Vintage PA Amps for guitar/bass

[Fuzzy Picklez]

So, who digs em?
I've been rocking a solid state little 35 watt bogen Challenger at home, and it rules. It's probably my favourite new amp. It is exactly the sound I hear in my head for fuzzy distorted stuff. Too bad it's not louder.

What have you guys got? Anyone else use them?

[Joe Gress]

I've seen a few people use Sound City 200 and 400 for bass amps.

[the Life Aquatic]

ive had GAs for a fender pa 100 or 135 for a while, they pop up on ebay, but i just dont have a cab that would handle 100 watts atm.

[devnulljp]

Some of the old Traynor PA amps are vintage Marshall plexis in disguise for $100 on CL if you're lucky.

[Dr. Sherman Sticks M.D.]

i use a sunn alpha four PA amp for guitar/bass sometimes. sounds better than almost any amp i've ever owned...cleaner than my concert bass and the spring reverb is titz.

[foomanfat]

There are those old plush pa's as well. I've always wanted to try one.

[grindonomicon]

Some of the old Traynor PA amps are vintage Marshall plexis in disguise for $100 on CL if you're lucky.

A pal of mine had a Traynor Voice Master, late 60's all og tubes, worked great for jamming for both PA and not having to haul an amp to his place. He sold it for $200 when he was in need of cash. I've seen them converted into amps with three or four different voices and turned into plexi's like the Bass Masters too.

I used to use a 1500 watt solid state QSC power amp for a guitar amp. Just add pre-amp and pedals. It sounded great for fugly grindcore-sludgecore we were playing at the time.

Doesn't one of the guitarists from Fu Manchu preamp his Marshall with an old Peavey PA head? Pretty sure I read that in an interview.

[smallsnd/bigsnd]

i rock a fender pa100 as my main amp and it's great! in the past i converted a few random old pas to amps with varying degrees of success - some of them i messed with were really dark and would probably need significant changes to make it useful for playing with a band. for use alone they were nice, though.

the coolest thing i did on a 2 channel was to convert 1 of the channels to a gain stage in the amp, so channel 1 was gain and channel 2 was master.

[hbombgraphics]

I have one of the old Kustom 200 watt PA heads, have used it for both guitar and bass and it sounds awesome. If it was lighter I would use it all the time for everything.
I used to hvae 2 vertical 4x12 cabs that matched it and would use the whole set up as a full stack, they were stolen a while back but I kept the head.

[D.o.S.]

Simms Watts stuff sounds pretty excellent.

[shanelovesfuzz]

+1 for the Fender PA100. I just picked one up for $100, sounds amazing!

[Chumley]

Pulling the trigger on that 200 watt Kustom... $170 for that plus a cab. Shit, I'm pumped. :shrug:

[The4455]

Marshall Super PA?

[Bellyheart]

I've been looking into this since my "Simple Amps" thread.