Resurrecting Slant-front YBA-3 Project

[vibroverbus]

Getting ready to move in the summer means I’m working through a giant pile of gear and old projects. Much stuff going in the trash, some forgotten treasures discovered…then there's this beast. Big treasure no trash.

Many many years ago I got hooked on vintage Traynors and ended up with a small collection. During this time I stumbled on a slant-front YBA-3 in need of overhaul, but otherwise not in terrible shape. I got so far as tearing it down and ordering custom replacement turret boards for it as well as a big pile of parts… and then… life stuff day job overseas travel etc.

Pulled it all out last night and can’t imagine why I haven’t finished it up. Chassis is in great shape, amp had few minor issues but “worked” when pulled apart so the big iron is known good. You could make a welder from those trannies. All the small parts and hardware I have - knobs handles cooling fan - the works. I won’t be able to get really on it until after the summer move but am excited to do so. No this isn’t getting hauled to gigs etc - will be purely for stationary operation

Oh yeah, and long live “Malibu” !

 

[NKBassman]

Nice. As a Canadian I am obligated to love that old Traynor stuff!

 

[vibroverbus]

Nice. As a Canadian I am obligated to love that old Traynor stuff!

Pete Traynor made phenomenal amps, super underrated by the general public. They are famously built like absolute tanks too.

Back in the late 90s and early 2000s they kind of became popular for five seconds as "mod platforms" and everybody was like "yeah man just get like a Traynor and then you can make it into a plexi!" Confession - that's kind of exactly how I got into it although I don't really care for having a plexi sound but I do like playing around with amp mods, and by that time my vintage fenders were way too valuable and special to just "screw around with".

But then after modifying a couple of them, I got so far into it I bought a really nice minty YSR-1 that I just restored to keep "stock" and frankly it's a fantastic sounding amp. You know guitar dudes, they can never leave well enough alone everything's gotta be "improved" and every "improvement" makes it better blah blah blah placebo effect confirmation bias etc. In reality these amps are just outstanding the way he made them. I'm keeping a couple of my homebrew mod amps because they are great too, and there was method to my madness (for ex: I have a YRM-1 that I modified to lower power using 6V6's, and made it essentially a semi-deluxe reverb clone but with some tweaks) but for sure this YBA-3 is going to be a factory stock affair.

 

[Patrice B]

Two YGL-3’s (fantastic low power - enough for a classroom) paired with bass cabs here. Also, a YBA-3 with a 2x15 and a little YVM-1 (similar to a YBA-1 but a PA mixer instead).

The good thing is they cost way less than any Ampeg, Hiwatt, Fender, etc… Obviously built like tanks!

 

[NKBassman]

I had a chance to play a vintage YBA-1 through a pair of 1x15 cabs on a gig a few years ago and it was glorious!

 

[Leo was right]

I once play a YBA-3 in a vintage 8x10 non-slanted Ampeg, amazing!

 

[jastacey]

The ones with the choke ( small transformer between the larger transformer ), sound the best