SWR Baby Blue II speaker blown?

[ventriloquest]

Long time lurker first ever TB post. I am in talks to buy a SWR Baby Blue II (2x8) and the seller sent the following video. Can anyone help diagnose the potential issue regarding speaker buzz? I understand the original 8" speakers are no longer manufactured and wonder whether or not it's worth trying to revive the amp. Asking price is fair for condition at around $350.

Video via streamable.com:

SWR Baby Blue II - Streamable.com

Thank you for any input!

 

[agedhorse]

It may not be a bad speaker, proper troubleshooting will first identify what is working correctly, then confirm that what's left is actually the cause of the symptoms.

 

[ventriloquest]

Thank you for your response. Seller is willing to go down on the price to 275 due to the buzz. Would you say it's worth taking to a competent tech at that price? Or do you happen to recommend a particular book/video/website to learn proper troubleshooting skills? Or just move on in my search for a small combo amp? I mainly fear a price balloon once I go down the rabbit hole as I am not experienced in electronic repair but would love to learn. For reference, goal is a small footprint amp for Kala U-bass in a bluegrass ensemble playing breweries and the like.

ps I own and love the Mesa D-800 maybe I should just use that

 

[agedhorse]

There's no way to know without proper troubleshooting. This is also an area where experience helps a lot. Experience with this amp (which is pretty different from the other models) can't be obtained without experience. I can't even begin to provide a confident guess.

I had some of the Neo drivers that were going to be used in an updated refresh of the Baby Blue, but they are all gone.

 

[Nebadon2000]

That $75 dollar discount will easily be taken up by tech fee before cost of parts and additional labor

It is like when buying a car that is running rough seller always says OH it just needs Tune-up if so why didn't you get tune-up before selling

Unless you have a thing for old Amps or have tech skills and good understanding how to diagnose and fix problem

Or tell seller if he gets it fixed you will pay asking price

I would Pass

 

[Type-55]

I could be wrong but I think the amp has a speaker out jack to allow you to disconect the internal speakers.
If so you could run the amp out to an external speaker and check how the amp performs not using the internal speakers.
This would eliminate the amp as a source of the problem. The original speakers were made buy Celestion, I think.
Faital might make a nice 8" driver for a replacement. Hope this helps. I new several people that had the Baby Blue and it was an excellent sounding combo.

 

[BassicJazzy]

I will chip in my own experience with my BB2. The 2x8" speakers were indeed made by Celestion but are no longer available, and re-cone kits are also not available. There is one single speaker output jack, and the 2x8s connect to that via a short cable. to connect an external speaker you disconnect the internal speakers and plug into that jack. Eminence makes a 8" speaker, the Alpha, that others have used to replace the Celestions, but it is much higher capacity and per specs wants a larger port hole. Still, people who have replaced with these say they sound good. They aren't cheap, if memory serves me over $100 each. Then there's the amp itself, which doesn't have the greatest grounding, and has the "Aural Enhancer" circuit which is always on, even if dialed to zero. No schematics for the amp circuitry, so if something goes bad, you may spend lots to troubleshoot. Plus the tube in pre-amp, and the overly complex stacked EQ pots.

When mine started acting up, similar to this one, I just moved on to a Rumble100. I put my SWR BB2 down in our public space with a note "free to good home, but needs work." I have not looked back since, but here's a pic of mine. BTW, the Rumble is about 1/2 the weight and sounds better, with more power too.

IMO, I'd say "pass."

 

[Fan Fret]

I wouldn't bother buying such an old, outdated amp that's just going to need constant repairs.

 

[BassicJazzy]

I wouldn't bother buying such an old, outdated amp that's just going to need constant repairs.

Certainly not at that price. I offered my BB2 to a bass playing friend free of charge, and he declined. Said "don't want that can of worms." I should add though that it never gave me a day of trouble, until it finally did. Lasted a long time. New amps and speakers are far superior though, in all aspects.

 

[Wasnex]

I wouldn't buy the amp without considering the cost to replace the drivers. Could be pretty expensive and you need to do the necessary engineering to select a compatible driver.

I used to gig a Baby Blue many years ago. I liked the tone, but it was barely loud enough for background trio gigs. I had to be careful with dynamics, because pushing the amp too hard resulted in really nasty clipping.

IMHO, "PASS!"

Put the $275 towards a much newer working amp.

