I saw The Grass Roots use those Standels. Weren't the controls on the top of a 2-15 cabinet?
I know this is a crazy old thread, but I can't resist talking about the Standel Bass amps. I bought mine in 1971. It was a piggy-back amp and controls were in the front.
I was playing in a touring nightclub group and we were playing Little Bo's in Lincoln, Nebraska. It was THE college hangout and had a capacity of around 500-600 people. I was playing my 1965 Fender Jazz Bass through a 1966 Fender Bassman at the time and both the lead guitarist and the keyboards guy had both bought Vox Super Beatle amps because Thomas Organ was discontinuing them. My 50 watt rms Bassman couldn't come close to keeping up with their 125 watt (rms) Super Beatles with their 412 cabinet. My '66 bassman had two 12's but they were in the larger cabinet. It was a bad match. Looked great but blew speakers. I blew 4 of those Jensen 12" speakers (problem went away for Fender CBS when they put 15's instead of 12's in it). Anyhow, if I turned it up over 7, the amp distorted badly. Plus it was making some weird moaning sounds that would stop when I tapped it on the top of the head. Changing all the tubes made no difference. Was on it's way out or at least needed a lot of "Tech" time. So I was in the market for a Dual Showman with D140F JBL's in it to keep up.
Went to Hospe Music there in Lincoln to look for a dual showman. They were out. They checked with their Omaha, Nebraska shop and they had sold their last one the day before. So the bass guy took me into the bass amp showroom and I started trying all kinds of things out. There were full-stack Kustoms, Plush, and lord knows how many other bass amps. Didn't like any of them and they didn't have the guts I needed. Was walking out when he pulled me over to one last amp against the back wall. Said it was last year's model and because of that, plus the fact it had a small tear in the fabric on the head he could get me a great price on it. It was a comparatively short 215 cabinet with the 15" speakers stacked one above the other and 4 round ports next to them. The cab was at least twice as deep as my Fender Bassman. I plugged in, turned it up to 5 and hit the low E. Just about shook the other gear off the walls. Price on the amp had been $1250 and it was being closed out at $850. He was anxious to take my black-face Bassman off my hands, and that head had a small tear (snag) on it, so he gave it to me for $550 plus my Bassman. I was then the proud owner of a Standel bass amp.
The amp was the MCIIB with the SAM30 speaker cabs. Basically it was a solid-state pre-amp for the head (weighed nothing) that hooked into a ported and tuned powered speaker cabinet delivering 250 watts rms. I soon found out that the tuned cabinet projected sound like crazy. This thing was LOUD! If I stood within 3-feet or so of the amp, the air coming out the ports would flap the bell-bottoms (yes..that long ago) on my pants. This thing pushed a LOT of air. That night I used it at Little Bo's and turned it up to 5 (12 o'clock). After the first song our girl singer went out to the back of the room to hear the mix because we had been told the bass was way too loud. Ended up turning it down to 3 so I didn't drown out those poor Super Beatle amps or hurt anyone's ears. For the next three years the only time I turned it above three was when I played an outside gig. Then I got to turn it up to 5. I compared it later side by side to the "new" acoustic 370/360 and my Standel was louder. Absolutely loved that amp.
I moved to Oregon in 1976 and we stayed at my in-laws for the first few weeks. We all went to the county fair one night and when we came back, their house had been burglarized. They got my Standell amp, my 1965 Fender Jazz bass, and my two microphones. They left me the microphone stand. Never was able to replace that amp although I have a 1978 Jazz Bass that has the same feel as my '65. I currently play through a hot-rodded Eden WT500 that was upgraded by David Nordschow himself to 400 watts per side into 4 ohms or 800 watts bridged into 8 ohms. I love it and it is a much different sound than that old Standel, but I still miss that old amp.
Bob Crooks started Standel (STANdard ELectronics) as a custom, hand-made, guitar amp company with tube amps - the absolute definition of a boutique amplifier company. Bob was also one of the first to get into building solid state amps and the one thing that he found that made many solid state amps unreliable was that they would overheat. His answer was to have modules made and entirely cover them with some kind of resin. Intent was to make the amps trouble free for life. It also made them impossible to work on. So if something went wrong, you had to replace the entire module. It actually worked really well and these amps were super reliable. Then, about the time that I bought my amp he got a shipment of faulty modules that he installed in his new amps and he went out of business trying to replace them all. Had to sell to Gibson to handle the warranty returns. The SG (Standel Gibson) amps were made for one more year before Gibson discontinued them Was pretty sad.
My Standell was a far better bass amp than any Fender or Vox or anything else of that era. Standel started up again in I believe it was 1997-1998 by Danny McKinney and Bob Crooks. McKinney produced them under license until Bob passed away in 1999 and Danny continues to hand make the original Standel designs in Ventura, CA.
Dan
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Still sounded good using a Peavey head, though, w/those cabs. Would be fun to have the preamp and at least one of those cabs again.
