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The worst amp I've ever owned

#121
My uncle worked at Conn Organ in Madison IN. and he built me an amp out of an amplifieid ext spkr. It was a 3ft by 3ft pine box, with a tube amp and 2-15s in an open back. It sounded like a 3by3 pine box(what it is!).I'd forgotten about it till I saw the post. I think we ended up putting the speakers in our $35 PA cabs.
 
#122
Best & Worse, my Dad purchased my 1st amp.It was a Christmas suprise, a Magavox with a 12 or a 15 .it was some sort of open backed combo.This was 1966 Worse amp in the world, but the best because my Dad bought it for me when he did not have the kind of money for that stuff.
 
#123
JKT said:
It hit me. I'd forgotten all about this amp. I must have blocked it out as a defense mechanism. I couldn't even remember the name at first but in researching it came to me. The mfg timeline doesn't fit though so I wonder if it was a prototype I go stuck with. It turns out it was mfg in my home town. I have yet to find any images on the web. If anyone can, I'm strong enough now to confront it.

In the late 70's moog music built a line of amps called SG. I got suckered into one of the bass amps. It was the size of a small fridge and weighed as much as a big one. It had to be the worlds largest combo amp I think it had a 15 and 2 10's for speakers. It was like, two thirds the size of an Ampeg 810Black tolex covering a particle board cab. Cheesy aluminum trim and giant oven dials that didn't do much.
Terrible sounding amp. And the best part- it kept quitting on me and I would have to haul it in to the mfg to have them fix it. Anyone ever see one?

JKT
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Yep. I had one back in the '90s.
 
#124
When buying my first new bass amp in the late 70's, I had a choice between an SVT, an Acoustic 360, and a piece of crap Cerwin-Vega. Guess what I picked...the POS Cerwin-Vega. It was a gray carpeted, red-grilled monstrosity with an 18" rear facing speaker and a forward 12".
It would fart out at 2. I hated it and I had a hard time getting rid of it cause I was so poor and I had already blown my cash on a bad decision. Anyway, I finally got rid of it and got a Peavey combo that sounded like tone heaven compared to the POS-CV.
 
#128
Bumping an old thread to post about my little old amp. I'm home for the Christmas season in my parents' house, and I found my old bass practice amp I bought 4 years ago. I'm surprised I managed to find any enthusiasm for this.

The amp is a Stagg 20 watt combo with an 8inch speaker. It either has a built in compressor or limiter or I am destroying the speaker in it. It has two channels (why?) each posessing the same character. Controls are bass, low mid, high mid and treble. Treble seems to not add very much but high mid is the biggest sound shaper of the lot. Not only does the volume change massively with a turn of this knob but it goes straight from 'muffled' to 'clipped and muffled'. The EQ was not designed by anybody who knew a thing about sound production or bass frequencies. The bass knob is also a volume control of parts, either scooping out everything below about 800hz (I kid not) or boosting everything at around 200hz, maybe higher, making the speaker fart out. I can set the input volume at 9 oclock and gun the bass knob and make the speaker fart out/compress.

I might yet have some use for this amp as a sort of high-mids monitor thing but I just cannot decide what purpose it has.

My first ever bass rig was this amp, a Squier Bronco and a boss DS-1. I kid you not. I might record this tragic setup for a youtube video.
 
#129
b_carville said:
VOX I'm talking the made in the USA Thomas Organ solid state one's. The biggest ripoff amp ever. My pick as win,place & show in the Golden Fleece award amplifier division. I know these amps have their fans but they were cheaply made & would crap out all the time. Some of them did sound good,when they worked. They led dumbass American kids (like,me!) to believe they were getting the real British deal.A Super Beatle would hiss like a pack of snakes.They were hyper expensive & never discounted. The cabinets were made of pressboard. A Super Beatle was $1200 in the 60's. An Essex bass amp (A Whopping 25-30 watts of power) was $450. That's 60's dollars kids. You could get a new car for $2000 then (not a fancy one,but new).
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Wow...that post was a trip down Memory Lane for me, dude!

Yep, I had an Essex. You could drown it out by cutting a manly fart... And it had tone about as punchy as a black hole, y'know?
 
#131
b_carville said:
...
HAYNES The "Bass King" model. It wasn't. Their brochure stated "Stand Back! The booming bass sound will knock you over!" or something like that. Your household pets fart louder.
...
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Ha! I had a Bass King II, and it farted twice as harmonically richly.

I suppose I could use it for that vintage suck tone if I still had it. :D
 
#133
krall said:
My ex-drummer has one..Found this info online:

"The SG Systems amps were made at the old Standel plant in El Monte, California in 1974 when Chicago Musical Instruments (CMI) purchased Standel. I believe SG stands for Standel Gibson."
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Ha, I went to high school right behind the Standel factory. We used to pick reject cabinets out of the trash, take 'em home and use 'em. :D


Later, a singer joined up with us who had an SG PA. Something like a head and two cabs on each side. We ended up using it for monitors along with our Acoustic/Altec PA. We were happy to have it. :)
 
#135
Just hideous. Free, though. I bought a Kay EB-3 copy for 25 pounds sterling and this was thrown in. Some time in the late 70s.
 

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#136
Probably the Fender BXR200 head,
This was o.k @ home but try to gig with it & the farts would come as if they had been invited to stay !!
Had to keep a fan on it to try to keep them old farts away.It only seemed to happen after about 5mins of playing then it was smelly city !
 
#137
Bassflute said:
Hands down. Bad sound, bad design, faulty workmanship, poorly made right out of the box, along with nasty, rude, condescending and out and out lying customer service. Oh, and did I mention it was the most expensive amp I've bought?

Worst soundwise: Fender Bassman 50

Worst reliability: original Ampeg SVT

Cheers,
Cameron
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oi i play a bassman 50 and i love it more than any amp out there
 
#139
Mosrite, BG1000. 2 @ 15" Jensen (?) speakers in "combo" package. I don't know how many of those I blew up! Speakers would blow & take power transistors with them in a matter of seconds (or vice versa). Fortunately, they were cheap & plentiful in my area at the time (mid-70s). I finally saved up enough for a new Acoustic & never looked back!
 
#140
Mid-1960s Carvin solid state head amp and 2x12 cab. I can't remember how many times it blew up (at least five) and one time smoke came out of the head. Even when working it sounded like crap -- dull and flat. When I bought my 1965 Super Reverb (in 1966) it just killed the Carvin, not suprisingly.
 

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