Info on Fender Twins needed.

goldtop0 · Post by **goldtop0** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 11:35 am

There is a bit of Kiwiana factor nostalgia if you like especially for the old 50s/60s produced guitars but not at over the top prices admittedly. I would play a good Fender amp over a good Jansen amp and similarly gat over gat,and if I'd had a good Jansen amp from day one I would keep it and use it.
What about some of you saying that Diplomat gats and Tiesco etc are getting crazy prices..........what sorts of $$ are these selling for?
Those things are best used as firewood.

Rog · Post by **Rog** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 11:45 am

A couple of years ago I bought supposedly the LAST Jansen Cardinal 550 bass amp they made.

I was expecting so much and it delivered so little. I moved it on within a few months. Didn't like it one bit. By contrast, my old Bassman 50 with point to point wiring sounded great. I believe they were direct Fender Bassman 50 copies.

Based on my experience with Jansen valve amps, if you can find an old one with the two vents in the top - grab it! The newer ones with a solid top just do not sound the same, imo. By then they had gone to PC boards and somehow they just lost their guts - no idea how.

Gunn were never much chop, imo.

An old Concord is worthwhile having is you can find one.

In the late '50s Jansen also did a combo amp, possibly around 25W?? with awesome tremelo and beautiful warm tone.

The Fountain Thunderbird series (I had a bass combo) were just average. I alos had a Tbird head I sold a few year ago. Good for the collector, not so hot for the musician.

B45-12 · Post by **B45-12** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 12:21 pm

Aha but I'd also point out to Hot_Grits re the crappy 70's guitars/amps; the punks/grunge movement subsequently made a virtue out of such stuff, including the amps, so a part of the 'vintage' craze may be due to that aspect.

There is also the general rise in prices - now 2-3k's is not a bad price for a good new amp and 4ks is the going rate for some high end stuff; so you can expect the older stuff to hang on the tail of the increase particularly as they ain't making any more.

With the NZ silverface Fenders, presumably now one can get decent xformers/other bits from the states etc. so they can be upgraded but you'd need to get the amp cheap in the first place as I don't suppose the sea freight on a transformer is cheap.

Must admit it's never really bothered me that much as I'm of the 'amp is an amp is an amp' school, especially in a sweaty pub with half-pissed patrons but I can understand for the big gig at Western springs, you might like a choice bit of tone.

Anyway glad to see no one is trying to sell the early 70's Maranucci 5watt solid state practice amps as 'vintage' etc - now if you wanted the definition of a lifeless, soulless m/f amp that broke down constantly, then that was it . . . .

Hot_Grits · Post by **Hot_Grits** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 10:53 am

Hmmm, the 90s grunge/punk/alt thing is interesting. I tend to think of it as an offshoot of the vintage craze, in that in many cases it was about musicians trying to find stuff they could afford, ruling out sought-after vintage instruments and expensive reissues as the vintage market gathered steam. Of course, as alt music became a major label, moneymaking genre, then we see the gear associated with it rising in value, reissues etc. So the whole thing builds on itself, as manufacturers try every angle they can to sell us yet more stuff we really probably don't need.

of course, the pawnshop craze isn't necessarily an alt musician thing. Think of how danelectros and supros went up due to people finding out Jimmy Page used them, or the time when EVH appeared on a magazine cover with a teisco del rey and prices shot up overnight...

As for an amp is an amp, I'd agree. Having gigged with such classic pre-Lange era amps as Jansen bassmans and holden graphics, I can tell you the world won't cave in if you don't have the amp of your dreams onstage. If you can play, you can play. It's as simple as that.

But it sure is nice to be able to afford and gig nice amps, whether it's to a small or large audience. I'm fortunate enough to play the occasional large-scale gig, and I reckon I benefit more from my amps in smaller settings, where sound reinforcement and space can be lacking.

B45-12 · Post by **B45-12** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 11:59 am

Presumably you mean the valve Jansen Bassman (don't know if there was a solid state version or not - like what happened to the Vox AC30 in the 70's). I allways thought they wer not bad (being basically Kiwi knockoffs of Fender Bassman) but the Holden graphics left me cold although . . .

However the addtional functions of modern amps are pretty good - the way you got a good tone out of a Bassman (Jansen, Fender or whatever) in ze goot olt days was to turn it up past about 7. Not very good for neighbourly relations. Then came power soaks and master vol/drive controls (about late 70's from memory???) along with graphic equalisers, then effects loops, inbuilt distortion etc up to the modern beasties. One rather good commentator says of older amps that one should beware as not only do they lack the modern facilities but also the quality of construction was not there in the first place.

I often wonder about the point to point vs printed construction controversy. On one side I reckon the printeds can be bad because caps and resistors near to valves often don't have the airflow and get 'cooked' - drying out the caps and altering the resisitors value (especially the cathode resistor in the pre-output amp stage - if your amps distorts look there 2nd or 3rd check!) but on the other hand hanging in free air between tagstrips and off tags set in bakelite valve sockets cannot be that good. If it's handwired there is probably less chance of dud joints as the printed is wave soldered on a machine - but again if you spent the same time and care/checks on the printed as you do on the point to point etc.

Jury is still out in my mind.

Rog · Post by **Rog** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 12:45 pm

> but again if you spent the same time and care/checks on the printed as you do on the point to point etc.

Agreed - however, it seems the human element is divorced from the process these days...

Hot_Grits · Post by **Hot_Grits** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 3:09 pm

Yeah, I meant the valve bassman 50 and 75 heads. The 50 is ok, and the 75 less so.

