Fender Silverface Bassman (50?) Help

[basshead56]

Hi All,

Have come across this: [url="http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=597180181"]http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=597180181[/url]

and am intrigued.

I want to get a decent valve amp for recording and also to play my Baby clone upright through.

Since it will be the best part of a year before I get all of my gear back in Ireland (including my beloved VBA400 full stack) shipped out here, and I cannot afford to buy (thank you engagement ring!!!) the second-hand Mesa Bass Buster 200 listed locally (it would go with the rest of my rig! )

My question(s) then is:
Can anyone help identify this model? Power, grunt etc
and what impedance will these go down to? Would it handle my 4ohm Mesa Powerhouse 8x10?

Cheers
Colin

[Mr. Foxen]

Dunno about impedance, but the bigger the cab, the less amp power you can get away with, I'd say a massive cab is pretty much going to be required with only 50w. Amp is old enough to require a recap if its not already done.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

They're pretty anemic, but able to handle even 1 ohm loads, so a 4 ohm 8x10 won't bother it a bit.

[DGBass]

I have 72 Bassman 50 silverface and it works well with 4ohm loads. I wouldn't run it into any load less than 4 ohms, the output transformer was designed for a 4ohm total(its not switchable). It will happily run with an 8ohm cab at lower volumes. I use it at rehearsal with an Ashdown 6x10 4ohm cab and it is loud. I don't think there will be any problem with your Mesa cab. My amp doesn't have serious grunt, however i use a boss GE-7 to boost the low end and a limiter to keep it all tight. It keeps up with our guitarists Marshall 9050 with two 4x12's attached. The Fender bassman's tend to have a unique character as over the years they will have been re-valved/rebiased had cap jobs and components replaced. it's a very toneful amp, not seriously powerful and will drive a high power 4 ohm cab no problem. An ideal recording amp too

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

[quote name='dangoose' timestamp='1370038929' post='2096017']
I have 72 Bassman 50 silverface and it works well with 4ohm loads. I wouldn't run it into any load less than 4 ohms, the output transformer was designed for a 4ohm total(its not switchable).
[/quote]The original Bassman cab was 4 ohms, and the head was designed to use two of them. Not knowing any better we used to run Bassman, Bandmaster and Showman heads into four 4 ohm cabs with no ill effect. We ran them into 8 ohm cabs also, no problem. As is the case with all tube amps they're happy with low impedance loads but not high impedance, so I'd not use one with a 16 ohm cab.

[Beer of the Bass]

As an aside, does anyone have an idea how much the output of a typical valve amp is reduced when running into an impedance mismatch? I've been looking into the subject in relation to my guitar amp, and found plenty of sources saying that the amp may not achieve it's rated power, but no actual measurements of how large an effect this is. Although I appreciate it will vary between amps, and with different speaker impedance curves...

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

[quote name='Beer of the Bass' timestamp='1370078726' post='2096233']
As an aside, does anyone have an idea how much the output of a typical valve amp is reduced when running into an impedance mismatch?
[/quote]Tubes have constant power output because the tubes don't see the speaker as the load impedance, they see the primary winding of the output transformer.

Edited June 1, 2013 by Bill Fitzmaurice

[thunderider]

Alan Davey ex hawkwind bassman uses a1969 bassman 50w,used it for the last 20 years,first off with 215 cab,then he was using 115&210 ashdowns now 410 ashdowns,plays it full crank,recons theres no other amps to touch em!!