it back up to specs.

View attachment 4319858
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I want one of those Traynors too, but they are no longer sleepers in the used amp market. And when they were I didn't have the dough to get one.
 
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#1,272
MichelD said:
I want one of those Traynors too, but they are no longer sleepers in the used amp market. And when they were I didn't have the dough to get one.
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What model is this one?

I feel like that happened with a lot of Traynor stuff. I was looking at the YBA-200 a couple years ago. Didn't have the money at the time, even though they were only like $300-400. Now they're at least $700 (which still seems like a great value for a 200-watt tube amp, to be fair).
 
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#1,273
MichelD said:
I want one of those Traynors too, but they are no longer sleepers in the used amp market. And when they were I didn't have the dough to get one.
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Michel, if you look carefully, there are some deals sometimes on Kijiji. Not so long ago, there were two at around 800-850. I’ve paid mine 800, the same price I paid for my V4.

I know that’s a lot of dough but I do not think the old prices will come back.

If you mean my YBA-1, [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

YRM-1: [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
 
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#1,274
NoSlapForYou said:
What model is this one?

I feel like that happened with a lot of Traynor stuff. I was looking at the YBA-200 a couple years ago. Didn't have the money at the time, even though they were only like $300-400. Now they're at least $700 (which still seems like a great value for a 200-watt tube amp, to be fair).
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I guess he means the YBA-1 in my pic but since then, I’ve acquired a YGL-3 MKIII and a YBA-3.



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