*SOLD* GEM Saturn b50 - 1970's valve amp + attenuator - price drop £140 - video added £155

[jimbartlett]

s.bass b50 made in italy + attenuator

Video: https://youtu.be/ancwgpu-Fzw

50 watt bass head, made 1972 in Italy, running 4x EL84 valves, point to point wiring. This was serviced by the previous owner about 12 months ago I think?

It is a gem saturn, great old school tone, similar to sound city in tone, great for p bass or semi with flats , the 2 channels are eq'd differently. Channel 1 has got loads more bottom end . Its got a clank to it and it breaks up nicely. The 2nd channel seems like a guitar channel rather than for bass.

In a live band situation I found I was having to crank this up pretty much to max and it was just too overdriven for the type of music I was playing. To resolve this I bought an attenuator which lowers your amp’s output to line level. When using a tube amp, the speaker dissipates energy from the amp as sound. You must always have a load of some sort connected to your speaker-out jack, or you can severely damage the amp.

This safely loads the amp into the box rather than a speaker and gives me a Line Out level (with a level boost toggle) and a Headphone Out (with a level boost toggle). You can also use the Speaker Passthrough so that your amp and speaker work as normal but you can also take a line level out into another amp.

You can crank the gain up and down on your amp to get the tone you want without affecting the overall volume (much). Run the output from the attenuator into a power amp or the return of your regular amps effects loop and you've got loads of headroom with that old school valve tone!

This would be quite expensive to post but if you'd like to arrange a courier yourself I can box it up. Otherwise I'm near dartford in Kent if you want to pick it up?

Just after my money back as I need to fun a new project and the amp isn't getting played much as I'm using a lightweight combo to travel about with.

Edited January 19, 2017 by jimbartlett

[Sparky Mark]

Could you post photos of the rear please? Cheers

[jimbartlett]

Pics of the back as requested

[Sparky Mark]

Thanks. I was expecting a mesh that would show the valve chassis. Do you know if the valves sockets face upwards or downwards? I.e. do the valves hang down or sit upright as in an ampeg svt? Thanks again.

[jimbartlett]

The valves hang downwards. Here are a couple of photos.

If anyone is interested in this, I am away from this coming Tuesday 20th September for a week so I won't be able to respond on here or meet during this time.

[jimbartlett]

Will split. £100 for the Amp (collection or meet), £55 for the hot plate (£55 posted).

[Brother Jones]

I used one of these as a preamp in Leeds in the early nineties - because it had the best, natural, valve compression I had ever heard. Happy days.

[jimbartlett]

Video added bump!

https://youtu.be/ancwgpu-Fzw

[jimbartlett]

Now sold

Edited January 19, 2017 by jimbartlett