Mr. Foxen

[quote name='Stacker' timestamp='1342256006' post='1732314'] Were they [i]really[/i] any good, those '70s Bassmans? I recall seeing a guy battering an Aria SB1000 through one back in the '90s and it sounded woolly with next to no definition. Might have been his tone settings but it sounded bowff! [/quote] Some might have been, they were made badly with poor components, thus were very inconsistent, and got more inconsistent as the components aged.

There's a fair advantage in limited dispersion in some venues where the walls are reflective in the mids and stuff, they make for a reverby mess if you don't have some directional going on. Local bowling alley has bands and 4x12s sound much better than combos.

Guitar speaker cabs are made in a traditionalist way. Bass cabs tend to be made more practically. Plus internal box volume is a bit bigger deal for bass cabs.

Impedance matching thing is called a buffer. The are kind of part of the preamp, you want a preamp with a high impedance, some have it, and some don't. A simple high impedance buffer circuit is pretty easy to knock up.

Could well be liking the amp with the least clapped out capacitors. They kind of are a big deal.

[quote name='bertbass' timestamp='1342133047' post='1730343'] I knew that the Sound City tone controls were active which is why they sound rubbish, had a couple and never could get a good sound. Is that why SS amps don't sound that good either? Thanks for the link but it's not Apple friendly. [/quote] They have tone controls that control the tone and are otherwise fairly transparent, so either they were broken, you eqed to sound rubbish, or rubbish sound went in. Broken is the most likely, I guess, lots of carbon comps that absorb water if left somewhere damp and start sucking. The main advantage of the passive fender style tone stack is they only cut mids, and don't otherwise have much they can change the tone, so you have limited scope to eq it badly, and the scoop can compensate for a lot of stuff. If you find the same issue with SS amps set flat, then it would be not liking the natural sound going in.

[quote name='bertbass' timestamp='1342130201' post='1730298'] I've always been told that valve amps have passive tone controls so a flat response would be with all the controls on 10, oh all right 11 then, but I doubt that that would be a flat response either but I would have thought that flat out eq would be closer to flat than half way. [/quote] That isn't how it works at all. There are loads of styles of passive tone stack, the most common being the RCA circuit that Fender used and everyone else copied, that is nearest to flat with mid on max and bass and treble right down. The two band Baxendall/James circuit is flat in the middle. The sound City in the comparison has active valve controls, so the bass mid and treble are all gain controls for their bands. This program helps to visualise passive stacks: http://www.duncanamps.com/tsc/

[quote name='dincz' timestamp='1342112416' post='1729833'] The treble from No. 5 - Orange - makes it hard to believe they were all running with flat EQ. If all EQ's were flat, then there's a power amp stage in there that's far from flat. More like faulty. [/quote] He's defining flat by 'knobs in the middle'. So most of them are mid scooped by default, the Orange has a tone stack that is sort of flat in the middle, but there is another control that messes with things. The Sound City sounds like it has wrong valves in it.

Dude has used mine into hartke 8x10 and is happy.

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1342105112' post='1729688'] And more OT, don't Mention Ampeg or Boogie to these guys. Lol. To name just a few. [/quote] That pretty much applies to anyone that does tech work on amps.

These are regarded well because they are good amps. That is pretty much all there is to it. Whereas Marshalls and Oranges are/were regarded well because they made them cheap enough they could give them to people who were cool and down with the kids for free.

[quote name='ikay' timestamp='1342079589' post='1729059'] A pdf schematic of the Sabre control plate can be found here (towards bottom of the page): [url="http://www.music-man.com/techinfo_old/"]http://www.music-man.com/techinfo_old/[/url] May be useful iof you can scale it up to full size. [/quote] [quote name='tommorichards' timestamp='1342093572' post='1729406'] Thanks mate. How costly are we talking? [/quote] Pick out what one it is from there, figure dimensions and material thickness (stainless polished is going to be much easier) and I can get a quote sorted.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1342088444' post='1729249'] Great post! But now I've got GAS for a Hiwatt... [/quote] I've got one going. Also could put a Hiwatt front end into one of the Sound City PAs I have, along with a custom faceplate.

