9/18/2023 0 Comments 1977 fender musicmaster amp![]() ![]() I thought I would be doing a bunch of the recommended mods like the tone control mod,hasselbrock mods,jumpering the RF blocking cap etc. ![]() Ok, the amp arrived and she works great.Instantly greeted me with a beautiful Fender clean tone. To me the DC blocking aspect of it is important, especially in this day and age of a huge pile of effect pedals on a "pedal board" in front of the amp, especially if older FX pedals are used. As I mentioned earlier, the real RF problem with amps like this is that which occurs because the input jack loses a solid ground connection. The amp really doesn't have the bandwidth for RF to be much of a problem. But pardon my being a smart Alec, but might as well install garlic cloves to ward off elephants. If you wasn't to stick one in there anyway, yes it will not hurt anything. it won't affect anything the amp is likely to do. If you remove it, I see no benefit adding the bead. never mind that the effect would be outside the audio range or some such. Someone rationalizes that such and such effect would be diminished by some mod. A lot of mods are common, and a lot of those common mods are done for specious reasons. You can tack a wire across it when you get there just to see if it affects the sound of the amp. Throw a tube reverb (or analog delay), some sort of "swirly" pedal and Bad Horse "Klon clone" in front, crank the amp and turn the guitar down, use the guitar controls to "drive" the amp and you probably don't need anything else! It's a great fit for the "use the smallest amp possible and the guitar as the drive control" method I've used for over 40 years.I do advise against removing it. Great "sleeper" amp buys, and tremendous for small clubs or mic'd situations. But run at the upper edge of headroom (with a good speaker!) with a Tele, Strat or even Les Paul most players can't pick out one from the other. If you have a lot of experience with wide-panels you'll hear the difference, and the 5E3's gain structure is different, especially at higher volume levels. I've run it head-to-head with my '55 5D3, a '54 5D3 and a (I think) '58 5E3. I left the input cap - it sounds closed to my original 5D3 with it that without. I'll probably order something better for him. I had it just about long enough to "dial in" - which is typically what happens with about half my gear acquisitions!3 He uses it with a Les Paul Standard and gets a blistering rock tone with it, even with the mediocre speaker. ![]() The schematic and description should be plenty to use for reference.Īfter we lost our youngest son (who was using it at home) my oldest bagged it. All that was done was replacing caps and power cord. Sorry, I missed the post from almost a year ago requesting an "after" view. Not bad for roughly a $300 total investment. It's also far more useful for bass as a studio amp than one in stock form. This amp is cathode biased but sounds completely different from Vox-like designs. 6AQ5's in the right circuit sound very similar to 6V6's and 6BQ5/EL84's. It's much like my '55 5D3 Deluxe tone-wise but tighter. Tested the coupling and bypass caps - the cheap disc coupling cap was bad and the power tube bypass cap was bad as well (I rarely find bad bypass caps in preamps).Īfter parts replacement and then removing the input cap and a switch to a different coupling cap (that passes more lows) it sounds great with both guitar and bass. I first replaced the 3 filter caps (the orange one is a dual cap) and speaker and ran a quick sound test- it sounded awful, with ragged, nasty distortion. ![]() The advantage is that the phase inverter almost never goes out of balance, unlike the usual tube type where tube balance is extremely important. These early ones are unusual in that they are the only Fender amp to have 6AQ5 power tubes - which also require unusual 7 pin sockets.Īnd all Musicmaster Bass amps have an expensive phase inverter - a transformer instead of a 12A*7 tube. Speaker was blown, but I always replace them anyway - the stock ones are awful. It's a 1970 and had never been touched except for one very weird, long bolt on the output transformer. This is what one looks like before any servicing (except the back view, just after I changed the speaker - tried an old P12Q but liked this "vanilla" Eminence better, oddly). ![]()
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