Bass or Guitar Amp?

guycapuano · Post by **guycapuano** » 06 Oct 2011, 02:45

Scored an amp a while back on CraigsList and the guy said it was a vintage boutique bass amp. ANyway, it sounds really bad with bass, like its a guitar amp. Is there anyway to tell by the speaker if its bass or guitar? The speaker reads like 8.7K I can find little to No info on this amp online.

deltafred · Post by **deltafred** » 06 Oct 2011, 08:54

No way that is a bass amp, it will fart out with very little power with an open back cab. Bass cabs are usually sealed or ported and tuned to help prevent this. Old ones were usually sealed.

The speaker measuring 8.7 ohms resistance probably means it is 16 ohm impedance, although some of the old speakers were pretty variable on the resistance so it may be 8 ohms. I had one that was marked as 8 - 16ohms, it was not so important with valve (tube) amps as it is with solid state.

guycapuano · Post by **guycapuano** » 06 Oct 2011, 14:18

Weird

Its a solid state amp, no valves at all. THe amp section sucks so bad, I am gonna convert this sucker into a 15" cab. SInce its so old, do I have anything to worry about hacking the guts out of it and trying to score some mojo parts? Like any electrical charges or anything stored up in this old solid stater?

deltafred · Post by **deltafred** » 06 Oct 2011, 16:41

guycapuano wrote:do I have anything to worry about hacking the guts out of it and trying to score some mojo parts? Like any electrical charges or anything stored up in this old solid stater?

No you will be fine, any charge in the smoothing capacitors will be lowish voltage anyway (30-50 volts probably) and will discharge within a few seconds of removing mains power.