Bassman RI vs. the real deal 1959 Bassman.

[SirJackdeFuzz]

I know there are many, many threads where folks ask, "what is the tonal diffs between a vintage Bassman, and the RI".

What i want to know is, that is the diffs INSIDE the new RI Bassman, that makes it such a diff animal !?

I found an amp builder over here, that can build pretty much any amp up to the 1980's.

So where do we need to pay special attention, so that my 4X10 Bassman can sound, and almost more importantly, REACT as close to the real deal 1959 amp as possible.

<---3m44sec





So, bottom line is, i do not want a hand build amp that sounds like an over-the-counter current production Bassman RI.
I want one that sounds more authentic than a Victoria, Tungsten and Valve Train put together.

Any info greatly appreciated !

Thanks to all.

[piece of ash]

You'll never know what the Bassman sounded like then. And know one else will, really.

If you want to sound like an original Bassman does now... you'll need an amp with 30 year-old speakers.

I have an RI... and it has the tone.

[piece of ash]

Didn't mean to be curt. I think you can get the holy grail Bassman tone if you buy a good RI and then beat the crap out it. The speakers are thin paper with a powerful magnet, in a narrow profile. I think that "wear" on the cones builds "tone" here.

[Fretts]

I agree... All my experiences with speakers reflect that new speakers sound constricted fresh out of the box. Like shoes that are tight and uncomfortable when new but they break in and mold to your foot after awhile and become supple and supremely comfortable. New speakers - especially ones that aren't soaked in tons of speaker dope - sound narrow, cardboardy and tight. After some many hours of strong playing, the edges loosen up, the spider breaks in, the cone paper gets 'used to' the breakup modes and flex points, blah blah blah... meaning that they sound a thousand times more open, airy and punchy after the 'new' wears off. Take the speakers seriously and you're halfway there.


.

Originally Posted by piece of ash

Didn't mean to be curt. I think you can get the holy grail Bassman tone if you buy a good RI and then beat the crap out it. The speakers are thin paper with a powerful magnet, in a narrow profile. I think that "wear" on the cones builds "tone" here.

[JamonHamon]

Sounds like my Victoria 45410 Bassman

[tjalla]

I've posted that top clip before, and that amp exact amp popped up on ebay oz a week after I had posted (coincidence? perhaps not...)

But I agree - there's something about the way that amp chimes that is completely absent from a new RI or clone. But I also agree that I have not heard RIs or clones that have been really pushed over years of gigging.

I'll watch this thread...

[telex76]

Of all the so called reissues the 59 Bassman is probably the most unlike the original.
It can be made to sound very good though.

[SirJackdeFuzz]

Originally Posted by telex76

Of all the so called reissues the 59 Bassman is probably the most unlike the original.
It can be made to sound very good though.

That is my understanding too

. . . hence the question !

[SirJackdeFuzz]

Originally Posted by piece of ash

You'll never know what the Bassman sounded like then. And know one else will, really.

If you want to sound like an original Bassman does now... you'll need an amp with 30 year-old speakers.

I have an RI... and it has the tone.

I hear you . . . but i keep reading this type of thing, posted by the amp builders & Bassman owners :



Id recommend swapping a 12ay7 into v1 to see if you like it. stock on the reissue is 3x 12ax7 the change is more period correct and makes a pretty big change in tonality. - willspear

.................................................. ..........


The reissue Fender is much brighter than the originals I've played through and they are much brighter than my Victoria 45410. - JTM45blues

.................................................. ..........


I agree w/ JTM45blues' tone setting recommendations. I also have a Fender reissue and a Victoria 45410. The Fender is much louder and brighter in it's stock config. than the Vic.
The fun thing about the bassman is that the possibilities for jumping channels, pre/ power/ rectifier combinations are endless. I installed a Hoffman ptp board in my RI and it made a little difference, but not huge. Right now, I'm running JJ 6V6s, a 5U4 rectifier, and lower gain preamp tubes (5751, 12AY7, and 12AT7 in various positions. In this configuration, it is comparable in volume to the 45410. The 45410 is very sweet with no pedals, but seems slightly more harsh on the high end when using dist. pedals. Maybe it's the speakers: the RI has 4 blue framed eminence, the 45410 has 2 Jensen alnicos and 2 THD ceramics. - Marky D

.................................................. ........



Bias warmer...set cold from Fender. - Maxwell Street


.................................................. ...........


He gutted it... Removed all the junk circuit boards and components and rewired it to 5F6A specs point to point with good quality components. The difference between this amp now and a stock LTD RI is night and day. The reissue sounds nothing like a real tweed Bassman. I was trying to upload some more pics but the droid app keeps crashing...

