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Info on 1968 Bassman Silverface - buyer's remorse?

#21
HI

Cool, Rappa. You'll love it if used in the right situations and with a 4ohm load

Just to clarify, early '67's still had the blackface circuit w a silver face. There is a sticker inside the box that reads "ab165". Thats blackface circuit. It changed mid year. A '68 has a different circuit.

Rob
 
#22
rbonner said:
Jim are you sure the showman had D140's in it? The correct speakers would be D130 guitar speakers.

My 67 was a Black Face. Nice looking rig, but then the silver ones came out and I thought, man I need one of those new fangled ones. My buddy had a 68 silver one. Now 40 years later there is nothing sexier than a nice condition 67. BOB
Click to expand...

Special order D140Fs!!! They were not much better than D130's, but they didn't break up quite so easily. I often hooked a second cab with D130s to the head. It still sucked, IMHO. :cool:

Got em from Rhode Island Music (now gone), in Pawtucket, RI. A great place in the 60s!
 
#23
bikeplate said:
HI

Cool, Rappa. You'll love it if used in the right situations and with a 4ohm load

Just to clarify, early '67's still had the blackface circuit w a silver face. There is a sticker inside the box that reads "ab165". Thats blackface circuit. It changed mid year. A '68 has a different circuit.

Rob
Click to expand...

this is what i have, just got the year wrong. while we're on the subject, can anyone describe how the circuitry differs?
 
#26
I'd predict you'll like the sound. Just keep with a 4 ohm cab to maximize the volume produced by those 50 mighty watts. If you don't fall in love with the sound, you might try playing with tube changes. If the volume it produces doesn't work in the venues you play, you won't have much trouble finding a buyer.
 
#27
Jim Carr said:
Special order D140Fs!!! They were not much better than D130's, but they didn't break up quite so easily. I often hooked a second cab with D130s to the head. It still sucked, IMHO. :cool:

Got em from Rhode Island Music (now gone), in Pawtucket, RI. A great place in the 60s!
Click to expand...

Showmans came with D140s or D130s depending on what you ordered. There was a huge difference between them. One was a guitar speaker the other for bass. JBLs could break up easily. If the cab was wrong or you just turned it up too much. They could give a wonderful clear boom or a distorted Grand Funk Railroad/Mountain bass tone. I'd describe it as a huge fart or two girders swinging into each other. To each his own.
Voodoo Child the cut on Electric Lady Land has Jack Casady getting great tone with Sunns with JBLs.
Primo were Altec 421As. Much better in every way. Some of you are finding them in Ampeg V4B cabs.
I preferred CTS or other speakers in those days because they would reproduce more of the actual bass tone without the flatulence. But when the JBLs were right they were righteous.
 
#30
Don't sweat the "tweed" mod. It's meant to make that channel more aggressive and crunchy. You will have the second channel which is stock. The amp will not have as much headroom as the BaSSMAN 100 you tried, but you can load the preamp with lower gain preamp tubes (12at7, 12au7, 12ay7, depending on what you can get your hands on) and you should be able to run that for some nice tones. Will it be loud enough for your band? I dunno. Try it and see. You may need some more speakers get more oomph. It would likely make a great studio rig for recording, though.
 
#31
rappa29 said:
It's a 50w, as already verified by others.
There were several bids on it but I BIN because I really wanted it.
If it sounds anything like the Fender Bassman 100 that I've used, then I KNOW I'll love the tone.
I'm just second guessing myself because most of what I've read about it on the interweb is from guitar players praising it for guitar!

Oh yeah, and unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) I don't have a gf or wife to answer to, so no influence there regarding the purchase! :)
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Don't let first impressions scare you away from this amp when you plug in. Likely, by the sounds of it, it's been use by a guitarist. It probably has higher gain preamp tubes in it offering more crunch and less headroom. And yes, you can get this amp sounding like the 100 you tried, you will need some lower gain preamp tubes, though. Those are an easy DIY mod.
 
#32
bikeplate said:
HI

Cool, Rappa. You'll love it if used in the right situations and with a 4ohm load

Just to clarify, early '67's still had the blackface circuit w a silver face. There is a sticker inside the box that reads "ab165". Thats blackface circuit. It changed mid year. A '68 has a different circuit.

Rob
Click to expand...


This is true, but I gotta say, I've never met a '67 that sounded as good as my BF '66 did. Trust me, I wanted them to. I regret selling the '66. The early SF are decent amps, too, though. There is some truth to the BF mojo.
 
#33
I remember I ran mine with the bass control cranked all the way to 10 and the treble on 5. I ran the volume control at about 4.5 ... Played it with a Gibson EB-0 making tons of bass. Hey I was a kid. Ran to Single Showman cabs modified with 2 Misco Redline 15 bass speakers each. I had two cabs when I felt like hauling the second one.

The only person the amp scared was me.. I figured it would melt if I ran it over "5". It never let me down. Got my condoms hot once though, moved them to "The Casket". The Casket was our bands GIG BOX. Looked like you know what.

The biggest mistake with that 67 BF was trading UP, (down) for a Dual bottom Vox Foundation. Hey Paul McCartney played one right?

The other option was a brand new 70 SVT for about $350 if I remember correctly, somebody refresh my memory. But that amp scared me as it had 10" speakers and I went to real bass speakers 18" instead. Dumb teenager. BOB
 
#34
Guitarists love the 60's Bassmans... amazing sounding amps. I've never played bass through one, but have played guitar through them many a time. Those things are like gold - they will always have value to them - and likely appreciate over time.

I bet it will have cool tone for bass that a modern solid state amp wouldn't be able to touch.
 
#36
It would be interesting to take the preamp circuit of a Bassman and Single and Dual Showman and actually compare them all to see what differences there where between the amps.

My money says there isnt a lot there. Funny how the Fender engineeers thought the real power needed to be with the guitarist and not the Bass Player.

BOB
 
#37
All of Leo's original designs came from the RCA tube manual. When CBS took over in 1965 they modified some amps to be more "stable". STABLE??? Isn't the sound of those barely stable designs what sold the Fender sound? They did learn from that mistake but the damage to the line's reputation was done. There is a simple mod that makes the sound more bottom friendly.
 

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