brian_l_bunt's Reviews

How loud is it in 0.1 watt mode? Is it compatible with bedroom volumes?

xyez, it's a true "bedroom" volume. In the 0.1 mode it does not bother my neighbors at all. You can wind it all the way up. The gain switch on the back sounds great in the low power mode too, pumping up the raunch and compression.

Ok great thanks!

its a '69 with el84s and not 6v6es? that's a cool transitional model, its kinda part marshall 20 watter and part tweed tremolux/Princeton reverb. Does yours have independent treble and bass controls?Eventually they messed with the circuit a lot on the guitarmate and bassmate where I don't like them a whole lot, but the 6V6 and earliest el84 units like yours are really tuneful little amps that split the difference between American and British tones... ever see a studio mates? those are cool too, very similar to your amp.

yeah Jim it has the Treble and Bass. I have never heard of YGMs with 6v6s, I had a YBA 2 bassmate with 'em, and of course we consider these guitar amps as well. Are you sure you have the right confusing Yorkville amp name? lol YGMs 1 2 & 3's all had el84s! Yes I used to own a Studio Mate, and I used one in a rehearsal room prior to that. I liked it quite a lot.

I actually know a guy with a guitarmate combo from 68 with 6V6es as well as a head from 69 with el84s and a rare bassmate type head from 67 or 68 with 6V6es. He sold me 68 MY Traynor recently ;-) I might have pictures of the rare trem and reverb 6V6 combo in my email if you are that interested.... I also saw an early guitarmate with 6V6es on ebay not too long ago but it sold FAST. I have a VERY early voicemaster myself. The version with an extra gainstage and a cathodyne phase inverter. Its got a very early 70s Orange/Matamp sound for guitar. It seems utterly worthless as an all purpose PA LOL The later version probably has a lot more headroom, but it wouldn't be as cool a guitar amp stock. Not for a guy who likes to hear the dirt kickin at 2 on the dial!

y'know i wonder if those guitar amps made with 6v6s were for U.S. export back then, or just super rarities. Everything made for Canada is all british "valves" lol el34s in the marks and bassmasters and el84s in the ygms and studiomates other than the bassmates with either el84s or 6v6s. Yeah those voicemates are rockin guitar heads! Seems like all thrir gear was great for guitar. They did eventually get the bass amp right with the YBA200-2 Jim i would love to see those amp pics if you want to fwd to me @ [email protected] that would be cool :)

actually the earliest bassmasters and voicemasters call for 7027As like ampeg V series amps, you always see the old 7027A amps with EL34s because in the 70s when the supply in Canada dried up Yorkville converted any amps that came in for service over to EL34s and lots of techs also made that mod to make the early 7027A bassmasters more Marshally, even the tube rectified ones (which is silly since the JTM45 with the GZ34 was speced for KT66s, though I've heard tales of some odd transitional EL34 JTMs with a GZ34, I've never seen one, I always see diode rectified EL34 marshalls). I think the production changeover to EL34 at Traynor was around '68 or 69 right around the Marshall changeover although I don't think Marshall swapped output tubes because of availability.

I hate to say this because its blasphemy in a lot of circles, but I actually prefer my Voicemaster to any of the Marshalls I've owned (and I've had some good ones from the 70s and early 80s). Although I did mod mine a smidge recently to tame the excessive low end, but all I did was hale 2 of the interstage couping caps (I saved the old .1mfd ones and replaced them with .057 mallard mustards, slender board allowed me to use available radial lead ones over the unobtanium axials that were stock in traynor, and more importantly in marshall, vox and hiwatt), I left the wonky grid leak biased inputs, pointless master volume and all the other weirdness for now. It was a barely audible change that just made the tonestack more useable across the full range of the control sweep and also gave my speakers a little protection from any stray thumps if I tap the guitar the wrong way. I hesitate to revoice the amp anymore drastically because it just sounded cool as hell stock.

I'll see if I can dig up that email from my friend in Hawaii when I have some time.