I'd say it is 90% of the way to sounding like that amp... Once I put in the 5U4 and the 12AY7 in V1, I know it will totally be in vintage Bassman territory. - geetarfreek82

.................................................. ................


The Ltd. is NOT a 59 Bassman.
Voltages are very high, it's way over filtered. Components on the PCB are cheap junk.
Here's a quick breakdown of the board:

NOS CDE Black Cats, CDE Yellow Jackets and General Instruments for coupling caps.
Carbon comps and Carbon films for the resistors.
No 47pf snubbing cap.
250pf ceramic cap instead of silver mica in the tone stack.
Adjustable bias. Used the usual full sized 10k pot like a BF instead of a trimpot.

I tried out a Magnetic Components OT instead of the stock one, ended up liking the stock one better. This amp is now kicking ass like it should. - fezz parka

.................................................. ........


Other than gutting it (which I would recommend), A 5r4 rectifier, a 12ay7 in v1, a 12at7 in v3, and some 5881's. These things are heavily filtered too, making 'em stiff sounding. The B+ is through the roof too. - fezz parka

.................................................. ...........


The Bassman Reissues aren't really a "copy" of the original amps in many ways. The first ones even had a solid state rectifier. They run a tremendous B+ / plate voltage at today's wall voltage, too. I've seen over 500v on the plates with the SS rectifier, about 480 with a GZ34 replacement.

A lot can be done with the reissue to make them sing. Running them at 117vac will drop the b+ down into the 440vdc range and allow you to safely run 5881s with a GZ34 rectifier. Swapping out the V1 12AX7 for a 12AY7 (original spec) or even a 5751 will sweeten the front end. The early RIs had the great Eminence Blue Frame 10s, which are maybe the best P10R clones ever. Last, and most intensive, you can just throw away the PCB and rewire it point to point. I did mine that way and it's about the best amp in the house. - SoK66

.................................................. .....


I've been rebuilding Noah's Bassman Ltd., and in the course of fine tuning it I've figured out hat gave the amp the shimmer in this thread. The 47pf snubbing cap on the PI is there to compensate for poor lead dress. If the lead dress is done well, it won't oscillate and the cap can be removed. This will give the amp that shimmer.

Now the Ltd. stock sounds nothing like a real Bassman.
Think Super Reverb with no reverb. Hard sounding, no sag, no life.
It's way over filtered, the voltages are more like a Super Reverb (460vdc on the plates!), and it uses junk components. Noah's amp now is well within original spec, has NOS CDE coupling caps, a combo of CC and CF resistors, a zener to bring down the B+, and correct value filters. Added a bias pot and 1 ohm resistor off the cathodes too. Noah sent me his tubes along with the amp, but I subbed in a NOS 5u4 instead of the Fender/Ruby 5ar4. Much better. To top it off, a Triode/Magnetic components OT is now in place. Much better to my ears.
Now all that's left to do is:
Get Noah to ditch the GT 12ax7's and the NOS 12at7 he had in there.
12ay7 in v1 is a must.
The RI TS 5881's are OK, but NOS anything will be better. I have a pair of old TS 5881's that I tried in there, and they just killed. Too bad I can't part with them.

Last but not least, I've been fine tuning it it through my original 50's P10R's. Glorious sound. Get rid of the Recotron's that came with the amp and find some Fender/Emi blue frames from the early reissues.
Then you'll have a Bassman! - fezz parka

.................................................. ...............


A great friend once lent me his 58 Basman to use at a gig. I was an astounding amp. I've never heard a stock re-issue anything sound remotely like that. - fauxsuper

.................................................. ...................


The "real deal" 1960 BM breaks up the soonest, breaks up the smoothest and had the most tonal personality. It also had the best mids.
The 59 RI had the hardest sound probably because of the overvoltaging. Also the "pasta" Jensens gave it a rot gut (read: "awful") distortion. It also sufferred from serious ice pick. - StanV

.................................................. ....................


When the first '59 Bassman RI came out,I was amazed at how tighter and louder it was than my original '59.....you could actually play bass through the RI.It broke up at a louder volume.
But....the tone was sterile,and didn't have any "flow".My '59 started to overdrive at about 4,and from there on it was incredible.Never heard a better amp for a strat. - refin

[teletwang67]

So to make the reissue sound like an original, you need a better OT, NOS tubes old speakers, and a new board and completely rewire it? That's a whole new amp except the chassis, cabinet, and PT. If you like the sound of the RI, I'd put the chassis in a different cab and make a new Bassman for the 4x10 cab.

