Thursday, March 19, 2009
 | Hey all, Finished my Silverface Bassman project, and wanted to update this blog with the results of a test I did last night. I currently own a Peavey Classic 50 as well as a 68 silverface Bassman. My harp player just picked up a mid 90's ....Bassman.. ..RI...., and let me borrow that last night for the test. Here's the details and results; - Peavey Classic 50 410 - Fender Bassman RI (stock) 4x10 - 68 Silverface Bassman head installed in a 2x12 cabinet (not stock.. midrange and presence added) - Guitar used for test: '76 Greco Stratocaster Results; Fender Bassman RI ($660 after shipping): This amp is beautifully clean. It has some of the nicest, most perfect clean tones i've ever heard. Very bright. doesn't distort at all!!! (unfortunately). I tried lots of different combinations of settings, and this thing doesn't break up easily at all. At high volumes, it starts to break up a little... but very very little. I have since done some research, and found that you can do some mods to dirty this thing up a bit. Peavey Classic 50 ($380 after shipping): I've owned this amp for about 6 months now. It's an amazing amp. As other people have mentioned, it's very versitile. For the money, and if you're playing music that varries widely, this is the best of the three. It's got real crisp cleans, really dirty distortion, and everything in between!! It's a really fun amp to play through, and I've gotten lots of comments after shows from other guitarist regarding it's sweet tone. You can also do lots of different mods and/or tube changes to get the sound you're looking for. '68 Silverface Bassman ($324 after shipping): I litterally just picked this one up yesterday. I bought the chassis on ebay, and installed it in an old fender 2x12 combo yesterday. Having never played an original Bassman, my first thoughts on it was that it was cleaner than I had expected. I was a little dissapointed. I then toyed around with the settings (the very few options I have to play with), and started to discover a whole world of amazing tone and breakup at low volumes (low meaning: 2 on the volume knob...which is so F*ing loud!! Any higher, and i'm wearing ear plugs. Definitley the loudest of the three amps.). After about 10 minutes of tinkering and playing, I actually fell madly in love with this amp!!! It's unbelievable. After finding the tones I was looking for on the silverface, switching back to the Peavey Classic 50 was very dissapointing. It definitley has it's strengths, but something about the distortion/breakup sounds cheap compared to this vintage Bassman. I can't wait to get try this out in a larger room/space, so i can crank that amp up a bit and see what comes out. Amazing amp. Period!. In summary, My favorite one of all is definitely the '68 Bassman. Next is the Peavey Classic 50, and in last place the Bassman RI. After having done the test, it's hard to even compare the Bassman RI to the other amps because it's so different! I personally would not buy one, given the high price they go for, and considering you can find vintage bassman heads -or- Peavey Classic 50's on ebay for $400 all day long. One final note: The Fender Bassmans (any model) are no frills tone monsters! If you're a sloppy guitar player, this will stand out BIG TIME with these amps. The peavey is more forgiving, having more features that can sloppy up the sound a bit to mask some of youre weaknesses. ~SPHogan myspace.com/sphoganblues (note: the amp used on the recordings on this site was a matchless 30watt tuber...borrowed from the studio owner. This amp is closer to the Peavey Classic 50 than it is to the bassman's) |
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