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Standel Amps

mike_v_s

mike_v_s

Jul 5, 2004
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#1
I was in a shop the other day and came across an old Standel bass amp. They were literally closing at the time I saw it and I didn't have a chance to check anything on it (including wattage).

I've searched a bit and have not really been able to find a definitive source for a history of their products. I was hoping for something similar to the "Acoustic360" site with info on a number of products, but no luck. The amp has a metal grill that I suspect is not original and I'm hoping to get that and the specs cleared up.

If anyone could point me in the right direction, it would be much appreciated.

Mike
 
#2
Standel amps were well known back in the 60s. They were the boutique amps of that time and many of the features they had were copied by Fender and others. The first amp to use JBL speakers. They were hand made and of the highest quality. I can't believe you couldn't find anything about them. i did a search over a year ago and found a whole bunch of stuff.

Back in the mid 60s I played through a new piggy back model Standel bass amp with 2-8" JBL speakers. Nice sound but naturally no volume at all.

Standel was most popular with guitar players-Chet Atkins was one of their early users and a host of other country guitar pickers. Also either Merl Travis or Joe Maphis. I can't remember which. Steel guitar players liked them too.

Someone, a few years ago started making clones of them. Very expensive. Don't know if they're still around. Look some more. There is data to be found.

And if that amp you saw is the real thing and is in decent shape at a good price, buy it. It's a piece of history and if working, a great sounding one.
 
#3
I knew a guitar player that had one. My memory is a little foggy here, but I think it was around 1966. I was similiar to a Sears Silvertone piggyback amp if you stood the Silvertone cabinet up sideways to make it taller. It played really loud with plenty of natural distortion at all volume levels. It reached TOF as soon as he turned it on, which was popular back then. The next time you are watching some old Beach Party movies from the mid sixties, you know, the ones with Frankie and Annette, you may see some Standel amps behind the band playing at the clam-bake. Dick Dale may have used one in the hit movie, "Beach Blanket Bango". There was even a band called "The Standells". As for quality, Standel was a notch below Fender and Ampeg. Sort of halfway between the Sears Silvertone and a Montgomery Wards. "Boutique", you've got to be kidding. When he traded the piece of crap in, Kern's Music would only give him $50 toward a new Vox. If I were you I'd think this one over a bit before jumping in. How about a used Ampeg??
 
#4
Joe Beets said:
I knew a guitar player that had one. My memory is a little foggy here, but I think it was around 1966. I was similiar to a Sears Silvertone piggyback amp if you stood the Silvertone cabinet up sideways to make it taller. It played really loud with plenty of natural distortion at all volume levels. It reached TOF as soon as he turned it on, which was popular back then. The next time you are watching some old Beach Party movies from the mid sixties, you know, the ones with Frankie and Annette, you may see some Standel amps behind the band playing at the clam-bake. Dick Dale may have used one in the hit movie, "Beach Blanket Bango". There was even a band called "The Standels". As for quality, Standel was a notch below Fender and Ampeg. Sort of halfway between the Sears Silvertone and a Montgomery Wards. If I were you I'd think this one over a bit before jumping in. How about a used Ampeg??
Click to expand...

You'll never convince a Standel fan of that. You are quite right about Dick Dale and the other beach movies. I remember seeing them used there. And I also saw the Standels live once using Standel amps of course.

Chet Atkins wouldn't record with anything else. He kept one up until he stopped playing.

I believe Standel went out of business when they decided to get into solid state amps. Big mistake.

I still stand by my opinion that they were better made than Fender. Sure, an old Ampeg would be nice to have-but that's so overdone and ordinary.
 
#5
Speaking of the Sears Sivertone-a lot of guitar players who couldn't afford Fender used them. I knew a few guys who replaced the factory speakers with Electrovoice Wolverines. It made a decent amp out of them. A radio repair guy I knew who built amps as a hobby said they were prone to power supply problems though. He worked on a lot of them. In those days the music stores didn't have repair facilities.

And the Standels were all fairly low wattage amps. I don't think they ever had anything over 50 watts. About 20 was the norm.
 
#6
62bass said:
I can't believe you couldn't find anything about them. i did a search over a year ago and found a whole bunch of stuff.
Click to expand...
Sorry. Perhaps I should have been more specific. I haven't been able to find anything that matches the particular amp that I saw in the store. If I had the model number this might be a bit easier, but I've hit a lot of information about a lot of different amps.

Based on what I've read, it appears to be a "later" model as indicated by the "solid state" printed in large font on the front. I've also read that the very late stuff had reliability problems, etc. I guess I was hoping for a site that could nail down a model number, approximate dates of manufacture, wattage, speaker type, etc.

Perhaps it's safe to assume no such conglomeration of facts exist and I just need to swing out there again and get some more details.

