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Fender Bassman 100T Chapter 3

#421
For a few reasons, I've been using my GK MB200 for the past several gigs I've had. Finally pulled out the 100t again for an indie rock show - holy smokes guys. This thing is just unreal :) '73 P bass with old-as-dirt flats. It was sonic paradise.

If anybody is trying to sell a Fender neo 410 (or knows of one being sold), I'm totally in the market!
 
#422
interesting comment re passive vs. active basses. I generally use active basses and I have absolutly no complaints about tone when running through my SB300.

Sounds like I need to spend more time with my passive basses and this rig!
 
#423
The bias failed three times now. 1a red and 1b orange. Drop in volume and I have to rush back and reset the tubes, wait a few seconds, and all back to normal and keep playing.

I can't believe my unluck!

I am curious to hear Fender's response now this amp fails too. I have had more than enough.
 
#424
Well guys, I have to confess that I have sold my 100T. I simply could not justify keeping it when I was going to the SB300 all the time. The SB300 does the 100T thing plus has that extra beef, so I do not feel I am losing anything other than having to carry more weight. I delivered it to a fellow TB'er who played it through an Ampeg 115 and P bass with flats - the tone was simply heavenly and gave me some serious doubts, but as I said the 300 can do it also. I remain a fan of the 100T and of course the SB300, and as the first TB'er to own a 100T I can say that after two years mine continues to work perfectly with absolutely no issues (not that that will help poor Electrophonic to feel any better, sorry). I fully understand Freight Train's point about power tube overdrive etc., but to me it is not so much about volume but about tone. A personal thing, I know, but the character that the SB300 gives me with its 6550s and extra headroom is marginally preferable for MY tone over the 100T.
And what did I do with the money? As a self-respecting TB'er I put it into more gear and bought an Orange AD200B :hiding:. One of the two amps I have always regretted having sold, the other being an SVT2 non pro. The SB300 has totally cured my gas for another 300 watt SVT, but I never could quite capture that vintage Orange vibe so......one step back for two steps forward, I suppose.
 
#425
Congratulations on the AD200B. I have a good offer on hand for that and a matching cab, but can't buy it because I can't sell my faulty rig. I'm going for that or the Hartke Kilo. I hoped I could keep this 100T, but I don't trust it.
 
#426
Tim1 said:
Well guys, I have to confess that I have sold my 100T. I simply could not justify keeping it when I was going to the SB300 all the time. The SB300 does the 100T thing plus has that extra beef, so I do not feel I am losing anything other than having to carry more weight. I delivered it to a fellow TB'er who played it through an Ampeg 115 and P bass with flats - the tone was simply heavenly and gave me some serious doubts, but as I said the 300 can do it also. I remain a fan of the 100T and of course the SB300, and as the first TB'er to own a 100T I can say that after two years mine continues to work perfectly with absolutely no issues (not that that will help poor Electrophonic to feel any better, sorry). I fully understand Freight Train's point about power tube overdrive etc., but to me it is not so much about volume but about tone. A personal thing, I know, but the character that the SB300 gives me with its 6550s and extra headroom is marginally preferable for MY tone over the 100T.
And what did I do with the money? As a self-respecting TB'er I put it into more gear and bought an Orange AD200B :hiding:. One of the two amps I have always regretted having sold, the other being an SVT2 non pro. The SB300 has totally cured my gas for another 300 watt SVT, but I never could quite capture that vintage Orange vibe so......one step back for two steps forward, I suppose.
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They Tim! I realize your dance card will be full hobnobbing with all your new hoity-toity Super Bassman friends, but make some time and drop in on us little people now and again. You'll be missed.
 
#427
Thanks for that Freight Train, I have always appreciated your well crafted and considered input. I certainly will keep in touch as I still rate the 100T as the best 100 watt tube head around, and will continue to recommend it.
Electrophonic, I hope you get your autobias issue sorted. A friend of mine recently had it crop up and the importers knew exactly what it was and fixed it while he waited ( I think they took the chip out of a new one so he would not have to wait for one to arrive from the States). This is the sort of service we should all expect. I notice on the separate thread you started that the Director of Customer Relations at Fender, RobSatFender, has asked you to PM him so hopefully it will be quickly sorted for you. These really are fabulous and versatile heads - it is a pity he did not come in on this thread when some people had problems earlier. I say again that both my 100T and SB300 have performed perfectly for the past two years or so with fairly constant use.
 
#429
I thought that, yet he did comment on Electrophonic's thread and has 31 other posts. Hey, I am not knocking him though, rather a big welcome - it is great to see someone from Fender commenting and available to help. Thanks Rob, and please keep on chipping in whenever you feel it is worthwhile. You have a great product and legacy to maintain.
 
