?'s re: Roland BC-30 Amp... Fogman? Anyone?

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There are a LOT of good older amps out there that many people don't particularly care for due to the fact that they are not as ubiquitous as Fender/Marshall/MESA Boogie amps that you see everybody playing. Orange amps could be had relatively cheaply until word got around that they were as good as early Marshall amps, and bigger named bands started using them, then people started wanting them, and the prices went up as a result.

Also, another thing to consider as well, is that the build quality of both Marshall and Fender amps too a turn for the worse in the mid 80's. Since 1974, Marshall used PCB construction which actually improved the consistancy of their amps and eased construction, however Marshall's real quality began in 1985 when they started mounting the potentiometers (Volume & Tone controls) and input jacks directly on the PCB, and yet another turn for the worse in 1986 when they changed the PSU on their 100 watt amps to a cheaper, less robust design. The JCM900 series amps used even cheaper construction. Current production Marshall amps have circuit complexity and flimsy build quality more in common with a cheap Chinese consumer audio products, than their classic designs.

Fender ceased building PTP wired amps in 1985 when they separated from CBS, and from then on, their amps featured PCB mounted pots and input jacks as a means of cutting production costs for their amps, and this also changed the tonality, especially on the clean channels, of which the tonal quality was degraded from their older PTP wired amps.

Orange amps could be had relatively cheaply until word got around that they were as good as early Marshall amps, and bigger named bands started using them, then people started wanting them, and the prices went up as a result. In 1986, I bought a 1972 Orange OR80 halfstack for $500, which was approximately half the price that a Marshall halfstack of the same vintage commanded. --In today's market, the same amp would cost @ $3k.

Traynors and Ampegs could be bought for @ 2-300 dollars until a few years ago, when people started to be turned off by the pricing of vintage Fenders, Marshalls, Oranges, Hiwatts, etc, and demand for them started to rise. Nobody wanted what was considered an 'ugly old amp', until people started to realise that these 'ugly old amps' were just as good as Marshalls, Fenders, etc. --This increased demand also brought a rise in prices of these amps, though they can still be had between 5-700 dollars.




A lot of the old PA Amps, especially the Bogens utilise tobes that are for the most part readily available. Chances are high that if tubes are not available in modern production, they will be available as NOS.

As far as NOS tubes are concerned, the really expensive ones are common power tubes, (6V6, 6L6GC, 5881, EL34, 6550,KT88) and common preamp tubes like 12AX7/ECC83's, as old stock tubes are considered to be of superior quality in terms of both tone and reliability. Most stocks of NOS common preamp and power tubes are fairly well depleted, and there is still a great demand for them, which explains the high prices that they command.

Less common tubes, such as 6K11's, 6CG7's and such as used by many Ampeg amps are in much greater suppy and lesser demand, hence pricing that is only slightly higher than current production tubes.

The above mentioned 6K11's and 6CG7's are also no longer manufactured, though production may resume if their is a greater demand for them, as was the case of 7591's and 7868's.

Another thing about tubes you may find interesting, is that during WW2, tubes were used in artillery shells as the active componants for aerial burst proximity fuses. the internal anode/cathode structures needed to be hardened to withstand the physical forces at play when being fired from large guns. Postwar, the R&D developments incured by this were resulted in very high quality tubes for consumer electronics like radios, televisions, and audio equipment, as well as commercial broadcast and avionics systems.

In the Soviet Bloc countries, there really was no consumer driven demand to produce tubes with pleasing audio qualities, as most tube production was primarily slated for military use. When tube production ceased in wetsern countries in the late 80's, tubes from eastern Europe as well as China started to be used more with mixed results. --Some of the Chinese tubes sounded good but had lousy build quality, and henceforth reliability issues, whereas a lot of Russian and east European tubes had very robust build quality but didn't sound as good as western tubes.

With the fall of Commusim, a lot of east European Tube fabs ceased production, leaving only Russian, Yugoslavian, and Czech/ Slovakian fabs open. The main Yugoslavian tube fab produced high quality tubes until the Civil War, and production quality took a turn for the worse, due to wartime conditions. The East German Fab (RFT) closed shortly before the Berlin wall fell, as did the Hungarian fab, Tungsram. The Polish Fab (Polam) closed shortly after their communist government fell, as did the Czechoslovakian fab, Tesla. Elektronskija Indstrija (EI) of Yugoslavia/Serbia finally ceased production in late 2006 after having 70% failure rates on 12AX7/ECC83 tubes.

