BASSMAN AMP

This was one of the earlier amps I built. It is modeled after a 59 Fender Bassman Amplifier. This is a very good blues and rock amp and has been recorded many a time, particularly in the blues rhealm.

I built the cabinet from figured cherry with all dovetail joints. Baffle material is 1/4" Baltic Birch (a high grade plywood) for good resonance & authenticity. I also constructed an authentic tweed cab, which I have layin around - the cherry looks much better.

This amp is very period correct, with the exception of cloth wire, I used PVC instead. Instead of typical carbon comp. resistors, I used Riken Ohm films, which sound very nice and have a much finer tolerance of 1%. Black Beauty caps are used in signal critical areas where custom poly film caps are used in the remainder of the amp. The amp has 4 10" Alnico Jensen P10R's. One other change I made was the addition of selectable cathode biasing as you can tell by the big wirewound resistor at the left of the chassis.

Board material is vulcanized rubber .... the same stuff used in the 50's and 60's by Fender. You can tell the replication quality is high of this amp by the occasional "ticking" from bias arcing in moist conditions. Originally, I had made the eyelet board out of high grade electrical fiberglass, but I wanted authenticity, so I took the opportunity to get the correct material.

The chassis was designed by myself and fabbed by Wecom in Glassboro.