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Poll: Fender Bassman 100-T reliability

Have you had an issue with your Bassman 100-T?

  • No.

    Votes: 53 86.9%

  • Yes (leave details in comments).

    Votes: 8 13.1%
  • Total voters
    61
idoru

idoru

Dec 18, 2005
1,442
26
Brisbane, Australia
#1
G'day guys, with all the discussion on bias issues over on the 100-T adoration thread (she may be temperamental, but I still love her!), I wanted to nail down the figures here to see just how many people own them vs how many are reporting issues.

If you want to leave a comment, let us know how long you've had your Bassman, and what the issue was if you've had one.

Edit: users of the Super Bassman 300, feel free to vote too.
 
#2
I'll start off: I purchased mine here in Australia from a local store in March this year. My first autobias issue happened after three rehearsals, and was fixed in about two weeks. I believe the second issue was at the start of the month, and is still off for repair as the replacement board also failed!

I work with tech items in retail, so I know fully well how even the best manufacturers can have a bad day. I view this as learning the value in paying extra for a local warranty - imagine if I'd grey imported one...
 
#4
Actually, we didn't really hear about the Traynor issues over here. Some grumbling about the GK MB500, but I've been gigging with mine for a while (it's my spare head, so doing Alpha duty at the moment). I managed to kill two Ibanez Promethean heads, however - the first one died on a gig, the replacement blew smoke the first time we turned it on in the shop!

Speaking of statistics, here's a little snippet of info from the laptop industry. Depending on brand, your typical laptop purchased in Australia has somewhere between a 10% to 22% chance of needing repairs in the 12 month warranty period. Something less complex like an external hard drive has a failure rate around 2% in 3 years.
 
#5
I've got the Super Bassman & no probs for me so far.
The Traynor YBA200 issues were known a li'l out here- well I knew of em. The YBA200-2 was the Rev 2 apparently. Tho I had no probs with my YBA200 whatsoever.
I just got the regular Fender warranty with my SB300 & I s'pose any issues would be dealt with the same as the small problem my YBA300 had. That was - my local tube amp tech (who does most tube amp work for the store I got my SB300 from) - simply does the repair as either he sees fit, or as directed by the amp Co. Fender Aus. in this case.
I might go ask my local store, just outta interest sake:cool:
 
#6
rodl2005 said:
I've got the Super Bassman & no probs for me so far.
The Traynor YBA200 issues were known a li'l out here- well I knew of em. The YBA200-2 was the Rev 2 apparently. Tho I had no probs with my YBA200 whatsoever.
I just got the regular Fender warranty with my SB300 & I s'pose any issues would be dealt with the same as the small problem my YBA300 had. That was - my local tube amp tech (who does most tube amp work for the store I got my SB300 from) - simply does the repair as either he sees fit, or as directed by the amp Co. Fender Aus. in this case.
I might go ask my local store, just outta interest sake:cool:
Click to expand...
.

I was referring to the Traynor's (* Most awesome Toronto, Ontario, Canada Company).. First run of YBA 200 with bias control. That's all! ;) Love the company & in my heart believe that it is equal to Ampeg in every respect.

Marc
 
#7
Ok gotcha. :thumbup:
Mine had the "auto-bias" which I thought had some probs. Same one/thing? ? ?:o
Love Traynor bass amps & their warranty & customer service was 2nd to NONE I dealing with my YBA300's small problem ( a multi-pin connector had come loose in transit).
And, as I said, I had no problems.-ZERO problemo- with my YBA200. Loved both it AND the YBA300 & only (sadly) sold the 200 due to being more clean headroom, & the YBA300 as I wanted a footswitch-able two channels & my local came to the party with the Fender Super Bassman. :cool::thumbup:
 
#10
These things ain't been out anywhere near long enough to have a clue about reliability. Check back in 15+ years. Seems people nowdays have really lowered their standards as far as what reliable is. I can't even count the number of posts on here, regarding any amp, that say "I've had mine for "X" months, or a year-and-a-half, and it's been great". So what???? If it's anything less than great in that amount of time, it's junk.
 