[SoK66]

There are two reissue Bassman (Bassmen?), the '89 - '94 first gen, easily ID'd by their raw tweed, and the '95- present LTD, which has a lacquered tweed. (BTW, that's what "LTD" stands for.) There are only minor, but significant differences. The first gen uses a plywood cabinet with (excellent) Eminence Blue Frame 10" speakers. The LTD has a more desireable solid pine cab and uses Jensen reissue P12R speakers, maybe not as good as the Blue Frames but that's a judgement call.

Aside from a plug-in solid state rectifier on the first gen, they use virtually identical circuits, but with the LTD Fender wisely added a bias pot. Both differ from the original in a number of ways circuit-wise. The primary difference is in filtering. The reissues have a blackface style power supply filter arrangement with a bit more capacitance and lots more voltage capacity, series connected screen caps with greater voltage capacity, and greater than eight times the filtering on the preamp. No one can explain why they increased the preamp filtering to such a degree, but, combined with a 12AX7 in V1, with a reissue you have more of a Marshall than a Fender tweed, particulalry with the first gen and its solid state rectifier.

Installing a tube rectifier in a first gen BMRI, and a 12AY7 or 5751 in V1 on either of them helps. Another insider tip is to reduce the line voltage going in (use a buck transformer or variac) so that you end up with about 440 volts B+ / plate voltage like the original would run. BMRIs can run as high as 500vdc B+, ostensibly because Fender made "identical" clones of the orginal 5F6-A's 8087 power transformer, which itself will run pretty high B+ / plate volts at todays high wall voltage.

With all this I tried changing the preamp capacitance, lowering the line voltage, etc. on my '91. I finally just rewired it point-to-point and called it done. Do a search and you can read my write up on it. If you've done a kit amp you can do this pretty easily, and you can retain much of the stock componentry. Mine sounds much more authentic this way.

[stantheman]

What I'd do is build a Weber Kit and get four old 10" speakers out of a Super Reverb from The 70's that don't need reconing - that IMHO will get You so close that the differences will be subjective - like comparing two of the originals.
Heck it might even sound better than A Survivor - that's a possibility too.

[Ramblin Ray]

The previous owner of my Victoria 45410 ordered it direct from the factory with Eminence Legend alnico's. Sure sounds good to me. I just put a NOS Jan GE 12ay7 in V1. Can't wait to play tomorrow night!

[SoK66]

Originally Posted by stantheman

What I'd do is build a Weber Kit and get four old 10" speakers out of a Super Reverb from The 70's that don't need reconing - that IMHO will get You so close that the differences will be subjective - like comparing two of the originals.
Heck it might even sound better than A Survivor - that's a possibility too.

I'd tend to agree. When I gutted my BMRI and rebuilt it PTP I was astonished how much better it sounded than it had as a stock amp, even with some mods to get it closer to the original filtering, etc.

All this being said, the BMRI can be a very good sounding amp with a good setup and some time to loosen up the speakers.

[SirJackdeFuzz]

Thank you very much to everyone who is contributing so far.

My local amp builder is super busy, and he will be able to start with my build somewhere during November.
I just don't want a hand build PTP Bassman clone that sounds like a stock stiff LTD.
But instead, somehting extremely simmilar to the 1st clip i posted.

Keep 'em, comming folks !

[sferguso]

My 2 cents....i have a 1959 5f6a, can't really hear a difference between nos rca and 5881s and new Russian tung sols, so I don't really buy into the tube sniffing thing. For speakers i am using webbers with no dope on the cones, the sound is clean and very bell like (i only go up to 2 or 3 on the volume},its hard to describe. The voltage readings vary from the schematic more than you would think. I think the sound difference may have something also to do with the wood of the cabinet and the looseness of the baffle board.
One thing I do firmly believe is, its better to have a $600 dollar guitar and a $3000 amp than a $3000 guitar and a $600 amp

[Synchro]

Originally Posted by sferguso

My 2 cents....i have a 1959 5f6a, can't really hear a difference between nos rca and 5881s and new Russian tung sols, so I don't really buy into the tube sniffing thing. For speakers i am using webbers with no dope on the cones, the sound is clean and very bell like (i only go up to 2 or 3 on the volume},its hard to describe. The voltage readings vary from the schematic more than you would think. I think the sound difference may have something also to do with the wood of the cabinet and the looseness of the baffle board.
One thing I do firmly believe is, its better to have a $600 dollar guitar and a $3000 amp than a $3000 guitar and a $600 amp

Amen on the tube sniffing!