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Do You Know Anything About THis Amp?

bassman7777

bassman7777

Feb 25, 2020
32
91
#1
I found this amp at a yard sale for a little more than a song. It is a Yamaha Thirty 115B, and I can't find any info about it anywhere. Plenty about the 100 115B, but nothing about the Thirty.
Aside from needing a cleaning and having scratchy pots, it sounds great...kind of thick and creamy, with plenty of power.
Any knowledge out there from the collective?
Yamaha Amp crop.jpg
Yamaha Amp crop.jpg Yamaha Amp crop.jpg
 
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#3
bassman7777 said:
I found this amp at a yard sale for a little more than a song. It is a Yamaha Thirty 115B, and I can't find any info about it anywhere. Plenty about the 100 115B, but nothing about the Thirty.
Aside from needing a cleaning and having scratchy pots, it sounds great...kind of thick and creamy, with plenty of power.
Any knowledge out there from the collective?View attachment 4685783 View attachment 4685783 View attachment 4685783
Click to expand...
How about a pic of the back?
 
#5
I just did a quick search and it appears there was a B30 and B50 that looked pretty much the same. Also a B100 that was slightly larger and ported.

In the early 80s I played through a B100 115 for a few years. Image pulled from a recent for sale listing.
Link Removed
The B100 it had a few extra controls (Presence and Distortion). IMHO the Distortion had a decent sound but had a weird random quality that made in rather unmusical.

I thought the amp was rather loud for it's power rating. No headroom problems in a university level big band. It had a really smooth sound with extended highs. The mids were clear and articulate, but the lows were sort of loose and wooly.

Pulled these from an Ebay listing:
s-l1600.jpg

s-l1600.jpg


I also found a site that claimed to have a download of the B30 115 service manual...but I don't generally like to download as those sites sometimes install malware on your computer.
 
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#6
I played some basses through one of these a few years back when I worked at Guitar Center (someone traded one in and it was for sale at the store.)

Plenty loud, but nothing special. Overpriced, being marked as vintage and all, and HEAVY. Would make a decent studio / practice room amp but certainly not one I’d use for gigging IMO

EDIT: yeah, 65.3 lbs.. yowzers!
 
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#7
I'm almost positive that was the very first bass amp I ever owned (this would be 1981 or '82).

I knew absolutely nothing about playing the bass and felt ripped off because the salesman assured me it would be all I would need for gigging. It wasn't. It didn't even really do the job for our rehearsals.

Very quickly, I went out and plunked down some (serious) money on a different rig.

This experience kept me away from Yamahas for a long time.
 
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#9
GreaserMatt said:
Weird that it's so heavy and only 30 watts...
Click to expand...
Those old 15” speakers are no joke weight wise.. Peavey Black Widows clock in at around 18lbs all by their lonesome.

That, coupled with the cabinet materials (hardware / probably thick plywood) plus the weight of the amplifier itself.. yeah!

Makes the 34.2lb 200 watt Ampeg RB115 seem like witchcraft!
 
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#10
Owned a YAMAHA amp from the same period. Moved it on years ago. Model was similar to the photos posted. Sound was OK. Nothing special. The move-it-on decision was due to the sound/cab weight conundrum: just OK sound/heavy cab. You can do better.
 
#14
That series of Yamaha amps (both the guitar and bass models) had a year or two of popularity. This was right around the time the first generation of BB basses started to get traction in the marketplace. I saw a few touring acts using them, notably the Nighthawks out of the D.C. area used both the guitar and bass amps.

Yamaha has never managed to really get a foothold in the amp market....may be why they bought Ampeg...but every time they've come out with something it was interesting. Anyone remember this one?

Blog B.jpeg


Fender bought some of those drivers from Yamaha for a bass amp! 1969 Bantam Bass, really rare.

Blog c.jpeg


Blog .jpeg
 
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#15
I think I remember one of these sitting in the jazz room at Texas when I got there in 1989. We soon replaced it with a GK 112 combo that sounded better and weighed about a quarter as much.

That's a big heavy 70s/80s vintage combo amp. Probably sounds fine but I bet the seller was glad to get rid of it.
 
#16
I had a Yamaha 115-50 for 30 + years. I can't remember when I bought it or who I bought it from. For playing house of worship gigs, it served me very well. About 20 years ago, I put an EV EVM-15B in it, although it wasn't a drop-in fit. I left it at a church I played at for several years and for all I know, it's still sitting in the choir room as a backup for anyone who needs it. This is a dull sounding, unexciting but highly reliable amp. It weighs a lot for its level of output, but it doesn't rattle no matter how hard it is pushed and it can easily handle being moved around.
 
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#17
brianrost said:
That series of Yamaha amps (both the guitar and bass models) had a year or two of popularity. This was right around the time the first generation of BB basses started to get traction in the marketplace. I saw a few touring acts using them, notably the Nighthawks out of the D.C. area used both the guitar and bass amps.

Yamaha has never managed to really get a foothold in the amp market....may be why they bought Ampeg...but every time they've come out with something it was interesting. Anyone remember this one?

View attachment 4686196

Fender bought some of those drivers from Yamaha for a bass amp! 1969 Bantam Bass, really rare.

View attachment 4686198

View attachment 4686197
Click to expand...

I never owned one, but from what I recall, those Yamaha speakers with their styrofoam cones didn't sound very good and would not play very loud. I'd call them dogs with fleas.
 
#20
I had a Yamaha 115B amp in high school. It was a little underpowered by today's standards. It was very big and bulky. Luckily my mother had a station wagon. Be careful with the distortion knob. I burned up the speaker playing loud with distortion cranked. My local musical instruments shop replaced the speaker with a white Yamaha speaker. I am not sure what ever happened to it.

In college I bought a Yamaha JX50B (brown tolex). It was also very underpowered bu I wish I still had that amp.
 
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