Current European tubes are limited to three main fabs:

Reflektor/ Xpo-pul in Saratov, (Formerly branded Sovtek) currently operates under greatly reduced manufacturing capability under the ownership of an American, Mike Matthews of New Sensor/Electro Harmonix, who sells tubes with the Russian brands of Sovtek and Svetlana as well as the revived western trademarks of Mullard, GEC, Tung-Sol, as well as his own brand, Electro Harmonix. --They also produce Western Electric branded KT88 tubes under contract for the sole western fab left, Western Electric.

The original Svetlana fab in St. Petersburg still produces tubes under the North American brand of SED (Svetlana Electronics Distribution) which is commonly known as 'Winged C' or '=C=', as the logo is in Cyrillic. ( close approximation rendered w/o a Cyrillic fontset/keyboard is 'CBET^AHA') The reason for this is that Mike Matthews, the owner of Electro Harmonix bought the North American rights to the name 'Svetlana'. SED/=C= tubes generally sound better than the Reflektor/Xpo-Pul variants branded as 'Svetlana'.

Both of the main Russian fabs listed above will contract production to a few smaller existing fabs, whose production is primarily limited to tubes for Russian made military equipment.

Also, Teslovak/JJ tubes are made in in Slovakia on equipment from the original Czech Tesla fab. The build quality isn't as good as the original Czech Tesla tubes, though they are still some of the best currently available.

Chinese tubes have gotten progressively better with the exception of the excellent 12AX7 tube that they produced in the late 80's/ early 90's. Chinese tubes are made by the Sino and Shuguang fabs, of which Shuguang is the better of the two. Shuguang also produces Flat panel TV and LCD screens in the same factory that they produce vacuum tubes. As far as their tubes are concerned, they have improved tonality over their previous offerings, thoug the build quality can still be dodgy.

As mentioned above, the sole Western fab in operation is Western Electric in the USA. They produce a few limited types of audio tubes for audiophile tube amplifiers, not musical instruments. --WE tubes are very expensive, and have no applications outside of expensive low wattage audiphile amplifiers.

wow...I do know when I'm in the presence of someone who knows what they're talking about (I'm a graduate of the School of Hard Knocks...

I loved the Deuce, but after hauling it for 20 years (still sounded great), I sold it to pay some bills. I wound up finally having enough keyboards to play them (and tons of modules later.., so I wound up with a Peavey 100 keyboard amp (being broke most of the time, low prices are what I go for. I have very little new stuff, and mostly got used)

Marshalls have always been expensive. I could never afford one (I did have a Fender Bassman 50 for awhile, but I was always drowned out by the other players, even with a Gibson EB0, with a huge pickup... Ampegs were considered good Bass amps, but I'm so far behind on being able to buy stuff (heck, I'm Selling...anyone needs a wooden Leslie?...

I never really thought much about Marshalls until I once cranked one up really loud through a sealed back cabinet. --Then I understood what a Marshall was about.

Sadly, I've owned two of them, one of them was an open back combo that sounded horrible on it's own, but sounded great with a sealed back 4x12. The other one was a wierd 100 watt combo that they only made for a couple years in the late 70's. That one sounded a bit better, and I still kick myself for selling it. OTOH, older Marshalls sound great cranked, but horrible at low volume. --Also, you tend to wind up sounding like nearly evrybody else that owns one, and it can get to be a bit boring after a while.

If you were playing Bass through that 50 watt Bassman, you were underpowered, personally, I've never like Bassmans for Bass, and would use an Ampeg over one every time.

The Ampegs that were made in the late 60's/ early 70's were good, solid amps for all backline applications. Esecially those that used the same preamp design as the SVT, which means the V-2,V-4/VT-22, and the SVT.

An SVT used for guitar is almost a horrifying thing to stand in front of. I knew a guy who played one with a TubeWorks Real Tube to get distortion. Needless to say, he was also in a REALLY loud band.