Carlsbro bass head and slave

[Crookedfinger]

Hi, I was playing a gig at a venue that has a shop built onto it and i came across this old Carlsbro bass head.

I was very tempted to buy it just to see what it was like, they wanted £60 for the bass head and £50 for the slave.

Can anyone give me some information on this? is it a good price or will it be a waste of money?

Never used Carlsbro before, it was the vintage look that drew me to it.

 

Thanks.

[Mottlefeeder]

I'm no expert, but the style reminds me of early transistor amplifiers, which were about 100W each. It may not be very loud.

David

Edited May 18, 2018 by Mottlefeeder

[Frank Blank]

First bass amp I ever played through, it was quiet by today’s standards. Perhaps you could update the innards and keep thatvintage look?

[3below]

2 hours ago, Mottlefeeder said:

I'm no expert, but the style reminds me of early transistor amplifiers, which were about 100W each. It may not be very loud.

David

Correct, based on using such kit in my youth.  A real 100W but lacking against Hiwatt and Marshall 100W valve amps.  Nice sounding at the time, I would like to hear one with a modern high efficiency cab.

[Sparky Mark]

I had the next generation ( I think) of this head called the Stingray. I don't remember it as being very good, but neither was I, but I still wouldn't bother with these at any price.

[aitkenaudio]

I'd pass

[xgsjx]

I had a Stingray Lead with a built in spring reverb.  Looked something like this.

I'd probably be wearing my rose tinted specs if I were to tell you how it sounded.

[Woody1957]

Just come across this thread...

Used one of these briefly in the mid 70's and quickly changed it for an Orange valve amp.

Worst bass amp l have ever played through by more than a country mile!

I hope you didn't buy it mate...

[gafbass02]

Worst amp I’ve ever used. Every rehearsal studio had them back in the day. Just awful, the later stingray was terrible too. 

[Stub Mandrel]

My Mate had a Stingray IIRC.

 

Recall it not being brilliant.

 

Yes... I  remembered it being green like a Trace Elliot. Although it seems to have been a cobra like this.

 

 

Edited May 8, 2024 by Stub Mandrel

[Woody1957]

All that make/range were really bad...i dont know why. Probably the early use of transistors not being up to the job.

[BassmanPaul]

Carlsbro tube amps of that era were not too bad. Like most SS amps built at the time the Carlsbro range had little to offer.

 

[W1_Pro]

I had a Carlsbro Cobra combo with what looks like a similar amp (the push button fliters). It had a 12" speaker, was deeply, deeply heavy and not very loud. It sounded quite nice though iirc, you could get a pretty brutal tone out of it with deft combinations of the filters.

[Pea Turgh]

On 08/05/2024 at 11:21, Stub Mandrel said:

My Mate had a Stingray IIRC.

 

Recall it not being brilliant.

 

Yes... I  remembered it being green like a Trace Elliot. Although it seems to have been a cobra like this.

 

 

My first amp! 

[DGBass]

I had the later green stripe stingray head and will buck the trend and admit I liked it a lot. It was way better than the equivalent HH VS Bassamp of the time in my opinion and louder/more powerful. 150 watts @ 4 ohms and around 100 watts @ 8 ohms. Built tough, solid and very reliable. Loud as thunder as well. The preset tone buttons were admitedly a bit hit or miss but its simplicity was its strong point. I recently bought one for nostalgic purposes and did use it briefly with a band. It sounded great and was very reliable. As with lots of stuff of this era, they were weighty. The Stingray combo I had was immensely heavy which is why I've now sold it on to some vintage amp enthusiasts who were much younger and fitter than I am.  They loved it even though it weighed a ton. The drivers in these big reflex horn stingrays are very efficient Fane units with 3 inch voice coils. Very unusual for the time. The one I just sold was over 40 years old and all original. If a nice condition green stripe head came along I'd be quite tempted but I wouldn't buy the earlier silver face ones. Too old, and will almost certainly need a bit of servicing especially if they look a bit tatty and well used. 

 

[Steve Browning]

My very first amp was a Carlsboro Top 50. I remember it as a perfectly good amp. They reissued them a while back. 

 

The wonderful Bill Nelson was a Carlsboro man, too. 

[gjones]

I wonder if he bought it?

 

As a teenager in the eighties, I had the 90 watt Cobra combo above and the Stingray 150 watt 2x10 combo. The Stingray combo sounded rubbish, mainly due to the speakers not being up to the job which farted like a hippo if you added any bass to your sound. I once hooked it up to a decent 2x15 cab and the amp sounded pretty good. Eventually I sold it and bought a Peavey 150 watt TNT combo which was much, much better.

[BassmanPaul]

11 hours ago, gjones said:

I wonder if he bought it?

 

For his sake I hope he didn't!  

[uk_lefty]

On 11/05/2024 at 00:23, DGBass said:

I had the later green stripe stingray head and will buck the trend and admit I liked it a lot. It was way better than the equivalent HH VS Bassamp of the time in my opinion and louder/more powerful. 150 watts @ 4 ohms and around 100 watts @ 8 ohms. Built tough, solid and very reliable. Loud as thunder as well. The preset tone buttons were admitedly a bit hit or miss but its simplicity was its strong point. I recently bought one for nostalgic purposes and did use it briefly with a band. It sounded great and was very reliable. As with lots of stuff of this era, they were weighty. The Stingray combo I had was immensely heavy which is why I've now sold it on to some vintage amp enthusiasts who were much younger and fitter than I am.  They loved it even though it weighed a ton. The drivers in these big reflex horn stingrays are very efficient Fane units with 3 inch voice coils. Very unusual for the time. The one I just sold was over 40 years old and all original. If a nice condition green stripe head came along I'd be quite tempted but I wouldn't buy the earlier silver face ones. Too old, and will almost certainly need a bit of servicing especially if they look a bit tatty and well used. 

 

I bought one of these on a whim. It was utterly ridiculous. Loud as thunder, and flippin massive. Luckily it had wheels.

[JPJ]

For a while in the mid-eighties I had the Carlsbro Stingray Pro rig consisting of a 300W amp head, 150w slave amp, 2x15 cab and 2x10 cab. The thing sounded monstrous, was stupidly loud, but was so heavy as to have its own gravitational field. 

[BassmanPaul]

@JPJ I gave you a like for the Gravitational field quip!! LOL

 

[stewblack]

If my dusty memory serves, Carlsboro were the poor man's Trace Elliot. 

I was certainly a poor man who wanted a Trace but had a Cobra 90. 

I seen to recall it had an on/off compressor built in which so comprehensively killed the sound it put me off compression for life.

At least I thought it had. Until Basschat came along and now I own enough compressors to build a scale model of the Great Wall Of China.

Anyway, back in the innocent days of my youth the Carlsboro was great. We simply weren't fussy, didn't have the option to be.

Years later I upgraded from 90 Carlsboro watts to a Trace 130 watt combo. It was fifteen times louder, and 100% better sounding. 

[pst62]

IIRC it's their first version of the Stingray, meant to be 100 watts. It's also the first proper, a term I use loosely, bass amp I owned back in 1981, I think I paid £50 for it.

I put it through a Marshall 4x15 and gigged it, it coped ok, in a four piece , but once we became a two guitar  5 piece, it was lacking. I don't recall the Red or the Black Hi - Mid - Low push buttons doing very much,

maybe they were f***ed, maybe the whole amp was on it's last legs! I replaced it with a 1978 Marshall JMP 100 watt Super Bass head, that was warm and loud, I wish I still had it!