Mike
 
#8
I just googled "Standel" and sure enough, the new ones start at $3950. That's almost up in Dumble territory. And I could have had one in mint condition for $50 cash. If only I had known. My friend traded it in on something stupid like a Vox "Royal Guardsmen", or was it "The Buckingham"?? I think he liked the Vox because it had a chrome tubing frame on the sides with built in casters and real "groovy" looking grille cloth. Most importantly, he saw one the night before on TV. I think it was the lead guitar player for "Herman's Hermits". :hmm:
 
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#9
The Vox. Never tried one I liked. I once borrowed a Vox combo during the 60s for a gig. It had an 18" speaker in a sealed cabinet. Awful sounding thing. I hit one loud E note on it and the back of the cabinet popped off.

I borrowed the exact guitar amp used by the Stones on "Satisfaction"-an open back AC15. Also the Mosrite bass Wyman used on those sessions. The engineer for those sessions loaned them to me. I used the Mosrite to record a couple tracks. It actually recorded nicely with a pick. Not all that comfortable to play though.

The amp and bass got stolen from a car in LA later that year. The idiots who stole it probably had no idea what they would have been worth years later.
 
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#10
I remember back in the early 70's seeing a bass player run through a solid state 2 x 15" spkr Standel. I think it was called an Imperial or something similar. It sounded good. Much like a Fender Dual Showman (w/ 2 x 15 cab) and was unique in the tone knobs were stacked (I'd never seen that before). I saw a few (used) in the music shops during the 70's and haven't seen one since. :)
 
#11
I first started as a guitarist and had a 2 x 10" Standel nice clear clean amp. Then when I switched over to bass I was a Duck Dunn fan so I got a 2 x 15" Standel like you see in old pictures of Duck Dunn using in Booker T. and the MG's photos. I got my through my first band, but then want more power and bottom end and traded it on a Ampeg. The Standel was a good amp and the factory was outside of L.A. so the only time i had trouble I took it out there and no questions they fixed it up.
 
#12
I saw the lovin spoonful a few times on the east coast in the late 60's/early 70's.
They used several large solid state Standels with 2x15" JBL speakers. :cool:

I played through one a few times in a music store in Pawtucket, RI. They were loud, and really OK, but I liked my blackface dual showman (D140Fs) better. Tubes! :smug:
 
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#13
I used a Standel bass rig back in the mid '70's.

The rig had two cabs, each loaded with 2 15" JBL 140's. Each of the cabs had an internal solid state amp, as far as I can recall, the power rating was about 150 Watts. Usual stage approach was to stack the two cabs, rig ended up close to 6' tall! Standel sold them together with a decent quality solid state pre-amp.

I liked the Standel, it was clean, fat, loud and reliable. Heavy. Think SVT heavy. Killer setup for old school country sound or big band with one cab, able to whomp a Marshall stack with both cabs. To my ear it was a fatter sound than an Acoustic, with a less forward midrange.

If I was hunting for a vintage Standel today, I'd be a little concerned about service. Servicing older solid state gear can be a problem, as some of the transistors used in that era are getting hard to find. My memory of what's under the hood in those things isn't good enough to recall what series of transistors it was designed around.

It may be worth finding out from a tech you trust what he thinks regarding service.
 
#16
Wow, guys. I didn't know about the big Standel amps. I can imagine them sounding pretty good for bass. I had no idea they went on to the 70s. I certainly liked the sound of the early tube guitar amps.
 
#18
Joe Beets said:
As for quality, Standel was a notch below Fender and Ampeg. Sort of halfway between the Sears Silvertone and a Montgomery Wards. "Boutique", you've got to be kidding. When he traded the piece of crap in, Kern's Music would only give him $50 toward a new Vox. If I were you I'd think this one over a bit before jumping in. How about a used Ampeg??
Click to expand...
When did you have a Standel? In the 50's they were the best. Merle Travis, Joaquin Murphy, Joe Maphis and a lot of other big name players used them. The highest wattage I remember was about 40. I think they went solid state in the mid 60s (I'm not sure when) and they went down hill considerably. I bought my Fender Deluxe amp in '58 and a Standel cost more than my father made in a month. 10 years later I didn't think they compared, I wanted a Baldwin then.
 
#19
I saw BB king at the Auditorium theatre in Chicago in 1973.He was on a bill with Albert King and Ray Charles and he was between Albert and Ray and BB was using Standell amps then.His other guitar player at the time also played through a Standell and this was the best I've seen BB.The Auditorium in Chi town just sounds great anyway and BB was at his best.I was suprised he was using them and he did sound great that night.

A buddy of mine used them as a bass amp in the late sixties with a Guild Starfire single pickup bass and he always sounded good.He was a really good bass player though and would have sounded great through a 50 watt practice amp.I've found it is the player more than the amp which defines the sound of each player

Good players sound good through whatever they play through,Standells were good enough that great players sounded great through them.Enough said.
 
#20
The first time I heard a Standel was with Deke Dickerson and the Ecco-Fonics. They sounded amazing.

There's a great story about when Bob Crooks first began making his amps and he used a Les Paul recording, not an instrument, to tweak his amp.

Taken from the website:
"Bob developed his first amplifier by playing Les Paul's recording of "Lover" through the amp over and over again until it sounded just right. Only problem was, when Paul Bigsby brought over one of his steel guitars to play through the amp, it sounded terrible! Bob quickly realized that building a musical instrument amp and a hi-fi amplifier were two different things."

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