Personally they're not my thing, as I don't like silverface-era fenders especially much, let alone lower quality knockoffs. i've been rehearsing with a recently serviced Silverface Bassman 135 head recently, and while perfectly adequate, there's something about the midrange character that just doesn't do it for me. My preference is for pre-blackface designs overall.

Amps have come a long way in terms of features over the last 30 years, but it still seems like the more you make an amp do, the more you compromise the tone. I always find myself drawn to simpler designs for that very reason.

PTP vs PCB is a pretty arcane subject. Anyone who says PCB amps are rubbish should look no further than the current range of THD amps, which are excellent PCB designs. I had a chat with my amp tech, Clarry Schollum, about PCB/PTP not long ago, and he said that as long as the PBC is well designed to eliminate tracks 'talking' to each other and creating capacitances, there should be no advantage to PTP over PCB. Thing is, only a handful of (generally boutique) designers have thusfar managed to master PCB design to the same level as, say, THD's Andy Marshall.

He also said that he's seen some absolutely disastrously assembled PTP amps in his time, though.

In the end, a good amp is a good amp, regardless of how it was assembled.

DC4 · Post by **DC4** » Fri Mar 18, 2005 1:01 pm

Actuaaally, the only diff. between a Bassman 50 and 75 was the 75 had higher plate voltages and required (expensive) 7027A output bottles...
The p to p vs pc thing is silly really, you can build the same circuit either way and it would be impossible to hear anything different. There is much bs (INMHO) around, but there are many other factors that effect the sound, such as the choice of speakers, bias settings, bla bla.
However, valve amps that put the valve sockets on the pc board are a serious recipe for unreliabilty, as the heat causes problems. The last the of the Jansen Bassmans did this and were shockers. ('specially if you put your fingers in the wrong place).
Going back to the original thread - I'd love to use a Fender Twin but the weight factor put me off, so I use a CVR for gigging, it's heaps lighter. Enough oomph for the work I do.
Still, I wouldn't mind a twin... is that AAS instead of GAS?

Rog · Post by **Rog** » Fri Mar 18, 2005 1:13 pm

Amp design in general is similar as far as the power amp stage goes. I mean basically it's just a bunch of resistors and a few capacitors biasing the output device, be it a tube or a transistor.

The largest difference appears to be in the tone shaping that is the preamp. Of course the speakers, the cabinet and the badge on the front all make a difference, but really - there ain't that much difference in design, folks...

Hot_Grits · Post by **Hot_Grits** » Fri Mar 18, 2005 1:17 pm

DC4 wrote:Actuaaally, the only diff. between a Bassman 50 and 75 was the 75 had higher plate voltages and required (expensive) 7027A output bottles...
The p to p vs pc thing is silly really, you can build the same circuit either way and it would be impossible to hear anything different. There is much bs (INMHO) around, but there are many other factors that effect the sound, such as the choice of speakers, bias settings, bla bla.
However, valve amps that put the valve sockets on the pc board are a serious recipe for unreliabilty, as the heat causes problems. The last the of the Jansen Bassmans did this and were shockers. ('specially if you put your fingers in the wrong place).
Going back to the original thread - I'd love to use a Fender Twin but the weight factor put me off, so I use a CVR for gigging, it's heaps lighter. Enough oomph for the work I do.
Still, I wouldn't mind a twin... is that AAS instead of GAS?

Yeah, Clarry told me most of the 75s he sees have been converted to run 6l6s and don't tend to do so very efficiently.

Good to see another CVR user out there (there can't be many of us). Blonde or black? Stock? -interestingly, when I bought mine, one of the amps I could have bought was a 65 twin ri. Nice amp and louder than all buggery, but I just couldn't get along with it's midrange tonality. I thought the CVR was much better in that regard. i've since had mine modded with a switchable negative feedback loop for a bit more clean headroom if I need. Good mod.

Red Fred · Post by **Red Fred** » Fri Mar 18, 2005 9:54 pm

Hey does anyone know much the Orange AD 15? As far as volume goes.

15watts doesn't sound like much but I have heard that class A amps are a whole different animal, also many people who own one say it's not a practise amp, i.e much too loud.

I'm really keen on the one on trademe at the mo, just need to find out if it will be loud enough.

philipnz · Post by **philipnz** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 11:15 am

It will be seriously loud especially if you ever hook it up to an extension cab. Looks like you are getting yourself an Orange. I was the guy that requested he relist it. Thats going to be a great amp for you.

B45-12 · Post by **B45-12** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 11:42 am

Going back to the twins (and possibly the Orange since I understands they are fairly hefty with welded steel chassis etc. ) I wonder if there would be a market for a sort of electric trolly like the electric golf caddys (the sort you trundle not ride) which had stair climbing ability.

I mean we already have that 2 wheeled, charriot type thingy that people can ride on so presumably a similar device could porter your amp from the van/hatchback into the club, up the stairs etc.,

Would be a real boon for people like Rog and myself whose days of gleefully carting a Fender twin or Marshall quad box up the 125 steps or so to the club gig in Wellington are sort of over.

Rog · Post by **Rog** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 11:49 am

Mate - more than 3 steps and I'm on strike!!

ant · Post by **ant** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 11:55 am

For me the problem with PCB is - if it cracks your f*cked. An amp tech most likely will charge more for any PCB repair as its much harder to trace a PCB then a handwired amp.

Generally the big manufacturers choose lower quality parts to keep the costs down which probably gives PCBs a bad wrap, most of the hi-gain 'boutique' builders use PCB because of the amount of effort it takes to get a high gain amp to work and once they have it, they need to keep it consistant to make a profit.

I dare say no one with a straight mind would want to work on this it looks like it has more transistors than a super computer

http://www.mesaboogie.com/Product_Info/ ... close.html