#11
As many know, I have owned and gigged regularly both a 100T and an SB300 since they first came out. I have had no problems at all with either of them.
One of the problems with polls such as this is that Talkbass represents a minimal number of bassists worldwide as to be almost statistically insignificant. Not dissing my favourite forum :) but I am often surprised when talking to working bassists who have never heard of this forum. That said, I suppose we will gain some sort of proportionate result amongst members. What would be interesting would be to hear from Fender how many have had issues, not that that will ever happen. However, I suspect that it is a very small proportion of those overall built.
 
#13
i had one for about 8 months and it saw ALOT of use. no problems at all, and i believe the fella that bought it has been problem free as well.

will: the reason this poll was started is there have been a couple reports of auto bias issues among users, and we'd like to see how many have been problem free, and how many havent to get a better idea if its more of an anomaly or rather widespread... once the topic comes up in the threads about the amps it gets alot of chatter and its hard to gauge the success/fail rates, and it seems that those who.have problems actually experience them rather sooner than later.
 
#15
I got my 100T on 5-5-2012
It has been played a lot. I've run this 100 watt head harder than any amp I've ever owned.

I have left it on standby all night many times, even left it totally powered up with just the mute on from late Friday night after 3 hours of band practice until Monday night and then used it for two hour practice.

I did change out the tubes as soon as I got it. When I took it out of the box I plugged it in to test that it worked then swapped tubes.
I have done a lot of tube rolling with it and played with the Bias Adjust every time. Trying hotter and colder setting seeing how it affects the different tube.
I am still swapping out power tubes more than I should but I can not decide if I like Winged C's or TAD's better. I use different heat setting for each of them.
 
#16
will33 said:
These things ain't been out anywhere near long enough to have a clue about reliability. Check back in 15+ years. Seems people nowdays have really lowered their standards as far as what reliable is. I can't even count the number of posts on here, regarding any amp, that say "I've had mine for "X" months, or a year-and-a-half, and it's been great". So what???? If it's anything less than great in that amount of time, it's junk.
Click to expand...

Bathtub curve man. You'd expect the highest number of failures to occur within the early days on-market and for them to taper off over time and then peak again as individual components meet their in-use limits.
 
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#17
I voted that I had issues, but I went into great detail on the other thread. My personal diagnosis is that the bias in slot 1B went haywire... Either before or after the tube flared up like the 4th of July inside. Blew fuse, then blew main fuse after switching tube around. Bought a Tung sol at a local store to replace it.. It red plated immediately. I pulled the two inner tubes and played a 4 hr practice later that night with no issues. Sent it back to MF.

Received replacement head, and so far, no issues. Replaced all the tubes with vintage NOS. Sounds great, and no bias issues or anything but green lights. The power tubes are glowing differently, but I'll post that issue in another thread.

Rubber handle snapped on my first unit. I removed it from my replacement head so that no one uses it if someone happens to move it besides me at some point.

Tone is excellent, and I love the head. Hopefully I can enjoy this head for decades.
 
#20
idoru said:
G'day guys, with all the discussion on bias issues over on the 100-T adoration thread (she may be temperamental, but I still love her!), I wanted to nail down the figures here to see just how many people own them vs how many are reporting issues.

If you want to leave a comment, let us know how long you've had your Bassman, and what the issue was if you've had one.

Edit: users of the Super Bassman 300, feel free to vote too.
Click to expand...

I have owned the 100T since Sept 2012. I have had a very intermittent issue with the 2 outer bias lights going orange although I never noticed any difference in the performance of the amp. I have the original GT's and have not had service. I will say this issue is very intermittent and I played a 4 hour gig 2 weeks ago and it was solid green the whole time. I will be using it 2x this coming weekend so it will be interesting to see what happens. Seems like it has happened about 2-3 times since I have owned the amp. And I will add that it has never happened in the 4 ohm setting with my 2 Markbass 102P cabs. It happened 2x with an 8 ohm Avatar B212. Ohm setting was correctly set.
 

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