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1342094450' post='1729426'] But my point was that these amps were poor back in the day. Hiwatt were tops followed by orange and Marshall and sound city nowhere. Now if these amps are regarded now then that doesn't say too much for todays amps. When I was just starting nobody touched them although I was lucky to own a sh*t Marshall 100w before I got hold of a very nice Hiwatt. Thankfully PV came along but they were awful by today's standard.... Understandably. That is not to say that one or two SC amps weren't good but the build seemed VERY variable from all the makers, I think. Which is why basically average kit like PV got such a hold..... Consistancy and solid build. [/quote] You are thinking of the wrong Sound City. They had a production change for the Mark 4s where the build standard dropped, although the component quality stayed the same. Up to Mark 3 they were built pretty much the same as the first Hiwatts, since Hiwatt started out building Sound City. Hiwatt kicked things up a notch and ended up only making 30 amps a month or something, and Sound City started churning them out as fast as they could. The Mark 4s just need a neater bit of work done so they function as intended. Marshalls have always been craply made out of crap components, that is the source of the Marshall sound, Laney copied them totally but used the right spec components, and sounded totally different. Edit: Explain with pictures: Sound City 200, had a hard life, lots of work done in there: [IMG]http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b69/Incarante/sc200working002-1.jpg[/IMG] Hiwatt 200, pristine, from the best era with the military grade inspecting guy: [IMG]http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b69/Incarante/hiwatt001.jpg[/IMG] Marshall from 1973, 'the one' to have, before they went PCB: [IMG]http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b69/Incarante/marshalls009.jpg[/IMG]

Sort a good drawing of what you want and I can get it made. Costy for a one off though. Scan of a real one next to a ruler for scale would also be good. http://basschat.co.uk/topic/114240-custom-made-gold-control-plate/page__hl__jaguar+control+plate__fromsearch__1

Don't use epoxy, use something you can get rid of if it doesn't work. But taking to a pro is best. Clamping it is the main challenge, need to have it exactly in place and be able to clamp firmly, once that is sorted, exact type of glue matters less.

You can't get valve amps with that quality of components any more, and people realised valve amps are awesome. Edit: Also for comparison, here is how shagged valves can look and still be good, these all tested fine, and fetched reasonable money on ebay: [IMG]http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b69/Incarante/goldlionkt77002.jpg[/IMG]

The sound City 4x12 ports weren't tuned anywhere useful, and the drivers didn't have the excursion to do lows, some had a couple of round ports on the front.. They really didn't do justice to the amps.

Can't see a flightcase weighing less than the cab. Closeable padded soft cover would be best bet I'd have thought.

I heat them up with the soldering iron and let them cool first, loostens them a bit.

[quote name='krysh' timestamp='1341922518' post='1726182'] thanks. unfortunately the old gec kt's are completely dead. [/quote] Get them anyway. They make decorations, I'm going to make some turned bases for them as ornaments, because people all pick them up and stare into them laying about my house.

The are piano strings, custom wound by a guy I know, to the maximum length of his winder, which is about 2m. Don't think they are loads bigger than the ones on my bass tuned to A, lot longer scale though, so don't need epic thickness. Pretty standard copper on steel, round core unlike most bass strings.

Just had a guy messaging me trying to sell me an amp he had the same as the one I'm selling, and when I asked what sort of money he was after, he wanted more than I was selling my restored one for, and accused me of trying to rip him off because he was Irish. That's a nutter, buying weird stuff on ebay is standard.

I've still got all the relevant messages for them, and haven't specified who did what. Best is when someone who has been a pain in the nuts previous messages saying they tried to make a bid last minute and got a message saying not accepted.

Figure it would have made my life easier if all these people had been blocked from my auctions before I had to deal with them, this is my current ebay blocked list, comprising of people who bid and didn't pay, people who won and tried to use paypal to get unwarranted refunds, people who try and pay less once they've won, people who demand postage to overseas at domestic shipping rates (which is really stupid when we are talking 20kg amps to Australia), and a guy who threatened me with violence if I didn't lower my start price. Anyway, figured it would be handy for other BCers to avoid these numpties, and possibly they could do the same so I can avoid other numpties in future. Easiest way to get to your block list is search 'block buyer' in the customer support bit and a link comes up on the list on the right, coupla of clicks and you can paste in the list. They can still message you unless you fiddle with other settings. [quote]aero16s, amaanzdrive, avantguardia, bdw1480, bluelion49, bris_tech, cap.beyond, cargo2akl, cbr1000.123, chaosentertainmentrecords, cherrycorbett56, czart35, dafyddw1865, daosythuy, dentelle67, dfieldmusic, e3-audio, emissionplus, fatty201213, fish2go, georgik2010, gilmour301282, gsys1763, guil1711, jeanlouis785, john7559, marc2750, mas78680, matthewmallard, omar87sr, parker_knoll, pontiac1970firebird, ratticusmonkius, rkshum, robertapirie, rossco1962, sam1jnr, scantyjohn, skidder652003, sophie-asbo, themightyjay, ulit67, ullibert44, vekkiodim, vivou68[/quote] Edit: Updated list.