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What was your first amp (old guys only) Pt 2

#81
Hey everybody, this is my first post.
I had the Silvertone guitar with the amp built into the case. Wish I still had that one. Once the neighborhood filled up with guitars and I started playing bass, I scored a Vox Royal Guardsman. It had a super cool chrome stand with textured grille cloth, a bass boost, and a tuner switch that would emit a high E as loud as you could turn up the volume. My mom used to swat me for makin the cat go crazy. eeeeeeEEEEEEEEE!
 
#82
Good topic! I had a Univox amp head from the same pawn shop where I got my first bass. Not even a bass amp I suppose! It just had 20 watts, a Vol and Treble knob, that was it! It was about 3/4 the size of a typical GK head, if that's any help to visualize it. I connected it to a nondescript black 15" speaker. Thought it was the bees knees in the day...

Pic from Elderly Instruments...
http://elderly.com/images/vintage/130U/130U-9650_front.jpg
 
#83
My first amp was an early 90s Peavey 15w practice amp. It was under powered for actual rehearsal/performance use. I tried my best to use it with my middle school jazz band but it was not enough.

In 1996, I traded it in to get a Yorkville 100W amp. The Yorkville had the weakest 100W that I had ever heard, but it was all I could afford. While in college, the cone blew during normal use and I replaced it with a Carvin cone. Eventually I gave the amp to the school I was teaching at.
 
#85

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#86
Oh crap I don't recall if I already posted in this thread.

Oh well, I guess I qualify anyway.

First amp:

Kalamazoo 30 watt combo amp. Had a red racing stripe in the grill cloth. After my friend busted that amp for me because he was jealous I had one, I moved on to a Kalamazoo with two tens.

Sorry for the drama.
 
#87
1. A little solid state Kay, played bass lines on my Vox Shadow guitar thru it for the 8th grade talent show.
2. Pretty sure it was a Silvertone, maybe 1 12"? My first bass, an Eko violin
3. Pre-CBS Bassman. Got my 71 Precision then.
4. Wilder. These were big ss amps made in Chicago, mine had a preamp head with the power amp in the spkr cab.
5. Sunn, don't recall the model, it was a good amp.
6. Music Man 65 tube amp in my blues band days. Still have it.
 
#88
My first setup was totally home built. Had a fender tremelux schematic and had the machine shop at school make the chassis for it. My friends father had lots of used parts he sold me cheap and also helped me build it. Had a homebuilt bottom also with a 15"jensen in it.
 
#89
Peavey Renown. When I started playing bass I just bought a cabinet and used the internal speakers for when I played guitar, and the external cab (Peavey 2X18/2X10) when I played bass. Actually played gigs like that.
 
#92
: hiding:

A solid state Custom amp no tuck and roll. 35 watts 10 in speaker and 4 knobs. Gain , bass, mid., & treble. Didn't take long to blow it up.

Replaced it with a Peavey TNT130 with 15 in BW speaker. We didn't get along well either for very long. Once the volume was up the speaker was a mess.
 
#94
My first amp was a Kasino 100 watt combo with 2 15's, which I paid $100 for in 1981. Huge. Shortly after I got it, I picked up a kustom 200 head and ran the 2 X 15 cabinet with it after removing the Kasino head. Played that rig for years, no telling how many gigs I played with it. Replaced one of the 15's with an EV in the mid '80's, left the old kasino speaker in the cab as a "passive radiator". Finally upgraded in the early '90's when I got tired of carrying it around. That kustom 200 had really good tone, no clue why. Maybe it was made on a Wednesday.
 
#95
joe vegas said:
univox 50 watt head with a little grey 1/4" that connected to the single 15" cab.
june '73.
i thought it was the coolest thing in the world, along with my red fender mustang bass with the racing stripe.
Click to expand...

That was my first one, too. Purchased in the summer of '73, I think. Before that, I was making do with Bradford guitar amp.
I have a feeling that, if I still owned it, the Univox would sound good to me today.
 
#96
Like others, I don't recall if I've posted in this thread yet.

My very first amp was a home-repurposed amp section for a old tube console "Hi-Fi" unit through a home-repurposed 2x12 cabinet. The cabinet was something I picked up curb-side on trash day made of 2x4s and wood paneling. The speakers were probably from the Hi-Fi console.

That was replaced with this (or some of it, the head and the 2x15 laying on its side). Carvin solid-state head and EV designed TB series (pre TL) cabinet loaded with EV SRO 15s (one had been reconed with a new-fangled EVM cone, by EV in the mid 70s). The 1x15 cabinets on the bottom belonged to my bass teacher and were borrowed for this photo op (photo taken in 1976). (My parents are talking about selling their home, which is where this photo was taken...that'll be weird)

Carvin_rig_76_.jpg


The Carvin head was traded to a friend for a non-reverb Fender Showman head and cash. I later bought a pristine Marshall Major head from another bass teacher. I sold it (Marshall and Carvin) when I graduated from college and just before I got married in 1982 (on the bright side, I still work at the same company and am still married to the same wonderful (and very tolerant) woman). However, I still miss that rig to this day.
 
#100
I bought a Tiesco delRey bass when I was about 11 and didn't have an amp, but we had an RCA phonograph with a Push-pull 6V6 amplifier and, fortunately, I DID have an uncle who was a technologist for AC Spark Plug (became Delco Electronics/Delphi) and he was into music and HiFi/tube electronics. He gave me a cable with a 1/4" plug on one end and a pair of alligator clips on the other, telling me to clip them onto the speaker terminals, but that I shouldn't turn it up too loud or touch anything that was grounded. It worked, for the time being. My dad didn't want me to blow the speakers, so he asked an old friend (John Koss) if he had a source for a small amp and one day, came home with a little one that I think was a Valco- it had "Chicago, Illinois", like many others. That didn't work too well for bass, but when I cobbled that 6V6 amp from the phonograph into it, it was amazing for guitar. I took out the 8" Jensen and slapped a Jensen C12R in and it was pretty cool. Next stops, '55 Fender Bassman, '58 Bassman (I still have that one) and now, a G-K 400RB (series II).
 

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