Monday, October 31, 2016

1968 Ampeg B-15



Here's a lovely beast. A 1968 Ampeg B-15 with that super sexy drip edge styling you only see that year. These are rare. Most are the more classic blue tolex earlier style, this is the classic bell bottom zodiac bling jam.

This one was bought from the original owner. He took great care of it. It showed up at my place with a blown fuse. Amp was turned on, fuse fried. Like many Ampeg B15 amps, the power transformer simply died!

Fortunately Ampeg or someone else makes a suitable replacement. They even got the paint super close. And if you scratch it during installation, it simply matches the rest of your 50 year old amp better.

Pretty easy to install. You do need to get around the p.c. board a bit, takes some creative thinking and action to do so but no biggie....



I also always make sure I put the little cardboard piece with the date and part codes. The new part is better than the old I hope. I replace one of these about every year and a half on average! So if this goes 48 years from now, maybe that tech will think it's lasted 96 years??



Notice the micro fiber cloth under this transformer. I did all I could to install it scratch free! I also replaced the electrolytic caps as well. I never want to see a 50 year old can in one of these.

Amp is back to making music again and yeah, sounds lovely. These make cool guitar amps as well as the worlds greatest studio bass amp....

If you can find it, Jimi's first appearance on the Dick Cavett show, he plays "Hear my Train A Comin'" through one of these with the Dick Cavett studio band. He sounds, exactly like Jimi.....

JB

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