#432
60bass said:
I'm fairly sure that FMIC might have a policy in place that prevents employees from posting on public forums.
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it boggles my mind that they took so long to "allow" someone to speak up. I mean, I get the idea this is their flagship bass amp line at this point? I guess? You're reintroducing and updating your legacy in bass amp history, and you're going to allow a bunch of flak about unreliability on an international forum like talkbass to go on for months with no official word from Fender because of "company policy" that employees can't post on public forums? Screw the employees, where were the honchos? That just seems like a major gaff to me. How many people did this scare away from purchasing a 100T, and probably SB 300's as well? How much fuel did it provide the anti-Fender yaps on the Ampex and Mesa Boogie threads? It's just really surprising.
 
#434
tombowlus said:
Yup, you guessed it. Fender's corporate policy prevents their employees from posing on online forums.
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And I think that is a good thing, just imagine them posing in swim wear :eek:.... :p :hiding:

Nonetheless, some official posting to clarify technical issues is for most manufacturers nowadays quite common and regarded as part of social media marketing. Just saying. [/sits down and shuts up]
 
#435
Tim1 said:
Thanks for that Freight Train, I have always appreciated your well crafted and considered input. I certainly will keep in touch as I still rate the 100T as the best 100 watt tube head around, and will continue to recommend it.
Electrophonic, I hope you get your autobias issue sorted. A friend of mine recently had it crop up and the importers knew exactly what it was and fixed it while he waited ( I think they took the chip out of a new one so he would not have to wait for one to arrive from the States). This is the sort of service we should all expect. I notice on the separate thread you started that the Director of Customer Relations at Fender, RobSatFender, has asked you to PM him so hopefully it will be quickly sorted for you. These really are fabulous and versatile heads - it is a pity he did not come in on this thread when some people had problems earlier. I say again that both my 100T and SB300 have performed perfectly for the past two years or so with fairly constant use.
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Can you ask your friend what these people were doing exactly inside the amp, please? That is very interesting, to say the least.

My first amp had its bias chip (operation one) replaced and then bias pcb plus other parts (operation two) replaced, and it still had issues after that.

It IS fabulous and versatile. That is why I still have it and hope it will be fixed.
 
#436
Freight Train said:
it boggles my mind that they took so long to "allow" someone to speak up. I mean, I get the idea this is their flagship bass amp line at this point? I guess? You're reintroducing and updating your legacy in bass amp history, and you're going to allow a bunch of flak about unreliability on an international forum like talkbass to go on for months with no official word from Fender because of "company policy" that employees can't post on public forums? Screw the employees, where were the honchos? That just seems like a major gaff to me. How many people did this scare away from purchasing a 100T, and probably SB 300's as well? How much fuel did it provide the anti-Fender yaps on the Ampex and Mesa Boogie threads? It's just really surprising.
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To me, this is rule number one in any business: talk to your customers.

It doesn´t matter if it is face to face, phone, mail, forums and so on. Just talk to your customers where your customers are. I am sure the company eventually will be better at this too. Their other customer service is top notch (in my experience).
 
#437
Electrophinic, I think it was the bias chip that was swapped. If not that, with my limited knowledge of circuits I would hazard a guess it was the ribbon cable which has also caused issues I believe. Must find TomBowlus' post about it all.
 
#438
My computer won't search threads for some reason but I printed it out at the time, so here is my quick summary of what Fender told Tom (his original post is considerably more detailed):
1)The 'bias chip' replacement issue has nothing to do with any hardware issue, but was an update to correct a software bug relating to memory storage that was found after the implementation of Autobias in the Supersonic 100 guitar amplifier. The software was updated before the SB300 and 100T were shipped out.
2) A few other ''bias chip' issues related to intermittent connection of the ribbon cable - this has been addressed at the factory and Fender service centers notified of the appropriate action.
3) There are UI improvements found in the next generation AB code (found in 6 tube Super Bassman) that were not able to be implemented in the original 4 tube version.
a. The 6 tube Super Bassman code incorporates the slow blink rate when the amp is on standby.
b. The 4 tube version does not have direct knowledge of the Power or Standby switch, which the 6 tube version does. The consequence of this is that the 4 tube version does not know when the switch has toggled and has to wait until the current in the output tubes falls as the HV tube supply voltage bleeds off. Only when all the tubes have fallen below the "off" threshold does the AB system enter into standby mode and not attempt to make any adjustments to the bias (or update the display). This can take several seconds to happen and during that time it is possible for AB (autobias) to falsely think that a tube has failed and update the status LED from green to orange for the pair. TB'ers with 100T amps may be reporting this as a bias issue (but the amp still works correctly) when the amp is in standby.

The above is just my summary, so I take no responsibility for its accuracy, perhaps someone else can find the actual thread and post a link.
 
