Standel Amps

[62bass]

There are some really, really old geezers on this forum.

Speak for yourself Geezerdom is a state of mind; at least that's what I tell my wife when she calls me an old geezer.

 

[62bass]

Now a good question is-has anyone played one of the reissue Standels? $3900 is a pretty steep price. How does it compare to a Mesa Boogie Walkabout?

 

[AGCurry]

There are really two Standels. Some people here are talking about the late 50s and early 60s tube-powered Standels. Those were, in fact, considered to be great amps, prized by guitarists and steel guitarists.

Then there are the late-60s and early-70s solid-state Standels. They were quite popular in places - when I was in San Antonio in 1968, a lot of bands used them.

I had one for a while in '74 and '75. It had 2 12s and was a decent amp. It was the same model I saw Calvin "Fuzz" Jones using with Muddy Waters in 1972.

 

[Eggman]

Ahh..........my first amp - a Standel 2x15 "combo". All one piece - just fit in the back seat of my "69 VW bug convertible - though I had to take the window handles off.

I enjoyed that amp - always reliable and provided great sound.

Sold it for a 1x15 Yamaha combo.

 

[Jerrold Tiers]

Watch out for the SS ones....

If I recall correctly, at least some the solid state Standels may have the electronics inside little plastic boxes full of epoxy..... I remember them as the top and bottom halves of those little clear "snap boxes", full of blue or black epoxy with wires out the top.

If they were the ones, your chances of getting them fixed are going to approach zero, unless you can find a tech who has managed to "un-pot" and trace out the little modules.

Someone can correct me If I have the wrong brand.... I only have fixed a few Standels and that was quite a while back.

 

[Passinwind]

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.

The solid state ones "featured" encapsulated modules. When they failed, you replaced them. A techie friend of mine back in the 70s actually ground away the potting compound with a Dremel tool to try to save his amp. It was a messy failure IIRC. There was a guy online somewhere who'd stockpiled modules, dunno if he still has any at this point.

I have one of the old tube ones, a 30 watt guitar head. It's partly true point-to-point (unlike the classic Fenders, which use a tag board), which is actually a major PITA to work on. It had some very cool cicuit innovations in its time, but I turned it into a pretty nice bass preamp eventually.

There's some overview on this site: Invalid Link Removed

I'd give the solid state ones a miss unless you dig the nostalgia value.

 

[MacGroove]

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.

The Imperials were real popular in the late 60's in San Francisco with groups like the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Jefferson Airplane. But then Sunn amplification became the popular choice.

 

[Larry Kaye]

It had 2 15 inch Jensen speakers and I believe 100 watts? or 75 solid state. The amp sat permanently in the top of the speaker cabinet. The problem with the amp/cabinet was only one....but one big one.

There was nothing except a single nut in the middle of the back to secure the entire middle of the cabinet. There was a forklike bracket attached inside to each of the boards running front to back around the port hole. In the middle of the bracket, there was a hole with a 4 to 6 inch threaded bolt that was fastened to the bracket with nuts in front and in back. That bolt then fit through the hole in the back of the cabinet and the nut on the outside of the cabinet screwed into it.

The two pieces of wood around the port were not very secure to say the least. The combination of flimsey achoring of the bracket combined with only one point of fastening in the middle of the back of the cabinet and to say the least, the thing rattled until the cows came home. I wasn't very financially secure and was carpentry challenged at the time. The two portboards needed to be replaced and braced better and perhaps 4 or five of these brackets or and extra bracing board inside the cabinet for the back to be attached to needed to be done to make this thing work. The head also "rattled" every time I hit a not lower than C on the A string and it was a joke.

So I took the speakers out, had another cabinet made looking like a dual showman, took the head out and had a small cabinet make for it, and used the Standel speaker cab for fire wood, because that's all it was good for.

It was extremely heavy a cab even with the cheaper Jensens in it, but with JBL's it was at least competition for Sunn and Fender bassman amps at the time.

Not a good experience to remember.

Larry Kaye

 

[Shindig]

There are some really, really old geezers on this forum.

Yup, of course we may be the ones with the best perspective due to more experience. The young pups may be able to play rings around me, but they don't know all the songs (and don't get the gig). Seems like it's usually more important to know the song than to be able to play an amazing solo. There are exceptions though.

 

[Psychebassman]

I had a Standel Super Imperial first solid state amp in the late 60's and it was great! The 85 watts boomed at #3 volume and yes, it fit in the back seat of a VW bug. I put a special hookup in mine and could power the amp from my radio and it was the first boom-box!! I used it until it looked like it was dragged around the world - the black naugahyde all scraped off and half the wood too. I don't know what that guy was talking about his cabinet falling apart. I guess there are lemons in amps, not just cars. I sold the amp to a friend bass player and he played it for years and then I bought it back from him in the 80's. He said he had the main power module replaced and it was one of the last "ashtrays" around - the circuit was poured with epoxy into trays! Well, it has worked for me until last year and now it's very weak - it works but with no power - so I guess the "tray" is gone again. There's an old guy in TN that worked for Standel and is supposedly the best for repairing them. The problem is, I just looked in the new 2007 Vintage Guitar Player Price Guide and the amp is only worth ~$400.00 in excellent condition!! So now I'm going to try and find someone local to fix it - maybe even bastardize it with a power amp circuit board from something else. If it's not worth much, why not? The speakers are still the best ever. When I played dual showmans with 2 bottoms each, I had to have 140's put in them because I was tearing up the 130's. Anyway, I hope I can get the old friend fixed.
Keep on bassin' y'all.

