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Standel Amps

#41
Jeff Scott said:
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. :cool: I haven't seem Marilyn since about 1977 or so.
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Back in the '70's, a Blues band I was in opened some shows for Muddy Waters. Muddy's bass player, Calvin " Fuzz " Jones , was using one of these tall Standel combos, and it sounded great. I got to use it one night, and it sounded alot like my Kustom tuck'n roll 215. Nice, warm, mellow bottom, yet chunky at the same time. I've never seen one since then.
 
#43
billfitzmaurice said:
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. :rollno:
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ah, thanks for the clarification, Bill :) It's been years since I had the thing so memory is a bit fuzzy on that and I was just a greenhorn youngster back then ;)

Good to hear folks have fond memories of these old workhorses, would be fun to have at least one of my old cabs w/the built in amp again just for grins :bassist:
 
#46
My first "real" amp was a Standel Super Imperial XV. It had 2 JBL D130s; each speaker driven by it's own 35w SS amp. The build quality was high; better than most other amps of the day. The cab was plywood, with a slotted port. This was a guitar amp (what I played then), but it also saw use as a bass amp, and worked well for that.

In the early 80s, one of the potted modules failed and it was pronounced unfixable. The speakers went to DIY boxes, and the remainder of the amp went to the landfill.

The new Standel company is mainly about the older tube models, but they have some website support for the SS amps, including Invalid Link Removed.

I thought I saw someone selling replacement modules a while back. But with these schematics, any tech could reconstruct one. Now I regret pitching that amp.

Standels are low-power by today's standards, but they were well-built, and had a good clean sound. I'd grab another if I could buy it right, mostly for the nostalgia value.
 
#47
1n3 said:
The new Standel company is mainly about the older tube models, but they have some website support for the SS amps, including Invalid Link Removed.

.
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I wouldn't be all that hot on duplicating the original modules, as they were simple gain stages that added no tone but with the transistors of that era they did add noise. Any competent tech could breadboard up a gain stage using a modern IC that would give far better results. I believe I used NE5534s, and while they worked a lot better than the original modules there are far better choices than them available now.
 
#49
That's all in the definition of "better"......

There is "better because this book says so", and there is "better because I think it will be better", and there is "better because it sounds great"..... Don't get one confused with another.

Old Neve modules look pretty standard too, but they sound pretty darn good, even when overdriven......

if you put in an IC, for sure it will be "different", and that might be 'good" or "not so good", or "bad", depending on how it takes you.
 
#51
Jerrold Tiers said:
That's all in the definition of "better"......
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In this case better means better, as in much lower noise and cleaner tone. Invariably when I replaced only one module the amp owner liked the sound of it much better than stock and had me replace the other channel's module as well. And since these modules are input gain stages over-driving them is not part of the equation anyway.
 
#55
countrybass007 said:
I used the Standell bass amp with two JBL 215 loaded cabs on the road for two years. Great amp, with plenty of power and very reliable. My memory says each cab had a 300watt solid state amp built into it...
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300 watts seems unlikely; 100 watts was big power in those days. I've not heard of a Standel SS power section over 70w. For that matter, I've not seen a Standel amp with output power listed on the chassis. Perhaps you read the maximum power draw from the outlet.
 
#56
Jerrold Tiers said:
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.
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My first bass amp, was a Standel something-or-other; I remember looking inside, and seeing the little epoxied boxes, and not much else, as there was a lot of empty real estate in SS amps, back then. I don't think you ever worked on that one, we started with some PV head, doin' this & that to it...
 
#57
I had a solid state studio xx as my first amp. Had a pretty good bass tone, even though it was a guitar amp. It would/could shock you though the instrument cable even though it was fully grounded. It may have been haunted. Oh and it caught fire.
Your mileage will hopefully vary. :)

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#59
In full disclosure I found that pic on the internet, mine looked identical but not quite as clean. It was retrofitted from 4 X10s to a single 15 so it would have been similar to yours.

I played a peavey foundation with super ferrite pups through it. Made a pretty good Ric/hot Jazz lead bass sound. I wielded my bass like some sort of sonic weapon back in those days :)
 

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