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Worst Bassman Ever - Is it a collectable prototype? Someone's hack job? Or just hopeless?
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morris....@gmail.com
Sep 18, 2012, 4:03:08 PM9/18/12
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Had the pleasure last work of working on a few old amps that my friend had bought off of Craigslist - just to have amps around for students to beat on. Good old Radio Shack TV-Tuner Cleaner got a couple of them de-crackled and working happily, but one of them was just unbelievable.
The amp claims to be a Fender Bassman 60. A solid-state 1x15" combo with a tweeter. Chassis inspection date is 1990, made in Taiwan. It's not any modern Bassman 60, it's the old "Sidekick" one. Circuitry seems to be a close match (I didn't fully trace it) with the official Fender schematic for the Sidekick Bassman 60.
However, where the official service manual shows a single PCB, this thing had a couple of them connected together with badly-spliced wires, mounted on wobbley plastic standoffs and immobilized somewhat with clumsy stacks of double-sided sticky tape. Cabinet work was, of course, also awful, nothing really fit right, dooming this amp to a life of buzzfarts.
Symptoms were, of course, crackly pots, and a ton of noise pickup, and some ultrasonics making the limiter light up for no reason. Also, I noted that the tweeter was labeled "Radio Shack" and might have been a replacement unit - could have been blown by funny ultrasonic noises under a previous owner, perhaps? I did manage to fix the issues with some pot cleaner, a power cord with an intact 3rd prong, and finally I realized the whole amp was 'floating' and had to connect the chassis ground to a virgin, never-soldered PCB pad by the input jacks labeled as "GND" (it used insulated-type jacks if you're wondering about that). This made the amp sound better, made it stop squealing and the limiter stop coming on for 'silence'. I'm not going to say it sounded great, it's not meant for greatness.
Anyway I'm told that the thing quit again after a few hours and I'm not sure it's worth me wasting gas visiting it again. It might simply belong in a dumpster.
But I have to wonder - is this a factory prototype that somehow managed to make it to the great free-market paradise of Craigslist? Might it have some value (assuming it hasn't suffered major damage since I saw it last)? Or is it someone's hack-job? Or did Fender's Taiwanese assemblers just use to throw things together with various types of sticky tape?
The amp claims to be a Fender Bassman 60. A solid-state 1x15" combo with a tweeter. Chassis inspection date is 1990, made in Taiwan. It's not any modern Bassman 60, it's the old "Sidekick" one. Circuitry seems to be a close match (I didn't fully trace it) with the official Fender schematic for the Sidekick Bassman 60.
However, where the official service manual shows a single PCB, this thing had a couple of them connected together with badly-spliced wires, mounted on wobbley plastic standoffs and immobilized somewhat with clumsy stacks of double-sided sticky tape. Cabinet work was, of course, also awful, nothing really fit right, dooming this amp to a life of buzzfarts.
Symptoms were, of course, crackly pots, and a ton of noise pickup, and some ultrasonics making the limiter light up for no reason. Also, I noted that the tweeter was labeled "Radio Shack" and might have been a replacement unit - could have been blown by funny ultrasonic noises under a previous owner, perhaps? I did manage to fix the issues with some pot cleaner, a power cord with an intact 3rd prong, and finally I realized the whole amp was 'floating' and had to connect the chassis ground to a virgin, never-soldered PCB pad by the input jacks labeled as "GND" (it used insulated-type jacks if you're wondering about that). This made the amp sound better, made it stop squealing and the limiter stop coming on for 'silence'. I'm not going to say it sounded great, it's not meant for greatness.
Anyway I'm told that the thing quit again after a few hours and I'm not sure it's worth me wasting gas visiting it again. It might simply belong in a dumpster.
But I have to wonder - is this a factory prototype that somehow managed to make it to the great free-market paradise of Craigslist? Might it have some value (assuming it hasn't suffered major damage since I saw it last)? Or is it someone's hack-job? Or did Fender's Taiwanese assemblers just use to throw things together with various types of sticky tape?
WB
Sep 18, 2012, 9:17:18 PM9/18/12
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morris....@gmail.com
Sep 18, 2012, 10:58:30 PM9/18/12
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On Tuesday, September 18, 2012 9:17:18 PM UTC-4, WB wrote:
> Gut it like a fish and stick tubes in it....
Already have a my very nice "Miniphant 20", built out of what was probably a Univox. Not sure I need to do that again. Had to redo shoddy cabinet work last time, and I know that this Bassman is built even worse.
> Gut it like a fish and stick tubes in it....
Just wondering if some wealthy garbage collector might be all like 'oooh!'
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