Craigslist near miss: Silverface Bandmaster

[Cagey]

Never heard of the "ice cube."  That looks pretty cool.

They were magical things back in the day. Most of those old Fender amps didn't have master volume controls, so the only way to make them sound good (for balls-to-the-wall rock) was to crank them up to 11. Of course, that's not always practical. But, with this little widget, you could turn the amp way down and use the reverb circuit to overdrive the snot out of the phase inverter. Worked like a charm. We used to build it into some amps, because there was nothing to it. It was just an R/C network similar to the treble bleed some guys install in guitars these days.

I don't know why they stopped making them. Probably ran out of market after the introduction of master volumes and fuzz/overdrive/distortion pedals.

 

[swarfrat]

I sold a silverface champ, and thought I was pricing it fair. Lasted a couple days an the guy who bought it didn't even plug it in, acted like he was in a hurry to get out before I changed my mind. Sheesh. I made a modest profit for 8-10 years, but I guess I wasn't as clued in as I thought.

 

[Cagey]

It depends who you talk to. Guys my age will often spit on a silverface - they had a horrible reputation at the time - but younger guys will mortgage their homes for one. Fact is, they're very similar to the blackfaces, but some of the component values were changed to adjust the performance to satisfy a perceived market need. If you were used to a blackface, the silverface was kukka, but the honchos at CBS had their own ideas about what would sell. The differences weren't very pronounced - if they'd have left the old black legend plate on the amps, it's unlikely many would have even noticed there were any changes.

Another thing about those old tube amps was the tremendous component tolerance stackups that could occur. They were as bad as guitars in that you could play 10 of them, and no two would sound alike. So, some guys would hate what they got while others loved it.

 

[-CB-]

Silverface Fenders are the best deal going. Some of the early ones still have blackface transformers in them and most of them can easily be "Blackfaced" by a good Tech. 

To clarify what Tonar is talking about -

The Blackface and Silverface amps of the same or nearly the same wattage, have the same transformers.  Exactly the same.

Bandmasters were 45 or 50 watts - same iron.  Super Reverb 45 or 50 watts, same iron.  Twin Reverb 80 or 100 watts, same iron.  And so it goes though the entire product line from Champ to Twin (and Super Six and Quad Reverb and Dual Showman Reverb etc)

When Fender upgraded to the "ultra-lineaer" output transformers, giving the 45/50 watt heads a fully 60 or 75 watts, and the 80/100/105watt heads 135watts... things got very bad if you wanted a broken up gritty tone.  If you wanted clean - those amps did it.

The ultra-linear transformers contain a pair of "coil taps" which provide the voltage for the screen grids.  This voltage is not fixed, but remains a percentage of the total output transformer voltage as its in operation.  The result is cleaner, distortion free output section.  This was coupled with higher plate voltages, beefed up power supplies and huge power transformers to both up the wattage, and to mitigate any sag or "envelope" to the dynamic range.  These amps are characterized by squeaky clean tone, huge low ends, and rich full mids with sparkly highs.  If you play clean jazz, or steel guitar... you want one of these.  If you're a rocker, look for an older amp.  Its not worth trying to "convert" one of the so called "UL" amps back to black/silver specs.  You need to totally rebuild the power supply, change both the power and output transformers and add a choke, then modify the board layout.  Its real Frankenstein stuff... for all that, with parts and labor, you can sell the amp to someone who wants clean, and buy the right amp.  Also... if you have a small wattage amp, but want excellent reproduction of it on stage - one of the UL Fender amps is a great way to do that - with the appropriate step down to drive another amp from the speaker output of the smaller amp (very easy to build).