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"Bruce" cab - Do you know anything?

J

jpfisher

Jul 1, 2004
4
0
Maine, USA
#1
(Searching for information on Bruce cabs gets a lot of results involving guys named Bruce.)

I picked up a 15" cab real cheap (less than the cost of plywood) and I'm trying to find out more. It's circa 1980. Back plate says Englewood, Colorado. The logo features a big "B" on its side underlined by the "RUCE".

I figure somebody has got to know something about this line of amp or cabinet!

TIA for any and all.
 
#3
Wow, very odd.

I bought a Bruce amp & cabinet sometime around '82 or '83. It was a preamp head with the power amp built into the cabinet, which housed two JBL 15's (k130's i think). I still have one of the speakers. The cabinet was rather tall but not deep. I don't remember any technical specss, but recall that the amp seemed to be seriously underpowered. I only bought it because it was all I could afford from a friend of mines music store. I had it for a few years, but it wasn't very good. The pre would make some awful noises once in while that I would fix with a sharp blow to its top. :eyebrow:

Ah yes memories.... GAHHH, I'm glad I was able to finally afford something newer.

I hope your experience with 'Bruce' is better than mine.

:D
 
#4
The first amp I bought for bass was a Bruce in the late 60's.Like the other poster said they are tall but not very deep.Mine was a 2-15 and sounded allright.Mine didn't have JBLs but you could get them with them,D140s or D130s.They had a 100 watt power amp built in the back and the preamp was seperate so you would run a sheilded cable from the head to the cabinet instead of a speaker cable.They were made of particle board but seemed to hold up pretty well.Several local bands used them and sounded good to me so thats why I bought one.They made a 6-10 cab and also a 4-12 for guitar.I also had a Bruce PA.It had two 4-12 collums with a couple of small high freq.horns at the top with the same 100 watt poweramp in the back of each.Also it had a small 2-12 cab for side fill with the amp built in.It had the same size preamp as the guitar and bass models but had 4 inputs with bass and treble on each as the only EQ.At the time these seemed to be pretty powerful but in the late 60's their weren't many amps more powerful.The only big band that I know used them was Three Dog Night.I thought they were pretty good amps for that time.
 
#9
Thanks! Now I've got a reason to crack this thing open!

Yes, it's a shallow box, AND the back is shaped a bit strangely, as if there was an amp in there or - used to be. Looks a bit modded...

It doesn't sound great - it's good for me though, for a mid-sized gig I can stick my 210 on the top and it helps. Keeps me from lugging the SVT 810.

Just imagine, the amp's pedigree includes Three Dog Night. That's almost funny.

But it's not.
 
#10
I also had a Bruce amp back like 72 thru 76-77. Like others have said, it had a pre-amp top and a powered bottom. i think the head was like 15 or twenty watts into the bottom and my bottom said either 200 or 250 watts. The pre-amp head did the botton no justice but I used a Kasino brain (line out) into the Bruce bottom and it was like standing in front of a fan. The front grill came off so you could show off your speakers excursion. This was the amp I lent Marcus Miller on a few occasions. I never had a volume problem with that amp as long as I had it!
 

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