just got home with a (70's?) Fender Bassman 135 cab! anyone had experience of one?

Trotter

Anybody had any experience of these at all? Judging by the logo i'm guessing it's a 70's cab? (serial is A810785 if anyone knows how to date using this.) 

it has the diamond or pyramid 4 x 12 speaker layout which looks like it could be interesting. It is also the largest thing in the world and weighs more than my car! 

Not working at the moment but for the price I paid I thought i'd just take a punt and see if it is worth getting it going again!

any opinions and/or suggestions as to what I should do with it gratefully received.  

here's a picture to give an idea of scale! (looks pretty cool with my ol plexi up on top it's about 5 feet high with the head in position ( I know a lot of people lay them sideways too.) 

http://i687.photobucket.com/albums/vv234/mtrotter82/photo_zpsb30b1476.jpg

 trotts

BenSirAmos

Nice sound - but you need a van and a road crew to shift it. The pyramid layout did seem to spread the sound around quite well, but we never got to A/B it with anything else. Just too big to be practical - it looks too big to fit in a photo

Trotter

it pretty much is!  

I have to say it dwarfs anything I have experienced before. it's similar in size to an 8x10 ampeg bass cab but probably double the depth and weight! 

ICBM

Shame about the nasty corner protectors. It should have the normal wraparound Fender metal ones, but those plastic ones will have made screw holes outside the footprint area of them so it won't be easy to make a clean job of putting them back.

The speakers are quite fragile too, I wouldn't crank that amp with it unless they've been replaced with something sturdier. (Remember it's a 4-ohm cab too, if the speakers are original.) It was designed to be run clean with a bass amp rather than driven into distortion. If it's not working at all, either something is up with the wiring or all four speakers are blown - they're wired in parallel so if even one is OK it would work otherwise. It could be as simple as the jack being corroded though.

Sad to say I have scrapped a couple of these that were in poor condition and not worth saving. The grille cloth is very handy for repairing old Fender combos without making them look 'too new'. Likewise the handles etc.

The first thing is to get it open and check the speakers individually.

Trotter

thank you Mr @ICBM. It is pretty tatty around the edges which is no surprise given the size. i'm going to convince @cahrlie & @photek to give me a hand taking it to pieces and have a good look round it all to see what's what. 

photek

I think it is actually a JMP1H on top of a Fender 2x12 myself

Let me know when is good to pop over chap.

Dan

I had one of these when I was playing bass with my SF Bassman 135 head. Pretty heavy and awkward, especially when the lift at our old lockup broke and we had to carry it up a fair few flights of stairs!

Sound wise I quite liked it for bass, but like it a lot with guitar.

57Deluxe

...this is the aesthetic my Woolies Auduiton (Teisco) amp was based around...

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/4e/91/d7/4e91d75e6440928935225ecc6ce8e6e8.jpg

is a lot easier to move about though...