80's Marshall for Bass ?

John_P

Probably wishful thinking - I have a couple of marshall cabs (1960 412) and an older 412 size 2x12.

How about one of the older superbass amps actually used with a bass?  I've only seen them used as guitar amps but I assume they were originally designed to be fine with bass.   The only drawback I can see is if they have enough clean power with bass.

Any old amp experts care to chip in with any thoughts?

ICBM

They're loud enough, but don't have anything like a modern clean bass sound even when they're not overdriven. Fine if you want real old-school rock bass or modern fuzz, not if you want anything 'transparent'.

John_P

^ Thanks for the input - that's how I was thinking - could be great for recording and on some numbers but for covers gigs something more practical would make sense.  
Seems a shame to have useable cabs sitting here and get yet another though - I might have a look for a couple of 12' speakers that could cope with high wattage and get a modern tiny amp.

ICBM

No need to buy another cab really. If the 4x12" has G12T-75s those shouldn't be bad, and it's a 300W cab, which is enough for a modern bass amp.

What speakers does the 2x12" have? If they're heavy-duty you could run both cabs with something like an Orange Bass Terror, which is a kind of halfway house between vintage and modern-sounding. Ideally you want to make it a 16-ohm cab with at least 300W handling - or maybe an 8-ohm with 400W or more if you can find the drivers, that would split the power 2/3 to the 2x12" and 1/3 to the 4x12" (with the 4x12" at 16 ohms) which should equalise the sensitivity difference.

I used to have a cab like that, a Marshall bass cab which was the size of a straight 4x12" with the speakers vertically in the middle. I fitted it with a pair of 150W Celestion Powercels - sounded great.

John_P

ICBM said:

I used to have a cab like that, a Marshall bass cab which was the size of a straight 4x12" with the speakers vertically in the middle. I fitted it with a pair of 150W Celestion Powercels - sounded great.

That sounds like the same cab - it has the original mackenzie speakers which I always thought are an odd choice in a marshall.  I could only transport one cab but thought a pair of somthing like a pair BL12 200 or similar would make it useable and look cool with a little markbass or similar head

ICBM

John_P said:

That sounds like the same cab - it has the original mackenzie speakers which I always thought are an odd choice in a marshall.  I could only transport one cab but thought a pair of somthing like a pair BL12 200 or similar would make it useable and look cool with a little markbass or similar head

Because they were cheap(ish) and had high power handling - 65W or 85W each, at a time when Celestion didn't make anything above 50W - in order to work with the 100W Lead & Bass 'flat' solid-state heads. They're actually pretty decent speakers - 'solid'-sounding rather than characterful, but robust.

Those 200W Celestions would probably work well, yes. You may also have to put some acoustic wadding in the cab to damp out the resonance a bit, it's a huge empty space otherwise! At least it won't end up very heavy for such a big cab.