What do you think of Fender Bassman amps?

[Quagmire]

I was wondering because i found one from '69 that was modded a few months back and my teacher said he'll give me a really good deal on it. What do you think about them?

 

[brianf]

There are a couple of different versions of the Bassman in 69. Do you know which model number.

brianf

 

[axwielding1]

SWARTY does some major mods to the bassman heads to make them gainiacs....He can be found on the marshall forum.. I've heard him say the bassman 100 silverfaces are great starting points.
ax. 8)

 

[908ssp]

I have a 66 Blackface AA165 circuit. It sounds good. It is very loud so for guitar you need a good attenuator like a Richter.

I actually use it for my bass amp and it sound terrific. Of course it wouldn't be loud enough for gigging but it is a perfectly usable bass amp for home use.

The silver face amps sell for much cheaper then the Blackface ones but are easily modified to Blackface spec.

 

[Texsunburst59]

This is a 66' Bassman modded by David Allen. On the Normal channel is was modded to the AA-864 circuitry. On the Bass channel it was modded to a Tweed Bassman/Plexi Marshall circuitry. I'm running it through a repro cab loaded with 12" Weber California's. On the Plexi setting this baby strarts to grind and sing at about 5. I agree that a silverface is the best value.

See how well the Bassman blends with the Boogies

 

[wolfgang6505]

Bassmans are great amps. All of them sound great. I think they sound better for guitar then they do bass. I have always thought that they don't really have enough power for bass by today's standards. They have more than enough power for guitar though, especially the bassman 100. I would like to buy an old tweed bassman. They go for alot though. If the amp is clean and not abused I'd say go for it and see how cheap he'll go.

Even if it is clean, it's modded, I wouldn't give him more than $250-$350 range. That's just because you could get one that's all original and almost mint (from the black face era) with the original cab for around $800-$900 bucks soo...

Not having the original cabinet with it brings down the value and being modded on top of that. Just don't let him tell you your getting a deal if he wants more than $250-$350 range.

Next I'd like to say that there's nothing wrong with modding these amps, I had a 71 band-master that was browned out and hot rodded alittle and I loved it.

It just brings down the value to resale because just like you probably don't know the next guy doesn't know who's had there hands in it and what exactly has been done, and last but not least has the mod or mods been done correctly.

I've been a Fender Cat for a long time and love all the old amps very much. I think if you like mesa's you'll like Old Fenders aswell.

 

[Russ]

Wolfgang, go check out the new relic'ed bassman 410 combo. OMG, I played one the other day with the EJ strat. I almost died. I was playing some blues and it floored me. The tone was just unreal. I almost gave up and brought a couple of my guitars in to trade on the EJ and my Ampeg fullstack to trade on the 410. The relic job looks convincing too. It has scrapes and dents, a water ring from a bottle on the TWEED and oxidation here and there. I felt like I was looking at an old road dog of an amp but it is new. It sounds really old school though which is the neat thing. Like it absorbed all that mojo over the years. I wanted to make sure it was the amp not just the guitar, so I plugged in an American Standard Strat and it had much the same amp tone but with the American Standard not the EJ's ultimate strat tone. I played the EJ through a DeVille and it sounded good but not like the 410. I tried the Standard again through the DeVille and there was no magic. So I think I have figured out that if you like that bassman sound it is there, go try one. They have a cool warranty on them too. Pretty cool for an old new old amp...