 

[J Wilson]

I never knowingly buy troubled, fixer-uppers. SWR as a whole is fading over the horizon of replacement parts and speakers availability as they all will as the calendar keeps advancing away from the days when they were in production and popular.

Right now, it's a 275-dollar I-Don't-Know, which is way too much to ante up just to roll the dice for me.

Your results may differ.

 

[MuthaFunk]

I'll be the outlier here and offer that the BBII is a fantastic pro level amp and well worth the time for someone who doesn't need a lot of power / volume. It was designed as a studio machine and fills that role well. No fan, EQ bypass, parallel FX blend. Also can do small gigs. I used to use the external out to an SWR Big Ben back in the day. It was a very reliable amp.

The feature set is very good with three bands of semi-parametric EQ. The point of the Aural Enhancer always being on is true and some of the BBII users modified them with a switch to bypass it. There's a thread on TB about how to do it. I posted detailed pics on the BBII. That said, the AE is not bad all the time. It worked well for a lot of people. I typically used it sparingly for the styles of music I play.

I find the tube DI on that amp to be exceptional. Pre/Post selectable so you can get a signal without the Aural Enhancer. Very quiet electronics and certainly haven't experienced any ground issues myself. There is a ground lift on the DI. Schematics are widely available on line for most of SWR's legacy products, the BBII included. I have them somewhere. It's an easy amp for the techs to work on. I don't think the power amp chips are available anymore but if it's making sound as in the video it's not the power amps.

As agedhorse said it's really hard to tell from a video without some basic troubleshooting but to my ears it almost sounds like a cab issue not the amp.

I rehoused my BBII into a new chassis and use it as a head only for recordings and jam room practices. It's fine amp even by today's standards IMO.

What does $275 buy you on the TB classifieds today? Maybe not much value in comparison however it should be considered as it's a great amp.

https://www.zikinf.com/manuels/swr-baby-blue-ii-manuel-utilisateur-en-29830.pdf

Elektrotanya for electronics experts

Electronics forum for electronics experts to repair defective appliance.

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Elektrotanya for electronics experts

Electronics forum for electronics experts to repair defective appliance.

elektrotanya.com

 

[BassicJazzy]

I'll be the outlier here and offer that the BBII is a fantastic pro level amp and well worth the time for someone who doesn't need a lot of power / volume. It was designed as a studio machine and fills that role well. No fan, EQ bypass, parallel FX blend. Also can do small gigs. I used to use the external out to an SWR Big Ben back in the day. It was a very reliable amp.

The feature set is very good with three bands of semi-parametric EQ. The point of the Aural Enhancer always being on is true and some of the BBII users modified them with a switch to bypass it. There's a thread on TB about how to do it. I posted detailed pics on the BBII. That said, the AE is not bad all the time. It worked well for a lot of people. I typically used it sparingly for the styles of music I play.

I find the tube DI on that amp to be exceptional. Pre/Post selectable so you can get a signal without the Aural Enhancer. Very quiet electronics and certainly haven't experienced any ground issues myself. There is a ground lift on the DI. Schematics are widely available on line for most of SWR's legacy products, the BBII included. I have them somewhere. It's an easy amp for the techs to work on. I don't think the power amp chips are available anymore but if it's making sound as in the video it's not the power amps.

As agedhorse said it's really hard to tell from a video without some basic troubleshooting but to my ears it almost sounds like a cab issue not the amp.

I rehoused my BBII into a new chassis and use it as a head only for recordings and jam room practices. It's fine amp even by today's standards IMO.

What does $275 buy you on the TB classifieds today? Maybe not much value in comparison however it should be considered as it's a great amp.

https://www.zikinf.com/manuels/swr-baby-blue-ii-manuel-utilisateur-en-29830.pdf

I paid $300 for a brand new Rumble100 from GC and added $100 on top for a 5 year warranty. I bought the BB2 back in '93 at a steep discount, because I got special deal from the owner of SWR. It was a wonderful amp compared to the amps of that day, but the modern R100 is superior in every way, has no fan, and will not cost me a cent for at least 5 years. If something went wrong in the warranty period most likely GC would just hand me a new amp, or so I've heard.

Also not discussed, one of the biggest things to consider is downtime in event an amp needs repairs. In event a BB2 that is failing can even be repaired, it won't likely be a quick fix. BTW, Fender does not maintain schematics for the original BB2. If schematics are available, they are for the later models, once FMIC reengineered them to meet safety standards.