 

[Wesley R]

Came stock with 2x15" Freecone (whatever that means) Trusonic speakers. It was designed and priced specifically to compete with the dual showman. I knew a session player in Nashville that loved his for years. That amp graced many Country stages. I liked mine and sold it to finance a pedal steel.
The metal grill was a totally different series, and looked way cool with an ext. cabinet and the wheeled stand. You could tilt each cab in 3 positions. Traded my lower cab for a mic. Kept the combo and cut the stand down. Sold that to provide the down stroke on a Peavey head and a 1x18 folded horn cab and a PA.
Not all the Standel stuff is modules.
Yes the tube Standels command a pretty heft sum. The new ones (just guitar, last time I looked) are pricey, boutiqe and are highly regarded by tube addicted guitar types.

Best of Luck,
Wesley R.

 

[dhsierra1]

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.

It's alive, another zombie thread brought to life!

I had a Standel in the mid 70s that pretty closely matches this description as well except it had the Jensen's, not the more desirable JBLs.

Did this one have the 2-15s in diagonal format? Curious because I was just describing the amp to a younger player and had forgotten the model and the specs. Any help appreciated

And yes, I watched both the built in amplifier go up in smoke, one during a rehearsal and another during a gig :scowl: Kept the speakers and ran them w/a used Peavey head and that held me until the next big rig......

 

[Jerrold Tiers]

Looking up the link confirmed something I was pretty sure I remembered......

The older transistor Standel amps had the circuitry "potted", the various circuits are in small boxes which are filled with epoxy. You basically can NOT work on them at all, and in most cases you can't even SEE the parts. My recollection is that the modules were blue, but I think they actually had a different color for different parts of the amp.

Maybe the CMI versions were not potted, but the couple I saw in the 1975 time frame were all potted, and we (at the repair shop I was working in while in school) couldn't get replacements then, or maybe they were just really expensive, I don't recall.

So if it is an OLD one, it's historical for sure, but you better hope it works and stays working.

 

[tdoody]

in 1967 my band the cryan' shames used standel amps. the bass amp had 2 15's and 200 watts. we also had a bass slave amp 2 15's 200 wats no tone controls. we also had the standel guitar amps 2 15's 200 watts.
they were super amps loud rugged and great sounding. we played 250 nights a yr for 3 yrs running with no problems. at that time we played in venues that had anywhere from 5000 to 50,000 people. the amps covered well.. i would like to have one again..

 

[dhsierra1]

Looking up the link confirmed something I was pretty sure I remembered......

The older transistor Standel amps had the circuitry "potted", the various circuits are in small boxes which are filled with epoxy. You basically can NOT work on them at all, and in most cases you can't even SEE the parts. My recollection is that the modules were blue, but I think they actually had a different color for different parts of the amp.

Maybe the CMI versions were not potted, but the couple I saw in the 1975 time frame were all potted, and we (at the repair shop I was working in while in school) couldn't get replacements then, or maybe they were just really expensive, I don't recall.

So if it is an OLD one, it's historical for sure, but you better hope it works and stays working.

yup, mine were potted so my EE dad and I couldn't save the amps, alas

But the transformers and other parts were scavenged and recycled into other music monstrosities and curiousities

Can't remember for the life of me what the functions were on the preamp head as the main plate was ripped off (bought it used cheaply back in '75). But seemed to be able to do a variety of things. Sounded pretty good for the time but I liked having the Peavey head (can't remember the model) powering those 4 15s more

If you can point me to any more info on these models (besides the Standel website) I'd appreciate it as I'd love to find out more about that model. Thanks!

 

[Jeff Scott]

A friend of mine from back in the early '70s had a tall Standel combo bass amp, I don't remember much about it except that it sounded great with her 1960 stack knob Jazz Bass. I haven't seem Marilyn since about 1977 or so.

 

[billfitzmaurice]

yup, mine were potted so my EE dad and I couldn't save the amps, alas

Only the pre-amps were potted, the power amps weren't. The potting was done supposedly to protect the components from vibration, and it seemed a good idea as transistors were advertised as being able to last forever... or at the least 100 years...so there would never be a reason to repair them.

It's a simple affair to remove a dead potted pre module and replace it with a perf-boarded IC pre. In the 80s-90s I did so with at least twenty Standels whose transistor life spans had fallen considerably short of the century mark.

 

[Jerrold Tiers]

Naturlich............

But then you do not have the "original", now you have a different amp. The SS ones IIRC were not "bad" they just were potted.... they sounded pretty good, and replacement with some IC probably won't get the same results...

it must be 30 years since I messed with one, so my thinking might be different on it now, styles have changed, and I don't know how the original would be regarded these days.

 

[nysbob]

I've been playing through one all summer.

I had a marina gig on Mondays and Tuesdays and didn't want to be dragging gear on and off the boat...and I have had this Standel Artist single 15" forever....so I just left it down there all summer.

It came stock with a jensen blue label which I swapped out for a JBL, and while it aint a powerhouse, it worked fine for that gig. I've always liked the tone of it - failrly beefy with a bit of grind on top. Mine is in pretty deplorable cosmetic condition, but the damn thing still works. It only struggles with effects - you need a little more headroom than it has to offer.

I just brought it home as we did our last one for the summer last night. Normally I just use it for rehearsal.

 

[billfitzmaurice]

Naturlich............

But then you do not have the "original", now you have a different amp. The SS ones IIRC were not "bad" they just were potted.... they sounded pretty good, and replacement with some IC probably won't get the same results...

it must be 30 years since I messed with one, so my thinking might be different on it now, styles have changed, and I don't know how the original would be regarded these days.

The first one I did had a good pre on one channel, so I was able to configure the replacement to sound the same. As I recall the potted module was a simple gain stage, so it didn't affect tone.