Vintage Tube Amp

1981 Fender Bassman 135. Electric Guitar/Bass Amplifier Head. I bought this Bassman head brand new from a music store in Honolulu in1982. I used this amp playing bass in a band in Waikiki in the 80′s. This is a very clean amp; it never gave me any trouble, always worked perfectly and other than parts like caps that were updated, it’s completely original. We will include a very clean original Fender Bassman 100 cover. Recently (Feb 2025) I took it to my current amp tech and he replaced the filter caps, powered it for an hour and checked operation. He says it’s now in great shape. Bassman 135 is the first really capable bass amp head that Fender did. It’s basically a Dual Showman with a Bass-voiced preamp on one channel and a Twin/Showman three knob tone stack on the other, but without the vibrato or reverb options. The Fender three-knob tone stack is a classic design for a reason-it sounds AWESOME. Just lush and beautiful cleans that work well with any kind of music, any instrument or any pedals you want to throw in front of them. Even basses and keyboards sound awesome plugged into the normal channel. Loud and clean is what it does. It’s not a high gain amp; it’s not trying to be. It can break up if you crank it beyond 7, but that is stupidly loud. Really it was designed to be clean and tight all the way up with a good amount of headroom the way a bass amp ought to be, instead of how the 50-Watt Bassman amp always was (aka awesome for guitar, shamefully bad for bass). The biggest quirk of any old three tone knob Fender amp is the middle control. It’s not actually a midrange control, but a volume control. Turning up the “middle” knob makes EVERYTHING louder; you only hear the mids more because the human ear focuses on midrange sounds the most. This makes the amp controls VERY interactive, maybe more than you’d want it to be. Try playing the amp with all of the tone knobs turned down and you can’t-your amp will be silent. Put the middle knob on 10, turn the treble off and put the bass control at 1.5, and you’ll have a completely flat frequency response curve, great for amplifying keyboards and other things. Try setting your bass and treble knobs where you want and then set your midrange to fit the room-low for small places and practice, up full for loud rooms and gigs. It sounds stupid, but it works. Original Fender Power Tubes. Matched Set Of 4 6L6 GC’s. Chassis Side Black Ink Stamp. Rev-A (could be Paul Rivera). (17th week of 1981). (43rd week of 1981). It might serve the buyers purpose to bring up the power slowly with a variac since these used amp heads are over 50 years old and have not been used for a few decades. Our amp tech has only replaced the needed parts -(filter caps & power cords as specified) to just get them turned on and running for an hour. Please see a skilled amp tech before extended use. The operation of the amps requires that they be regularly serviced for optimal performance. Please remember these are vintage pieces, we cannot guarantee that they will not need service or more parts in their future; only some obvious parts were changed to get it working. Most of the parts are still the original old parts remaining which will be stated in our listings. We do not have any control on what was done by previous owners, but we try to write in detail any information we have. We cannot guarantee that all our information is 100% correct; it is our humble opinions and own musical knowledge. Please see photos and ask questions to make your own assessment. ASK ALL QUESTIONS BEFORE PURCHASING! This discriminating collector has curated an incredible collection of guitars & amps since 1965. From a collector & player with an extensive musical history and knowledge. This collection has been stored and cared for impeccably for decades. Now, after all these years, he is ready to share his collection with other enthusiasts and wants his prized possessions to go to good homes and get played! Please follow our listings. LOTS MORE TO COME! We only sell to buyers that are established, verified.