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FYD B-Bass B-15 Flip Top Style Bass Amp and 1x15 cab
Description from Keith Williams of Five Watt World:
My hunting dog's name is Bodhi and I named this amp, like other small heads after him in a way. I was casting about for another amp project and had been reading about the history of the storied Ampeg B-15 flip top amps. How almost every recording, from R&B to rock to jazz has a B-15 as the amp used one. So I went to Dan Lurie at FYD Amps and asked him to design a single channel B-15 that would fit into a Fender Champ sized head cabinet. Around that time Ampeg was releasing an Anniversary edition and each channel was one of the most favored version of the amp. One being an early to mid-50's and the other an early '60's. Dan looked at both circuits and took what he saw as the best parts of each. He'd also worked on dozens of B-15's over the years and knew that he could do a better job of grounding the circuit so that it would be absolutely quiet.
So we built the first one and it was around that time that Rick Beato was working with the band "Need to Breathe" on some demos. The bass player was used to a B-15 from having used one at Blackbird Studios up in Nashville so when I told Rick that we'd built one he asked me to send it down to him in Atlanta. We did. He loved it, well what he said was, "Hypes you know I'm not going to send this back to you right?" To which I responded, "Well then you know I'm going to have to charge you retail for it right?" He didn't blink and I had the money in paypal within the hour. Years later he told me that it was the only amp that he used everyday in the studio. Lots of different guitar amps were pressed into service but that B-15 clone was the go to.
So I built three more, two of which went to recording studios in NY and LA, and I've kept this one until now.
A big part of the sound of the fliptop amps was the use of the original 15" speakers from the '50's. These weren't really "bass speakers" per se, not going as low as modern bass drivers and hence were better matched to the 27 to 30 watts of the pair of 5815 power tubes. The original designer, Jess Oliver was still alive back then and I was able to email him via the Ampeg forum. He selected a modern Jensen 15" speaker for our build and that's the speaker in that compact cabinet. It is specifically mismatched for impedance, at Oliver's suggestion, to make the output transformer work a little harder.
TRADES - LAYAWAY - 0% FINANCING
Cosmetic Condition: Amp and cabinet are both in excellent condition. The cabinet does have a few marks on the bottom next to the input jack. Other than that super clean. This piece is on consignment from good friend of the shop Keith Williams from the Five Watt World YouTube channel.
Questions?
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