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Riviera?

Lo-E

Lo-E

Dec 19, 2009
8,462
14,396
58
Brooklyn, NY
#1
Anybody heard of Riviera cabinets?

No, not Rivera, Riviera, as in the Southern coast of France and Italy.

Somebody gave me a 1x15 Riviera cab yesterday. It appears to be a Fender Showman knock-off from around the early 70s.
I haven't opened it up yet to look inside so I don't know what kind of speaker is in it or how well it's constructed.

Who knows... with a low-power tube amp it might sound great! If not, I haven't lost anything. ;)
 
#2
That Fender connection would come from Paul Rivera being employed at Fender at one point......He was a marketing director and he designed alot of good amps for Fender (CBS era).

Early Rivera and Soldano pretty much copied these "CBS" era amps, once CBS sold Fender, Fender turned to PC boards at that point.
 
#3
I understand the Rivera connection, only this isn't a Rivera.

It's a Riviera - there's an extra 'i' in there. I even looked to see if it was just an emblem from an old Buick Riviera that someone stuck on there, but it's not. It appears to be a genuine Riviera... whatever that is!
 
#4
I remember seeing some Riviera bass gear in the late seventies in the Ottawa Valley. If I recollect correctly, that stuff was made by Pine Electronics in Montreal. I could be wrong. There was a nice low power tube head that I've seen occasionally too. I remember thinking the stuff looked good, but never had a chance to try it....
 
#7
Google Pine, Pepco, Paul amps. They were stencil brands from Montreal. The little tube head I see sometimes is the model 725 Riviera amp. I think it might be the match for your cabinet. There are lots of pix and schematics on the sites your google search will return. Have fun reminiscing!
 
#8
Talkbass is truly amazing.

You guys are absolutely correct! The Riviera logo on that 725 head matches the one on my cabinet. Mystery solved!

Now I just have to open it up and see what it's loaded with and take it for a test drive.

Thanks everybody!
-E
 
#9
Opened it up today to find a GB Professional speaker in it.
Basically a Taiwanese, generic replacement speaker.

The magnet looked pretty beefy, so... what the hell? I plugged the BX-500 into it, kept the master way down and took it for a spin.

Not too shabby! Much better than I expected. Tubby, old-school, a fine match for a low-Watt tube head. It's certainly no hi-fi cabinet, in fact it's not even a medium-fi cabinet :), but for little coffee house gigs or recording I think it would work out fine.

It's got a single slot port, and I would be surprised if it was actually tuned to anything in particular. I might try putting a 200W EV driver I have in it with a little more stuffing and see how it sounds. That should be interesting.

Haven't plugged the Danelectro into it yet, but I will. Oh, I will.
 
#10
Well, I scavenged enough parts at work to make a speaker adaptor cable for my B-15 so I could listen to this thing with a low-powered tube amp.

Compared to the B-15's cab, it's definitely light on the bottom but it's still pretty good. Pretty good, but it still sounds like a guitar cab.

There's something rattling when I play an open A. I think when I go hunting for the rattle, I'll go ahead and put the 200W EV speaker in there. If that gets it sounding more like a bass cab (even a little bit more - I know I can't expect miracles) Then I might add some bracing to the back (a la Fender Showman cabs) and some damping material and call it a done deal. Then the search will be on for some weird, off-brand tube head I can pair it with!
 

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