Plush made a variety of products during their very brief, 5 year existence. Basically, all of their amps can be used as bass amps. The Plush history is very interesting. Plush was the brainchild of Ron Lipsky who was the son of Maurice Lipsky, a wealthy and successful musical instrument merchandiser in NYC. Ron felt that there was an opportunity to compete with the then and now dominant Fender company in the amp business. While CBS was busy ruining their perfectly fantastic product offering, he felt that with their established distributor relationships they could come up with an all tube product line that would steal market share in droves. The concept was to meld the then popular cosmetics of the Kustom line with the sonic qualities of the Fender line.
To get rolling, they hired Saul Marantz as a consultant. In 1968, Saul was freshly retired from his duties at the company he started and sold. He and a small team of former Marantz engineers helped Plush get off the ground. The first amp they designed for Plush was not well received by the test players as it was too Hi-Fi like (read, too clean, too sterile). Lipsky requested they take a look at the industry standard (Blackface Fender Twin) so Saul and his team reverse engineered the amp, studied it on a spectrum analyzer and essentially designed a Plush version of this existing amp. Instead of copying the Fender transformers, Marantz came up with unique trannies for the Plush amp as he saw an opportunity for improvements.
Most of what you will find today are the P1000S, PRB1000S, Congress IV and PRB1060S amps. These are indeed based heavily on the Fender Blackface Era AB763 circuit though they are not identical as some might suggest. Plush claimed 110 watts RMS out of these amps though in truth, like a Fender AB763, they produce between 80-85 watts RMS. So what is different? A few component values in the circuit are different though they are minor enough that the amp will sound very Fender-Like. The Plush chassis is stamped steel and sits on the bottom of the cabinet which is very un-Fender-like and very Sunn or Marshall-like.
Most Plush amps use tag board construction much like a Fender though the circuit board is made of a high grade fiberglass material which is superior to what Fender and Traynor used (Vulcanized Fiber-Forbon). The caps, resistors, switches and pots are all good stuff
the best of the best available at that time in most cases. Some amps have PCBs
all made my Nelco, a company that made and still makes extremely nice PCBs. Unfortunately, many of these PCBs were poorly engineered and were prone to failure. They can be fixed by bypassing the problematic traces with PTP wiring
any competent tech can do this with ease. They did get their act together with the PCBs as you can see a clear evolution of designs. The circuit doesnt change too much but the PCBs have a better layout.
Where Plush really got things right was with the transformers and chokes. They are all of superb quality and made by Northlake Engineering who was and still is a high end supplier to the military and medical fields. It is very hard to fault the Plush iron
as it is as good as or even better than that used by anyone else in the industry at that time and even today. All Plush transformers and chokes are wound in an interleaved manner using paper insulation layers.
The 85 watt heads and combos are decent for most bass players and they will produce sounds very similar to playing through an old blackface twin or dual showman. Many bass players are going to want an amp with more balls
more specifically, a stronger B+ (Higher Plate Voltage). Plush made some other models that were rated at 160 watts RMS (Actually they are good for 130-135 watts RMS) called the 3000B, 3000G and Super 550 Combo. These amps use substantially larger transformers and consequently, the B+ is much higher
in the 530-535 VDC range at idle. There were many tweaks and changes to these amps over the years but the pre-amp is very similar to the Fender AB763, it is not identical
there are definite changes and this impacts the voice of the amp quite a bit. Also, Fender never used iron of this size or quality nor did they have a 6 x 6L6GC power section. The clean headroom on any of these amps is quite impressive and all of them are outstanding bass amps.
Plush also had another big tube amp in the line. It was called the 4000G. It started out as a copy of the Traynor YBA-3 with tweaks. It uses the same power and output transformers as the 3000/550 series amps but a substantially larger choke. The power section was originally 4 x EL34s and these amps are generally good for about 100 watts RMS
maybe a bit more. Traynor claimed 120 watts RMS out of the YBA-3 and since the internal voltages are basically the same as is the circuit, thats about right.
The 4KG got upgraded to a quad of 6550s by 1971. The problem was that the 6550s had reliability problems with the combination of high plate and screen voltages so Plush instituted a OC3 screen voltage regulator for reliability sake. Plush claimed 200 watts RMS but 150 watts RMS is more realistic. This version lasted through 1971 but was soon replaced with a totally different power transformer design which used a bridge style full-wave rectifier, in place of the original Traynor style full-wave rectifier. This was clearly a cost cutting measure move for Plush, but really, a good change. The power transformer requires less secondary winding and you dont need the OC3 as you can provide a lower screen voltage without the OC3 tube.
All the 4KGs are also excellent bass amps. Personally, Im the least fond of the EL34 version for bass as they do not have the same level of clean headroom compared to the 6550 amps. That said, all of them are great sounding amps assuming they are in a healthy state of tune. Of course, all of these amps are now 40+ years old which means they will require some work. Also, Plush quality control could be a bit on the sketchy side so there are many opportunities to clean up lead dress issues as well as replace incorrectly valued components.
We repair/restore old Plush amps. We can repair/restore any Plush amp that was ever produced. Even a dead transformer wont stop us though due to the size of some, a rewind can get a bit expensive. We can build replacement cabinets (of higher quality) and reupholster existing cabinets. The upholstery work is not inexpensive. It is much more time consuming and difficult to execute compared to your typical tolex or tweed job.
We actually have a Plush 3000B on E-Bay right now. It is a fantastic amp and best of all, the repair work is completed so the amp is good to go for another 30 or so years! The reserve is quite modest. An amp like this is an absolute bargain. A vintage Ampeg, Fender, Sunn or Orange amp in a healthy state like this amp would cost considerably more though likely would not perform nearly as well (The Ampeg SVT being an obvious exception!).
Hope this helps.
