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I was not ready for this. I've been fixing up an old (original, but in very poor shape; rusted to snot) Sessionman Vocal, hoping to eventually get a hold of a G250FTR - early era guitar version. Well that's been delayed by my Herzog build. I never expected to have this sweet problem as I have never seen an FTR head for sale locally. Ever. The odd combo. I've only been aware of 3 in existence (yes there's many more, not rare just that people tend to hold on to them). So you can imagine my jaw drop when one came up on Kijiji, a few KM N of me. Not just an FTR, but a fricken spotless near-closet-classic. I mean this thing, and I may be a little skewed by the sorry state of the Vocal head on my bench, is cleeeeeeeeeean. Haven't looked inside yet; can't let myself get distracted from finishing up that Herzog; it'll keep. From what I can tell from the outside, it has the nicer Hammond output transformer and all the cap cans are Sprague (cardboard) or Mallory (metal) ; loaded with the good stuff (not that there's anything wrong with other parts used at various periods, but it sure is nice to see it in there). It's had the power tubes replaced, but nowhere near recently - vintage Japanese 6CA7s (m'eh), just like the ones used on later-era Garnets. Now with the (I'm guessing; confirm later) vintage of this head, I would think it would have had Sylvanias in it from factory, but it has also been upgraded to 3 prong power cord, which looks almost stock (totally, if one ignores the 2 prong receptacle next to it, and the age of the thing); wondering if this one was maintained by Garnet at some point; he was pretty adamant about updating amps to modern safety specs when they came back for service.
The single issue, and it barely qualifies as one, is that it's missing the rear brace - basically a 4" wide board wrapped in tolex. I've got wood (if you must, then yes, in all senses of that phrase) and enough tolex offcuts to rectify that. Oh, and also there's a bit of tolex detached at the seem on the underside; just need to glue that down.
So there's nothing pressing, I can play her for a while at jams and make sure everything is good and to my liking. Then book her a physical later. I don't expect to be doing anything, but the one thing that does strike me as an option is to rip out the ground polarity switch and install a master volume. A younger me would have insisted, but since my main bass amp is a no-master Sunn I have been getting used to the lack (and that does have some advantages) and also since this has a switchable dirt circuit, I'm not sure I will require it. Definitely not for bass, but maybe for guitar. The one thing I may do right away actually is replace the feet (undersized with metal base) with the larger heavy duty ones I tend to throw on all my gear; this thing gonna get shook.
Anyway, TLDR because so dang ecstatic. On to the good stuff:
.... oh, can't upload; cock blocked by the BBS, stand by while I do it the hard way...
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Final Q: This amp is actually designated G250D, which I know is the same as G250FTR (so says the schem in the Garnet book) but does anyone know if the D vs FTR suffix denotes earlier vs later build date? I'd guess later, but not sure it is an indicator at all.
The single issue, and it barely qualifies as one, is that it's missing the rear brace - basically a 4" wide board wrapped in tolex. I've got wood (if you must, then yes, in all senses of that phrase) and enough tolex offcuts to rectify that. Oh, and also there's a bit of tolex detached at the seem on the underside; just need to glue that down.
So there's nothing pressing, I can play her for a while at jams and make sure everything is good and to my liking. Then book her a physical later. I don't expect to be doing anything, but the one thing that does strike me as an option is to rip out the ground polarity switch and install a master volume. A younger me would have insisted, but since my main bass amp is a no-master Sunn I have been getting used to the lack (and that does have some advantages) and also since this has a switchable dirt circuit, I'm not sure I will require it. Definitely not for bass, but maybe for guitar. The one thing I may do right away actually is replace the feet (undersized with metal base) with the larger heavy duty ones I tend to throw on all my gear; this thing gonna get shook.
Anyway, TLDR because so dang ecstatic. On to the good stuff:
.... oh, can't upload; cock blocked by the BBS, stand by while I do it the hard way...
Final Q: This amp is actually designated G250D, which I know is the same as G250FTR (so says the schem in the Garnet book) but does anyone know if the D vs FTR suffix denotes earlier vs later build date? I'd guess later, but not sure it is an indicator at all.
