How to date/age a Trace Elliot ?

[drlargepants]

I’ve got a TE combo here that looks in very good condition but is UK made which must put it around 20 years old ?

 

Does anyone know how to date them by serial number ? Serial is printed on a sticker rather than hand written. 

This is purely out of curiosity tbh. 
 

Ta !

[DGBass]

It depends to a large extent on what type of amp/combo you have as date stickers or serial numbers vary quite a bit over the years. Here are a couple of examples that might help.

 

 

Above is an SMC 300 watt combo green carpet. The TO452 refers to the TE item or model code, not sure what the middle bit is but suspect it 578th amp built in the month. The last 3 digits 499 refer to April 1999.

 

 

Earlier series 6 and SM / SMX amps usually have a giveaway sticker inside the amp head. In this case its a SM 300 combo built 1st June 1998. I'm sure there are more experts who know more about how to age a nugget of green and they will be along soon to assist!  Might be worth posting a pic of your item as that would be a good start to working out when it was built.

 

 

[drlargepants]

Brilliant thanks for that 🙏 

 

 

[drlargepants]

[DGBass]

ahh...these are a little more difficult to get an exact manufacturers date. It's a Peavey era 715 combo. 200 watts rms class-D using Peavey's own design digital power module and a proper UK designed pre-amp by Trace Elliot's original primary designer Stuart Watson. Cabs are high quality lightweight poplar ply construction, speaker is a custom 4 ohm Celestion build 15-250 watt model. Cabs are ported and in my experience can handle much more power than the amp can put out. I'm making a guess based on your serial number but odds on it was manufactured June 2008. Only way for sure to find exact details is email [email protected]. Lots of people say Peavey service is second to none but in my experience its a bit hit or miss. Worth a try if it matters🙂  

[drlargepants]

That’s brilliant thank you ! That’s cleared up a mystery for me and it’s owner (I’m baby sitting it !)

[drlargepants]

I’d hardly describe it as lightweight though 🤔 

[DGBass]

30 minutes ago, drlargepants said:

I’d hardly describe it as lightweight though

Agreed. These Peavey era combos were a curious hybrid design with a lightweight class-d amp module but still with a traditional large heavy transformer in a heavy steel chassis amp head. The speaker was also a hefty trad ceramic magnet assembly type. If you take all that out, the actual combo cab is really lightweight. The class D modules were also quite unreliable and I remember at the time lots of these combos were sold off new at less than half retail price. if you got a good one, you were lucky. I used one for a spell with a retro GP7 SM150 rack head shoe-horned into it to replace a blown class-d one and it was even heavier but sounded glorious.

Edited June 3, 2023 by DGBass

[drlargepants]

I’ve got the option to buy it but I’ll probably pass. 
 

It’s too heavy and there seems to be a bit of distortion on low notes, also the compressor is pretty useless. 
 

Looks nice though !

[TheGreek]

I've had several without a serial number - I spoke to Paul Stevens at LBGS who said that during the Gibson takeover when the factory was shut staff with keys would go in, build units and sell them themselves. 

 

I seem to have had most of these.

[thodrik]

My only 2 cents here would be that I think that this combo would have been in one of the earlier batches of the Peavey era Trace Elliot relaunch from 2006-2009 or so, where the products stated 'manufactured in Great Britain'. I think in about 2010 or so that label was changed to 'designed in Great Britain, manufactured in USA to Trace Elliot specifications' or similar. I bought 2x10 and 1x15 cabs in 2008/9 and they both had the manufactured in Great Britain.

I haven't spent a lot of time with amps of that period, but I thought that the cabs were really good and much lighter than the old carpet covered TE cabs.