Fender bassman Ten mods

[Slobrain]

Man, I finally found one of those Fender bassman Ten amps with the enclosed 4x10 cab built in.

I wanted to ask if any one has changed speakers in this amp to give it the big Marshall 4x12 oomph?

It sounds pretty good with rated 50 watts and its still got the RCA black plate power tubes in it too.

Thanks

SLObrain

[stokes]

You'd be hard pressed to get 4X12"s in that cab.Some beneficial mods to that amp would include,new tubes.I know those Black plates are very desirable,but that amp was discontinued in '82,they likely are past their prime.Also changing that bias "balance" pot to a true bias adjustment,maybe even a full blackface mod.And definately new filter caps,and while your at it upgrading that first filter to a 100uf,this will really tighten up that bottom,especially when the amp is cranked.If you arent happy with the speakers in it I would suggest contacting Ted at Weber speakers.He makes some great speakers and if you explain what you want to achieve he will point you to the right choice.

[Slobrain]

Hey Stokes,
Thanks for the reply.
Actually the other night I decided to just mod the hell out of the amp.
I did the bias conversion, put some sylvania STR 6l6s in it and changed the output section to a Marshall non master style output.

Also redid both channels to vintage fender and the amp sound way better now.
I couldn't believe the odd changes Fender did to this amp design
.
The speakers and e-caps are going to be replaced too.

I'm putting in a couple of the 220/500vdc caps for the mains to REALLY tighten up the low end :D So I'll get around 110 UF in filtering. the rest of the caps will be the same uf.

The speakers I'm getting are some cheapy Electro Harmonix 10s that are supposed to be similar to celesions but I'll bet I will wind up putting in some of those new celestion vintage 10s that Avatar sells. Those are suppose to be some really good sounding celestions.

I never got into amps with 10 inch speakers, I always like the big sound of the celestion 12" speakers but I seen this amp in a pawn and decided what the heck, I need a new project to work on. I really needed this after losing my Dad to cancer a few months ago. I've been so down that I hadn't want to even play guitar since then :(

Heck, Maybe I'll build in a SLO-50 into this amp to see how it sounds...

SLO.....

[stokes]

Condolances on losing your dad,Slo.While you are at it I would suggest changing the screen cap to 40 or 50uf along with the main.You want that screen supply to keep up with the plate.Dont mess with the value of the preamp caps tho,could severely alter the tone.I would put fresh ones in the whole rail,after 10 years they begin to deteriorate, and by upgrading the main and screen you will want the ones down the rail in the preamp to keep up.10"speakers are awesome,especially when you use multiples.Much better than 12"s I have come to find. I have a pair of those new Celestion Vintage 10"s in a 50watt amp I built they are great.Also I wouldnt use any of those Jap xichon or the like brand caps.I like the F&T's for the 220uf/300v's and Sprague for everything else.Those Taiwanese caps really suck.You got a nice amp there, a good platform to experiment with,good luck with it.

[Satamax]

Hi everybody!

Slowbrain, i don't know how you feel about fender amps, but a very cheap trick i have had in mind for awhile, is to feed the V2B of the bassman 10 (or any bassman :D) into V1A. i've done this on sound cities, but both chanels share everything but V1 :( That gain mod on a fender could have been done by Boogie at the very early start :D it's realy "in the spirit of" Boogie at the begining.

Bye.

Max.

[Rick Erickson]

Man, I finally found one of those Fender bassman Ten amps with the enclosed 4x10 cab built in.

You say that like it's a good thing... <LOL>
Sorry to hear about your father, I hope fixing/modding this amp up can help with the healing process, and one thing these amps are good for is modifying. As I've mentioned before, the OT in the Bassman 50 4-10 was usually a very wimpy, tiny little thing. A good replacement OT can help improve the bass response & headroom in these amps. The original speakers were never very good either as I recall. The Celestion 60W "Vintage 10" would probably be a good replacement choice. The great thing about a project like this is that you can remake the amp as many times as you like and try different circuits. If I was creating a clone type amp I would probably lean towards a "D.M.B.L.E." type circuit. I like the smooth sublte distortion from those amps, and the clean is as bf Fender as it gets.

RE

[Slobrain]

Hey Fellas,
Yes Rick, as funny as it may seem I really wanted a bassman ten. LOL

Reason was that it has that fully enclosed cab for the 4-10 speakers with the amphead built in so its easy to throw it into a car.

I knew the circuit was gonna be different from the old Fenders but the preamp circuit was horrible....

After building the SLO amps a few years back and other amps I was sorta burned out, then my Dad was diagnosed with cancer early in 2006 and I just dropped every thing to help him.

I swear that when you see a family member die from cancer it really makes everything else in life seem unimportant.

I'm trying to get myself back to a norm but its still not easy, maybe this can get my spirits back to playing guitar again.

Yep Rick, that OT is a wimpy lil thing. LOL looks more like a OT from a vibrolux or a bandmaster.

That thought on a Flumble clone may be the ticket since I havent built one of those, but getting the right schem to build from is gonna be a chore since there is a few different ones floating around.


Thanks again guys for the suggestions. I'll have fun with this one, a mini Marshall or Flumble or something else......:D

SLO