Fender 160PS Vocal Amplifier questions

[cybermecim]

I have an old (I believe its a 1974) Fender 160PS "Vocal Amplifier". It is a PA type amp with six inputs each with independent volume, bass, treb, and reverb controls. It has a master vol, master reverb, master compression, microphone feedback cut switches, a big VU meter on the front panel. It has 7 12ax7's one 6V6 and two 6550 power tubes. The speaker cabs are Fender Sound Column 3x10 with blonde and black tolex. Any information about this amplifier would be appreciated, I can't seem to find anything about it anywhere. What I'm really interested in is learning the history of the amp and especially finding a SCHEMATIC! Thanks.

[AdmiralB]

I had a stripped chassis; I kept the iron (still have it, waiting for the right project).

The schematic is on Schematic Heaven, in the Fender section under "PS Series"

It's a powered-mixer preamp stuck on a power amp that's essentially half of a 300PS. A voltage-doubler power supply running a pair of 6550s (Tung-Sol, speced on the schematic) at 700Va, 350V to the screens. PI is a transformer, driven by the 6V6.

[cybermecim]

Thanks for the info and thanks for letting me know the proper brand of power tubes to use. I was searching 160 PS on search engines and when I tried PS160 I got some more info and found the schematic.

Any chance that the individual preamp sections can be re wired in series/cascade (ouput of channel 1 feeding input of channel 2 and so on and so on) to have multiple gain stages and get some overdrive out of this thing?

[tubestuff]

Hi all,
I have one of these. What a pig! I replaced all the capacitors and it sounds real nice with a bass guitar. It seems very clean and hard to overdrive which makes sense for a PA.
I can't seem to hear a difference when trying to use the built in compression. Anyone know what I might be missing on this?
Other than the big VU meter clear cover having a crack the unit is in great condition.

cybermecim, I too was thinking this would be a great amp to cascade all the channels for ultimate tweekable preamp OD. But alas it sits on the shelf waiting with all my other projects. Let us know what you end up doing. I got mine without the speakers. Are they Jensens?

Best Regards,

Mike

[cybermecim]

Hmm... my sound compression knob doesn't seem to do anything either, and my VU meter has a crack in it. *goes and checks to see if my amp's still there* LOL.

I just replaced all caps and tubes and it sounds real good. I actually found a site a while back where a guy had set up a cascade with the preamps on a very similar old tube PA amp but now I can't seem to find it. Anyone have any info related? Thanks

Jake

[tubestuff]

...I actually found a site a while back where a guy had set up a cascade with the preamps on a very similar old tube PA amp but now I can't seem to find it. Anyone have any info related? Thanks

Is this the one?
http://www.geofex.com/Article_Folders/old2new.htm

[cybermecim]

It's been awhile since I've seen it but that looks pretty close. Thanks!

[petemoore]

Any chance that the individual preamp sections can be re wired in series/cascade (ouput of channel 1 feeding input of channel 2 and so on and so on) to have multiple gain stages and get some overdrive out of this thing?
Probably sure...
Just lift and tap one of the channel outputs, run that to a jack, use a patch cable to connect that channels output into the next channel input, adjustable gain/volume type controls! Then you'd have all channels 'normal except the one dedicated to guitar distortion..which will almost certainly need tweeking or fall short of ultimate disto-tone//
Looking at some distortion type preamp schematics for ideas [voltage supply potentials, voicing options etc.] might be good for some extra mileage.