#439
Moosehead1966 said:
Yes but I wonder if Rob being a Director allows certain freedoms. He also answered my PM and said I would be communicated with regarding my similar experiences since getting this amp in October 2013. I hope!

Marc
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Hmmmm it may be that I'm a musician and don't follow directions well ;O)

Honestly, if there is a policy...nobody has asked me to follow it. Perhaps my tenure and job description does help.
It IS a somewhat treacherous and dangerous thing for an internal person to do, so I do tread pretty carefully so's I can help folks AND keep my gig.

Also....full disclosure.....though i am on several forums, I DO tend to hang where I can be of most help and with what I know best, and so end up in the stringed instrument sections of most forums generally.
Someone on my team alerted me to Electrophinic's thread so I read it, and jumped in.

I can tell you with a good degree of confidence that though Fender internal folks may not be posting, many do keep their eyes on the forums as time permits.

At any rate, again, in my "stringed" haze I haven't been aware of any 100T problems. Now I am. We're very interested in resolving them asap because as Electrophinic and Moosehead1966 both expressed, they're nice playing amps.
Cheers to all,
rob
 
#440
Tim1 said:
Electrophinic, I think it was the bias chip that was swapped. If not that, with my limited knowledge of circuits I would hazard a guess it was the ribbon cable which has also caused issues I believe. Must find TomBowlus' post about it all.
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Here you go:

Originally Posted by Tim1 Link Removed
What really disappoints me is that Fender has a great product here, this is now one of the longer running threads and must have had some influence on promoting it, yet no-one from Fender will officially talk to us or support us on this forum. Some other companies input when necessary to support or reassure their clients, I just wish Fender would do the same. It must be a conscious decision on their part for whatever reason, I suppose.
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Yup, you guessed it. Fender's corporate policy prevents their employees from posing on online forums. But, we worked closely with the tech-heads at Fender on the SB300 review, so I ran some of these issues by them.

That notwithstanding both new Fender tube amps remain superb examples of a mix of new and old technology and the sooner this bias issue is finally put to rest the better it will be for them and their loyal users.

Here's what they had to say about the bias issue:
1. First off, the ‘bias chip’ replacement has nothing to do with any hardware issue, but was an update to correct a software bug relating to memory storage (every so often the system stores the current bias setting in memory) that we found after the first implementation of Autobias in the Super Sonic 100 guitar amplifier. The 4x6L6 output section of the SS100 is similar in the 100T. It was statistically 100% likely that the ‘out of memory’ issue would at some unknown point in time cause the system to crash with no way to recover (not even power cycle). Several SS100 amps failed in this manner in the field which altered us to the issue and we were able to update the software just before the Super Bassman and 100T shipped out to dealers/customers. I’ve not heard of any SB or 100T amps having this freeze problem. In the frozen state, the tube bias voltage was pulled to the most negative DC voltage, so there was no harm to the amp but it sounded bad.

2. A few other ‘bias chip’ issues were related to intermittent connection of the ribbon cable from the main amp PCB to the AB PCA. This has been addressed at the factory and authorized Fender service centers have been notified of the appropriate action to take to rectify the issue.

3. There are UI improvements found in the next gen AB code (found in 6-tube Super Bassman) that were not able to be implemented into the original 4-tube version. As a result there is more intelligence in the Output Tube Status LED display on Super Bassman than on 100T (or SS100).

a. The 6-tube Super Bassman code incorporates the slow blink rate when the amp is in STANDBY (or PWR AMP MUTE) to acknowledge the state change. When the tube HV is off the tubes are not ‘on’ (however when the PWR switch is in ON the tubes still have heater voltage applied and will still glow) and the tube status at that point is truly unknown. The last known tube status is maintained, meaning if a tube was good (Green) before it will blink Green slowly during ‘standby’ mode.

b. The 4-tube version does not have direct knowledge of the Power or Standby switch, which the 6-tube version does. Instead that logic line is dedicated to the Output power switch (100W/25W) on the 4-tube models. The consequence of that is that the 4-tube version does not instantly know when the switch has toggled (see above) and has to wait until the current in the output tubes falls as the HV tube supply voltage bleeds off. Only when all tubes have fallen below the ‘off’ threshold does the AB system enter into ‘Standby’ mode and not attempt to make any adjustments to the bias (or update the display). This can take several seconds to happen and during that time it is possible for AB to falsely think that a tube has failed and update the status LED from Green to Orange for the pair. I think TB’ers with 100T amps may be reporting this as a bias issue (but the amp still works correctly) when the amp is in STANDBY.
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Presuming it's not a violation of any TB posting rules, I might be able to get them to give me feedback to share regarding other questions, so feel free (I think) to hit me up if you want me to run more questions past them.

Later, Tom.
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