• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Dating / identifying a 60's or 70's bass amp

Metal_Maniac

Metal_Maniac

Apr 30, 2017
23
15
www.rmlinnovations.com
#1
Hey guys!

I'm new here!
I'm a long time bass player playing in different bands of different styles.

I actually joined the forum for a specific question at this stage.
About 15 years ago I was given an old bass amplifier and cabinet. The person who gave them to me said it is a 200 Watt amplifier by Marshall. There is however no serial number, model number, brand name or anything whatsoever on the amp. It seems to have been stripped from any identification marks.

I'm thus really not sure if the information is correct. I would basically like to get to know more about the amp that I play ;-)

The amp says 'Super PA 200'. When searching on the internet I don't find a specific Marshall amp, however I did find that there was a Super PA series in 1978.
It does look similar to Marshall bass amps from that time, however surely not identical. I think it could still be any brand around during those days.
I think it could rather be a different brand, because key elements seem to be different. For example the outline on the front of the amp is an aluminum strip. For Marshall amps it seems to be white lines of some plastic string. The cabinet however does have this white string.

Thus far I did not dare to take the amp apart to look if there is any brand name on the circuit boards. I think I would rather leave this up to pros in case it is necessary to have a look at the circuit boards.

Can you help me out identifying this amp? Perhaps any of you may recognize anything from a few pictures?

Please let me know if I need to take a picture of a certain element or detail of the amp.

Thanks in advance!
Cheers!
Rob
 

Attachments

  • IMG_9925.JPG
    IMG_9925.JPG
    307.4 KB · Views: 109
  • IMG_0035.JPG
    IMG_0035.JPG
    529.9 KB · Views: 92
  • IMG_0036.JPG
    IMG_0036.JPG
    742 KB · Views: 71
  • IMG_0037.JPG
    IMG_0037.JPG
    767.2 KB · Views: 63
#2
Welcome to TalkBass! I got nutn on the amp, but I'm really curious. Is the cab a bass cab or guitar cab?

One of my favorite "bass" amps is an old Fender PA100 tube amp. It sounds simply amazing with a P bass. Fat, round and slightly wooly. I can Daisy chain channels to increase gain and fatten it up even more. Your amp may work the same way if the channels are wired that way. Have someone else confirm before you try it.

Seriously cool amp. There are thousands of us here. Surely one of them will swing by with some knowledge. Let me ping a few.

@agedhorse
@BassmanPaul
@line6man

There are lots of others but I have learned a great deal from these three in particular over the years.
 
#4
Not sure looks like Marshall style head case, but there has been a few who have used similar designs. could be a London City amplifier or another manufacturer that used marshall styled aesthetics. looks cool and yes the piping is similar but not the same. date codes on the potentiometers give a reasonable time frame of manufacturing and could be looked up, wont tell you the amplifier manufacturer just a average date of manufacture
 
#5
The construction style with everything on one PCB doesn't look like anything I've seen from Marshall (at least not in the era that they were making tube PA amps). The transformers don't look like the ones Marshall used either, so I'd guess this is something else. I couldn't say what though...
 
#6
Kind of looks like a Sound City (Dallas Arbiter), maybe with a different model's nameplate? Does not look like a PA amp of that era.

There were a bunch of small manufacturers at that time, Gibson (yes, they were small in the electronics side), Kay, Epiphone, Estey, Harmony, Supro, Wards, Silvertone, Gretsch, Baldwin, Valco, Barnum, Sho-Bud, and the industry's institutional memory of these old brands is getting quite foggy.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SanDiegoHarry
#7
Definitely not Marshall, but I guess you could say the aesthetics were "Marshall inspired." I've never seen a vintage tube amp from any manufacturer with the tubes sticking out of the board on the same side as the components. My guess is that someone one offed it out of components on hand. So, no collectible value.
OTOH, does it work? If so, how does it sound?
If it's not working, I'd look at it as a strippable hulk, as almost all the components are individually valuable.
 
#11
nyde7 said:
Looks like a Super City PA200 200w looking at a picture on google.

images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQZ7fD3w24UrPDgDZwBuQqWP3VnEFQwy6DGvC4iLJMrUed7jy5zww.jpg
Click to expand...

There were a whole bunch of Marshall-like copies being built in the late 60's and 70's, this is one of them, Laney did a similar one and there were 4 or 5 others. What made the OP's amp so different is the use of brown board construction which was more often seen in Asian products, and products that may have used subcontracted assembly in Asia (would have probably been Japan at that time).

What's kind of funny is that most seemed to use the word City in their names, Sound City maybe being the most legit as they were owned by Dallas Arbiter who also developed the Fuzz Face. There was Super City, London City, Fane, Laney, and a few others.

I used to work for the parent company that evolved from Dallas Arbiter/SMF/Sound City They eventually became Crest Audio in a very round about way (with none of the original people). This is why it reminded me of the Sound City brand, though I have never seen one personally (too far before my time).
 
  • Like
Reactions: nyde7

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back