What is the manliest bass amplifier?

[Feral Feline]

Dude the He Man doll came to life! ***

Thet's whut I thawt! Somehow I never heard of this Thor guy before, until this thread.

FINALLY ! Somebody talking serious manliness...

YBA-3A SUPER CUSTOM SPECIAL
So manly it required TWO of the Big Ben cabs or a Big Ben and one of the YB18s. Or 4 YB18s, wired for a total of 2 Ohms.

From the Tone-Lizard website: "You want power, little boy? Try out the YBA-3A 'Super Custom Special' (Pete [Traynor] had a problem with modesty). Why use plain old 6L6's when you can use four 6KG6 TV horizontal output tubes and crank out 250 watts RMS before clipping. It was not unheard of to find a YBA-3A that scoped out at 400 watts with all controls 'dimed'. The YBA-3A was sold with two 8X10" speaker cabinets. The rumor is that Dan Armstrong smuggled one over to Ampeg, who quickly produced the SVT shortly thereafter. Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not."

Sounds like Invalid Link Removed.

From Traynor's site: "Identical to the YBA-3 but double the power (max continuous output was well over 400 Watts), YBA-3A was the most powerful bass head on the market when introduced & probably also the heaviest at apx.100 lbs. *(prototype made in 1968)"

Weight, hauling it, storing it, keeping the amp serviceable – a hassle. Still...

WANT

 

[interp]

Some of the old Sunn gear eschews manliness.

Perhaps you mean "exudes" manliness?

 

[Edword]

FINALLY ! Somebody talking serious manliness...

YBA-3A SUPER CUSTOM SPECIAL
So manly it required TWO of the Big Ben cabs or a Big Ben and one of the YB18s. Or 4 YB18s, wired for a total of 2 Ohms.

From the Tone-Lizard website: "You want power, little boy? Try out the YBA-3A 'Super Custom Special' (Pete [Traynor] had a problem with modesty). Why use plain old 6L6's when you can use four 6KG6 TV horizontal output tubes and crank out 250 watts RMS before clipping. It was not unheard of to find a YBA-3A that scoped out at 400 watts with all controls 'dimed'. The YBA-3A was sold with two 8X10" speaker cabinets. The rumor is that Dan Armstrong smuggled one over to Ampeg, who quickly produced the SVT shortly thereafter. Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not."

Sounds like Invalid Link Removed.

From Traynor's site: "Identical to the YBA-3 but double the power (max continuous output was well over 400 Watts), YBA-3A was the most powerful bass head on the market when introduced & probably also the heaviest at apx.100 lbs. *(prototype made in 1968)"

Weight, hauling it, storing it, keeping the amp serviceable – a hassle. Still...

WANT

That'd be this one

 

[tonybassman]

I believe those cabs are made by WEM.

WEM...haven't thought about them in years. Ya, Roger was big on the WEM gear for quite a while that I can remember. I tend to think he just bought them and forgot about them...or more likely got them free Doesn't strike me as much of a gearhound.

Thanks, I never heard of WEM.

 

[chadds]

Thanks, I never heard of WEM.

Inside Jethro Tulls first album you'll find a pic of a nice WEM stack. The Who's Tommy tour (Led Zepplin's first US tour opening act for the Who) featured a WEM PA.

 

[lfh]

Speaking of Zeppelin -- rig that makes the guitarist's Marshall half stacks look lame:

 

[TheBass]

This: http://www.kt66.de/gu81-amp.html + cab

 

[RS66LB]

LOL!! Does it run on three phase 600V power?

Your average North American wall outlet is limited to delivering 1800 W RMS before the 15A breaker will kick out. 10,000 Watts at 120 Volts would melt the 14 Ga wiring in the walls without the breaker.

...the Crest 10001 is essentially two independent amplifiers in a common chassis with each 'amp channel' being fed from its own power cable (around 40 amps each) of course powering 2 ohms with 10,000 watts (at less then .1% thd) while doing 20-20khz requires massive current levels...not too many of these used any more due to the wicked current draw

 

[MuthaFunk]

...the Crest 10001 is essentially two independent amplifiers in a common chassis with each 'amp channel' being fed from its own power cable (around 40 amps each) of course powering 2 ohms with 10,000 watts (at less then .1% thd) while doing 20-20khz requires massive current levels...not too many of these used any more due to the wicked current draw

Just looked it up! The factory .pdf is very informative. Manly indeed!! I had no idea there was ever such a beast built. Not easy to get twin 40A 120V circuits just for the bass players amp though...

 

[RS66LB]

Just looked it up! The factory .pdf is very informative. Manly indeed!! I had no idea there was ever such a beast built. Not easy to get twin 40A 120V circuits just for the bass players amp though...

lol, agreed

 

[nozkcb]

SVT Classic of course. . . .

 

[Boot Soul]

This: http://www.kt66.de/gu81-amp.html + cab

I think we have a winner. I can't read German but those power tubes are about the size of a 2 liter bottle of soda. I think that's at least as impressive as the 20 power tube Champ. The picture of the work bench with a laptop next to the amp is impressive.

Look at these things > Invalid Link Removed

 

[Korladis]

Mesa?? Really??



How in the heck is that manly?

Have you ever seen a mesa? The geological feature, not the amp brand.

 

[xk49w]

 

[arai]

Love it

 

[petrus61]

Props to the Mesa 400+ fartwagon. Also, the venerable SVT....

But EVERYBODY knows that the manliest amp is this:

 

[Spaldo]

Phew. I was hoping this thread wasn't gonna take itself too seriously

 

[rickdog]

This: http://www.kt66.de/gu81-amp.html + cab

Aww, man, why'd you have to do that? Now my SVT is hiding behind the couch whimpering....

 

[Steve Dallman]

I would like to nominate the mid 80's Peavey Max head. The preamp from a Combo 300 and a CS800 configured into a road case. It was a beast and rivaled an SVT head...well, at least as far as weight goes.

Into a couple 1820's...Killer...(back killer)!

 

[TheBass]

Aww, man, why'd you have to do that? Now my SVT is hiding behind the couch whimpering....

The german text says that he completely ripped off and restarted that amp three times to build the final one. Anode plate voltage is 1600V. This beast has an output of 950W with +-3dB linearity from 16Hz to 16kHz. Even at 1100W the distortion is less than 5%. There is also a picture of the two big black 1kW shunts he used for power measurement.

The matching cabinets on the lower picture are equiped with two 18" woofers for low range and two 12" for high/mid.

In case you are crazy enough to rebuild this monster you'll find all schematics by clicking the draft schematics below. I mean, if you want to be "the man", what about a combo version of this one ?