The last forum-members jam we had in 2019, I brought my beloved tweed Bassman, plus one or two "backup" amps. Foolishly, I had it sitting straight up in the trunk. Sadly it fell over and stopped working. Testing all of the tubes individually, they all checked out, and they all came "on" when power was applied, but no sound whatsoever. I suspected the jarring might have played havoc with the standby switch (standby-switch failure would get you tube-glow but not sound). This morning, I finally replaced the standby switch, plugged in a set of TAD power tubes, and I'm good to go.
It's alive!
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You went almost 3 years with a broken amp?? Not knowing would drive me insane.
I can estimate from your posts you are a busy fellow but that mystery would drive me bonkers.
Things being broken, that I can handle. Not knowing why, that would drive me insane.
Glad you brought it back to life. I assume there never was a doubt.
It shouldn't electrocute you or anyone else anymore. A year or two before the falling-over incident, forum member Richard "nonreverb" Vernon installed a 3-prong cord for me, with proper grounding.
Funny side-story. Given its age, a lot of the legending has worn off. I couldn't remember which of the 3 switches was which. I searched for images of the tweed Bassman, but most of what I could find was either of reissues (which only have 2 switches, not 3), or of equally worn originals. Took me a while to find a pic that showed me what every single switch was.
When I bought it, it was not only missing a speaker and output tube, but only had one of the two panels on the back. I got the late Doug Brash to make me a replacement panel. And while he did a great job matching it cosmetically, he made me a duplicate of what was already there, rather than the "other" back panel which was missing. Of course, now that Doug has passed on, there are no takebacks. But that's okay, really. It's an open back cab, so whether the panel looks like this or like that doesn't really change the sound.
Three of the Jensen P10Rs are originals and the date code ends with "58". One of them has the "bell" around the magnet structure. I bought a 4th reissue P10R to fill the hole. The manufacture date on the amp indicates either September or December of '59, I forget which. Whichever it is, my tweed Princeton is the other one.
Funny side-story. Given its age, a lot of the legending has worn off. I couldn't remember which of the 3 switches was which. I searched for images of the tweed Bassman, but most of what I could find was either of reissues (which only have 2 switches, not 3), or of equally worn originals. Took me a while to find a pic that showed me what every single switch was.
It's not my only amp, so it wasn't like I went without. There are a couple others I haven't fired up in an even longer time, and some waiting over a decade for repair. I've had this Bassman since the summer of 1992, and in all that time have probably played it a total of maybe 6-8hrs, with maybe only 30 minutes at any sort of appreciable volume. It's pretty damn loud, and with my wife working from home these last 2 years, it was much better for me to rock out through 5 watts into an 8" speaker on the other side of the house, than 40W into 4 tens below where she was probably in a Zoom meeting.You went almost 3 years with a broken amp?? Not knowing would drive me insane.
I can estimate from your posts you are a busy fellow but that mystery would drive me bonkers.
Things being broken, that I can handle. Not knowing why, that would drive me insane.
Glad you brought it back to life. I assume there never was a doubt.
When I bought it, it was not only missing a speaker and output tube, but only had one of the two panels on the back. I got the late Doug Brash to make me a replacement panel. And while he did a great job matching it cosmetically, he made me a duplicate of what was already there, rather than the "other" back panel which was missing. Of course, now that Doug has passed on, there are no takebacks. But that's okay, really. It's an open back cab, so whether the panel looks like this or like that doesn't really change the sound.
Three of the Jensen P10Rs are originals and the date code ends with "58". One of them has the "bell" around the magnet structure. I bought a 4th reissue P10R to fill the hole. The manufacture date on the amp indicates either September or December of '59, I forget which. Whichever it is, my tweed Princeton is the other one.
Its just the not knowing I couldn't handle. Love me a good mystery.
1965 Fender Mustang, Ampegs, anything to test an amp.
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