 

[BassicJazzy]

I'll be the outlier here and offer that the BBII is a fantastic pro level amp and well worth the time for someone who doesn't need a lot of power / volume. It was designed as a studio machine and fills that role well. No fan, EQ bypass, parallel FX blend. Also can do small gigs. I used to use the external out to an SWR Big Ben back in the day. It was a very reliable amp.

The feature set is very good with three bands of semi-parametric EQ. The point of the Aural Enhancer always being on is true and some of the BBII users modified them with a switch to bypass it. There's a thread on TB about how to do it. I posted detailed pics on the BBII. That said, the AE is not bad all the time. It worked well for a lot of people. I typically used it sparingly for the styles of music I play.

I find the tube DI on that amp to be exceptional. Pre/Post selectable so you can get a signal without the Aural Enhancer. Very quiet electronics and certainly haven't experienced any ground issues myself. There is a ground lift on the DI. Schematics are widely available on line for most of SWR's legacy products, the BBII included. I have them somewhere. It's an easy amp for the techs to work on. I don't think the power amp chips are available anymore but if it's making sound as in the video it's not the power amps.

As agedhorse said it's really hard to tell from a video without some basic troubleshooting but to my ears it almost sounds like a cab issue not the amp.

I rehoused my BBII into a new chassis and use it as a head only for recordings and jam room practices. It's fine amp even by today's standards IMO.

What does $275 buy you on the TB classifieds today? Maybe not much value in comparison however it should be considered as it's a great amp.

https://www.zikinf.com/manuels/swr-baby-blue-ii-manuel-utilisateur-en-29830.pdf

Elektrotanya for electronics experts

Electronics forum for electronics experts to repair defective appliance.

elektrotanya.com

Elektrotanya for electronics experts

Electronics forum for electronics experts to repair defective appliance.

elektrotanya.com

Clarification - - The manual you attached is for the reengineered BB2. That was after FMIC and @agedhorse redesigned the amp circuits to eliminate grounding issues. I do not know what version the OP is considering, but there is no schematic for the ones produced in Sylmar factory by original SWR team, which is what I had.

Anyway, as I said, this is in past for me.

 

[MuthaFunk]

Clarification - - The manual you attached is for the reengineered BB2. That was after FMIC and @agedhorse redesigned the amp circuits to eliminate grounding issues. I do not know what version the OP is considering, but there is no schematic for the ones produced in Sylmar factory by original SWR team, which is what I had.

Anyway, as I said, this is in past for me.

Most interesting! I had no idea agedhorse redesigned the amp circuits! The schematics all look the same to me.

 

[BassicJazzy]

Most interesting! I had no idea agedhorse redesigned the amp circuits! The schematics all look the same to me.

Yeah, there was a safety issue, where the amp did not meet standards. You could hear it in mine when you switched power on or off, there was a momentary buzzing sound. That's back when the amp worked perfectly. If you search hard enough, you will find a 20 page thread back in TB history where the BB2 was bantered back and forth, lengthy history about SWR and what happened with them. I met the owner, and also the owner of Groovetubes, who SWR shared a factory with. Friends of friends. Really interesting, both companies, and their histories.

 

[Brad Maestas]

This was my workhorse doubling amp for years and years in high school and beyond. I did eventually wear out the Celestions around 2001 and I believe by that time, replacements and re-cone kits were not available. My tech suggested an equivalent (I think Bag Ends actually) and it continued sounding excellent. I used the preamp for many recordings, with several big bands, and in pit work. If it didn't weigh so darn much I would've kept it but about 8 years ago I sold it. The drivers were still going strong but the power section had the tell-tale hum of capacitors needing replacement. I sold it as-is to a local player in Oakland. He got it re-capped and said it sounded fantastic.

Even if the unit you are considering was in perfect working order (or so claimed), I would still not buy another one today because of the lack of support for it. If I did want to get another one for nostalgia, I'd probably just get the head.

 

[agedhorse]

Most interesting! I had no idea agedhorse redesigned the amp circuits! The schematics all look the same to me.

I didn't, my involvement was afterwards, trying to help with a path forward that never happened (with the exception of the GoLite cabinets and Headlite/GoLite Amps.

 

[MuthaFunk]

I didn't, my involvement was afterwards, trying to help with a path forward that never happened (with the exception of the GoLite cabinets and Headlite/GoLite Amps.

I didn't think so. Thanks for clarifying.

 

[DWBass]

My advice................Do Not Buy Faulty Equipment!!