1966 Fender Bassman

rictified · Post by **rictified** » Sat May 20, 2006 8:20 pm

Mine was all stock, I had a black faced Bassman head also.

jnbass · Post by **jnbass** » Mon May 22, 2006 8:14 am

Hey Jeff, did Weber do a good job?

jps · Post by **jps** » Mon May 22, 2006 2:37 pm

They did an awesome job. They went through the amp and recapped and replaced some resistors. Then they dumped the puny output transformer and put their "Showman" OT in it and installed mil spec ceramic tube sockets at the output for a pair of KT66 tubes. I had the vibrato made to work on both channels along with a switch on the intensity control to totally remove the vibrato circuit from the amp when not in use to increase the fidelity of the signal, and the preamps re-speced for bass, primarily different caps in the tone stacks. The RCA jack for the vibrato pedal was replaced with a 1/4" jack, and a three prong grounded power cord was installed with the ground switch out of circuit. This amp sounded wonderful and was really loud for a 50 watt amp. I sold it to finance some other "had to have" piece of musical gear a couple years ago.

rob · Post by **rob** » Tue Jun 20, 2006 7:53 pm

Now I am POSSIBLY thinking of selling it. MAYBE. IF I do, would $750 be right for both the top and bottom? Just thinking about it. Might not happen for a while yet.

rob · Post by **rob** » Thu Jun 29, 2006 6:58 pm

$750 a good deal? Yes? No?

qmoder · Post by **qmoder** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 8:01 am

I've got and orginal 66 Bassman. I've had it since 70. I played bass thru the old head with a Kustom cab in the first two bands that I was in that actually made any money.
I have two of the little 2x12 Bassman cabs. But the speaker magnets looked so puny beside the Kustom cab's that I never used the Fender cab's for bass.
Eventually I wound up with quite a collection of Kustom amps. Seven in all.
I used to have a 66 Bassman that some one had modded with that master volume trick as well as a distortion channel. All of the knobs for all of that were in the back of the head and they used the tiny Ric fifth knob for it. I got it with a 4x12 cab and still have that cab.
I used that Bassman head for keyboards but it had too much distortion so I eventually sold it and now use one of my Kustom heads in its place for keyboards.
I didn't like Bassman head for Bass too much but I have a buddy with a Bandmaster head and a big seventies Bassman cab with 2x15's. He used it for rymthm guitar back in the day and still has it too.
We used to joke many times that Leo Fender got drunk one night and mislabled the heads LOL.. That the Bandmaster should have been labled the Bassman and the Bassman should have been labled the Bandmaster.
The Bassman distorts a lot where as the other Bandmaster head is a real clean amp with lots of headroom.
Old Blackface Bassman's are very expensive amps these days and seem to be getting more and more so as time goes by.
One of the best values in Vintage amps for Bass is these old Kustom amps though. They have great speakers, plenty of internal volume for bass reflex movement, and the right sized port holes for the cabs. Way ahead of their time.
I use the heads for keys, monitors, bass, rymthm you name it. They are a true maid of all work. There are not too many local venues either that one of the heads with two of the 2x15 cabs are not loud enough for. They can be had for a song and last and last. Well going on forty years now.
If its outdoors I can either mic them or just plop the Behringer 450 watt head on or behind them and still use the same two old Kustom cabs.
CCR here we come just let me get out by 360 too.

admin · Post by **admin** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 9:37 am

Yes, I consider that $750 is a fair price, depending on its condition, of course.

jps · Post by **jps** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 1:38 pm

Bandmasters have fairly small output transformers, bettter for guitar than bass. When I had my '66 Bandmaster head I replaced the transformer with one for a Showman, and did a few other upgrades turning it into a monster amp.