Fender Combo with 6550 tubes.

[NegativeEase]

I meant to get a pic of this amp, but last night part of the back line choices at my gig included an 80s Fender 60W 1x12 Combo "Fender Concert II"

What was unusual (at least to me) was this Fender had 6550s for the power output section -I've never seen anything but 6V6, 6L6, EL34 and EL84s in Fender Guitar combos -I have seen them in bass amps.

I did some googling - the Concert II is an 80s tube amp standard with 6L6s -so I imagine this amp, stock with a solid state rectifier in place, somebody modded this amp for 6550s or KT88s for a hot little hair metal combo -similar to the fad for Marshall 6550s amps for metal in the 80s.

Anyways we used the Fender Deluxes and VOX ACs from the blackline inventory -one look at that EV speaker and I didn't want to waste any time with the weird Fender -however I am a bit curious as to how it sounds and the goal with this unusual arrangement.

Anybody familiar? any chance Fender actual did this?

 

[jeremy]

Re: Fender Combo with 6550 tubes.

fender never put anything out with 6550 as far as i know. marshall switched for a while since the el34s available at the time were having high failure rates and the 6550 is a rugged ass tube. that ev could have been stock

 

[Chickenwings]

Re: Fender Combo with 6550 tubes.

Perhaps someone put them in thinking it wouldnt make a difference?
I dont know but I do know this:
The II series amps are real deal ptp fender amps and all of them are bulletproof and underrated amps in the fender history. When biased properly they are all really great amps.
Ive been using a princeton ii for over ten years as a mainstay and im pretty sure wahwah uses a pair of champ ii's for most of his work.
Cheers

 

[Lake Placid Blues]

Re: Fender Combo with 6550 tubes.

The main problem is the heater current draw. 6L6 current draw is 0.9 amps per tube, but a 6550 is 1.6 amps per tube. It is also not necessary. The 7581A will give it 6550 head room, match the output transformer better, draw 0.9 amps of heater current, and drop right in with just a re-bias.

 

[Zombiwoof]

Re: Fender Combo with 6550 tubes.

fender never put anything out with 6550 as far as i know. marshall switched for a while since the el34s available at the time were having high failure rates and the 6550 is a rugged ass tube. that ev could have been stock

Initially, it was Marshall's Northern American distributor that started replacing the EL34's with 6550's, without even rebiasing for them, because when the amps were shipped from the UK there were issues of damaged EL34's. The EL34's were not at fault, and Marshall at first didn't know their distributor was doing it. When Marshall found out what the distributor was doing (it was Rose Morris as I recall), they just started to put the 6550's in the amps for North America since Rose Morris was going to change them out anyway, and properly biased them because the North American Marshalls were starting to get a bad rep from the tube swap being done without proper biasing. Jim Marshall didn't like doing it, and when the Rose Morris contract was up, Marshall dumped them and got a different distributor, and went back to putting in the EL34's, which they thought were best for the amps in the first place. Jim Marshall couldn't wait to get rid of Rose Morris for practices like this that they were doing with the Marshalls they handled.
Al

 

[jeremy]

Re: Fender Combo with 6550 tubes.

i thought the rose martin thing stopped in 1981?

 

[dystrust]

Re: Fender Combo with 6550 tubes.

Initially, it was Marshall's Northern American distributor that started replacing the EL34's with 6550's, without even rebiasing for them, because when the amps were shipped from the UK there were issues of damaged EL34's. The EL34's were not at fault, and Marshall at first didn't know their distributor was doing it. When Marshall found out what the distributor was doing (it was Rose Morris as I recall), they just started to put the 6550's in the amps for North America since Rose Morris was going to change them out anyway, and properly biased them because the North American Marshalls were starting to get a bad rep from the tube swap being done without proper biasing. Jim Marshall didn't like doing it, and when the Rose Morris contract was up, Marshall dumped them and got a different distributor, and went back to putting in the EL34's, which they thought were best for the amps in the first place. Jim Marshall couldn't wait to get rid of Rose Morris for practices like this that they were doing with the Marshalls they handled.
Al

i thought the rose martin thing stopped in 1981?

Rose Morris ended in 1981 along with the JMP line, while I believe EL-34s came back in '85. I know for sure that JCM800s shipped with 6550s through '84, but I'm not 100% sure beyond that.