Curly Dan

Yikes! Thanks for the heads-up, I think I'll pass! (There's no shortage of great amps to be had these days!)Caevan, as Myles will tell you, even Fender tweed Deluxes had the back panel covered with asbestos - pretty common material in those days don't let that sour the deal

Myles: a belated thanks to you for looking at my Bassman last weekend at Norm's ... I got home, rebiased, and switched the Sovtek 12AX7 with the 12AX7C you gave me, and whaddya know, it knocked down a lot of the the background noise, and sounded a lot smoother to me ... I also got some KT66's (GT #2's) to try, but they're so !$%$^%& BIG they don't fit. I might just pull the chassis, though, just to give 'em a try. I followed your link to Victoria's site and read Mark's comments regarding FRED's. Do you have any experience or opinion on using these in the rectifier section? They sound intriguing. Thanks again, Curly Dan

Sean: here's the link to Roland (Boss): http://www.rolandus.com/

Myles: thanks for your column in general, and your "mission" to help all of us guitar players! I have a '66 Bassman head & cab. The circuit is an AB165. I just got it back from my amp tech. It was pretty "sour" ghost-note wise - unplayable really, so he went through it, replacing one of the filtering caps, and actually doing several small things to improve dynamics and frequency response, and the amp sounds great. I'm testing different preamp tubes to fine tune the amp, both NOS and newer tubes. The tube chart calls for: 7025 7025 7025 12AT7 6L6GC 6L6GC I'm currently running: JAN Phillips 12AX7WA GE 7025 JJ ECC83S (for gain) JJ ECC81 (balanced) Phillips 6L6 WGC's I've swapped new and NOS tubes in every slot looking for the right combination, and I'm certainly not done yet. (I have a small stash of new and old tubes.) The phase inverter is a matched one I got from Eurotubes that I'm testing against an NOS tube to see how much difference this makes, which I mentioned on that thread. I have a few issues I'd like to ask you about: 1) The amp is still a little noisy. I'm sure one obvious answer is "pick low-noise tubes", but I know that it can be a bear to track other noise problems in an old amp. (Weren't original 7025's a low noise tube? Maybe Fender was addressing something in the circuit with the original tube chart?) 2) there's still a LITTLE ghost noting. It's WAY better than before. My amp tech noticed this and said he could add more filtering, but that can cause other problems... 3) I put in 2 Jensen Reissue C12Q's in the cab. These break up nicely, and have the highs and lows covered, and are probably the right power rating for this amp. I may swap one of them, though, for a C12N or P12N (Reissue) to add more midrange. I've heard that 2 C12N's in this cab would be muddy and need insulation, but I like the idea of combining 2 different speakers in a cab to get a better frequency response and different character. Myles, thanks for the opportunity to let me pick your brain. I know you've probably seen a TON of these amps and have some good input. They're still out there and affordable, and sound great when set up right, so maybe your response will benefit others as well. thanks kindly, Curly Dan